Seminar: "Blockchain Security: Code, Crisis, Community" (BOOK LAUNCH) with Dr. Kelsie Nabben
*Note this seminar will take place at a different-from-usual time*
For this seminar, Dr. Kelsie Nabben will be presenting on her newly released book "Blockchain Security: Code, Crisis, Community." This book is the first to document how security occurs within decentralised blockchain communities from a sociological perspective. It provokes questions relevant to the Metagov community of non-state governance, hacker ethics, and the future of cybersecurity.
Kelsie's book explores this topic through a deep ethnographic dive into blockchain ecosystems—with a focus on security not only as a technical property, but also a social practice.
The book draws on years of ethnographic research conducted as major incidents unfolded across blockchain ecosystems—often in real time. It follows the engineers, white-hat hackers, and other community responders who collectively respond, rescue, pause, repair, postmortem and prepare for the next crises (notably, the not-for-profit Security Alliance, or SEAL).
Links to Kelsie's work:
Github: https://kelsien.github.io/
Read her blog post "8 Critical Insights from My Forthcoming Book on Blockchain Security": https://open.substack.com/pub/kelsienabben/p/8-critical-insights-from-my-forthcoming?r=yper&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
Kelsie Nabben is an ethnographic researcher specialising in the social impacts of emerging technologies, notably decentralised digital infrastructure and Artificial Intelligence. Her post-doctoral research focuses on accountability in blockchain governance, specifically in digital contexts of private governance. She completed her PhD at RMIT University's Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision-Making and Society on 'Resilience in decentralised technologies'. Nabben’s research involves analysis of the interplay between social and technical elements of digital infrastructure.
More about Metagov Seminar: The Metagov Seminar invites individuals working in online governance to present their work to a community of other researchers and practitioners. Seminar topics include, but are not limited to, computational tools for governance, governance incidents and case studies from online communities, topics in cryptoeconomics, and the design of digital constitutions.
The seminar is intended for researchers and practitioners in online governance, broadly defined. We welcome guests and curious members of the public. Note that the discussion is moderated.