RESEARCH & WRITINGS

MONEY PATTERNS

Money Patterns is my current long-term research project, developed simultaneously as a book and a large-scale immersive multimedia installation.

The project explores money not as a neutral medium of exchange, but as one of humanity's most powerful social technologies—a system that shapes how we value nature, labor, time, and one another. Drawing on decades of research into monetary history, blockchain networks, ecological economics, anthropology, governance, and systems thinking, Money Patterns traces the evolution of the ledger from its ritual and neurobiological origins to today's financial algorithms.

Rather than asking how money works, the project asks how different monetary systems influence the type pf society we live in and vice versa. By revealing the historical patterns behind our current economic assumptions, Money Patterns argues that our financial systems are neither natural nor inevitable—they are human inventions, and therefore open to redesign.

CRYPTO

My research into money eventually first me into the world of blockchain networks. In 2015, I founded BlockchainHub Berlin, one of the first educational think tanks dedicated to exploring the social, economic, and governance implications of Bitcoin and other blockchain networks. At a time when most discussions focused almost exclusively on the technology itself, BlockchainHub sought to make these emerging systems understandable to policymakers, businesses, researchers, and the broader public. The initiative later expanded through satellite organizations in Brussels, Sofia, and Graz.

In 2016, I became one of the curators of TheDAO , one of the earliest decentralized organizations. Two years later, I co-founded and became the inaugural director of the Research Institute for Cryptoeconomics at the Vienna University of Economics.

During this period, I wrote the three editions of Token Economy, which became an international bestseller, in particular its 2nd Edition. Throughout this work, my goal was to make complex socio-technical systems accessible to people without technical backgrounds. I believe that those who live within technological systems should also be able to participate in shaping and governing them. Understanding these infrastructures is therefore a prerequisite for democratic participation in their evolution.

PREVIEWS WRITINGS

BLOG from 2007-2009