Research

How Can Data Cooperatives Help Build a Fair Data Economy? Laying the Groundwork for a Scalable Alternative to the Centralized Digital Economy

This report explores how cooperatives can help address one of the most pressing challenges of the digital era: a Fair Data Economy. How can we return value to the people, communities, and organizations that generate data? And how can we ensure individuals have a voice, a choice, and a stake in their digital lives? Developed through a series of expert and practitioner consultations combined with real-world case studies, this report brings together insights from cooperative leaders, technologists, academics, and policy experts to catalyze meaningful movement toward cooperative data futures.

Decentralizing AI: Towards a More Equitable, Safe and Transparent Future

A call to action for shaping the future of artificial intelligence through decentralization. This report examines the societal and economic risks of centralized AI, drawing lessons from past innovation waves where power became highly concentrated. It explores how blockchain can help build AI systems that are transparent, privacy-preserving, and governed by diverse communities. The report outlines the role of policy in encouraging decentralized models and presents public opinion data supporting this shift. It offers a vision for AI infrastructure that better aligns with democratic values, equity, and user control.

Leveraging Blockchain in a New Era of Antitrust

This report examines how blockchain technology can address modern antitrust challenges by fostering more transparent, competitive markets. It highlights the structural advantages blockchains can offer—such as decentralization, transparency, and data portability—and explores real-world examples where these features might reduce monopolistic behavior. The authors spotlight cases including a major mortgage software provider whose acquisitions risked consolidating the loan process, and an ad auction platform that benefited from opaque systems. By showing how blockchain-based frameworks could increase trust and lower switching costs, the report argues for a new era of antitrust enforcement—one where companies can innovate while still meeting competitive and regulatory requirements. It offers policymakers and businesses a glimpse of how decentralization may align with consumer protection and open market principles.

Designing Policy for a Flourishing Blockchain Industry

An exploration of how regulatory frameworks can support the growth of decentralized blockchain networks. The report outlines key decentralization criteria, emphasizing the importance of open, permissionless, and autonomous networks that enhance transparency, security, and user control. It warns against policies that conflate centralized and decentralized systems, which could stifle innovation and reinforce existing power structures. The report provides a framework to help policymakers craft regulations that foster a thriving blockchain ecosystem while ensuring compliance and consumer protection.

How Can Data Cooperatives Help Build a Fair Data Economy? Preliminary Observations and Considerations for Practical Data Governance Solutions

In an era where data shapes every aspect of our digital lives, the question of who holds the power over this critical resource has profound implications for society. Inequities in data ownership and governance need to be addressed if individuals and communities are to have an effective voice, choice, and stake in a rapidly evolving digital economy. This initial report establishes an agenda for critically examining the potential for cooperatives to help transform today’s digital economy.

Toward Equitable Ownership and Governance in the Digital Public Sphere

We Have a Big (Tech) Problem
The harms of dominant technology platforms are manifold and include the exploitation of data and the mental health and safety of minors, the explosion of misinformation, and the negative impact on political institutions and behavior. Big Tech and especially social media companies have therefore become objects of public scrutiny and criticism. However, internal company efforts and external bipartisan attempts to rein in these harms have largely failed.

Personhood credentials: Artificial intelligence and the value of privacy-preserving tools to distinguish who is real online

Online anonymity is essential, yet it enables malicious actors to commit fraud, spread disinformation, and deceive others. With advanced AI, these risks intensify, challenging the balance between anonymity and trustworthiness online. This paper explores the potential of 'personhood credentials' (PHCs), digital tools allowing users to verify they are human—without sharing personal data. Issuable by governments or other trusted entities, PHCs could be local or global and need not rely on biometrics. As AI becomes more lifelike and scalable, the urgency for effective tools grows. Unlike CAPTCHAs and invasive ID verification, PHCs offer a private, effective solution against AI-driven deception. We assess PHC benefits, deployment risks, and design hurdles, concluding with next steps for policymakers, technologists, and standards bodies.

AI and Democracy’s Digital Identity Crisis

By understanding how identity attestations are positioned across the spectrum of decentralization, we can better grasp their costs/benefits. Improving and integrating them into our interactions with the digital sphere will help protect democratic systems from AI-generated harm.

Open Problems in DAOs

Decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs) are a new, rapidly-growing class of organizations governed by smart contracts. Here we describe how researchers can contribute to the emerging science of DAOs and other digitally-constituted organizations. From granular privacy primitives to mechanism designs to model laws, we identify high-impact problems in the DAO ecosystem where existing gaps might be tackled through a new data set or by applying tools and ideas from existing research fields such as political science, computer science, economics, law, and organizational science. Our recommendations encompass exciting research questions as well as promising business opportunities. We call on the wider research community to join the global effort to invent the next generation of organizations.