Navigating the Nexus: Blockchain technology, social Innovation, and complementary digital currencies

Abstract

This paper explores the tensions between democratic and technocratic forms of social innovation in the context of complementary digital currencies. Through an in-depth ethnographic case study of Moneda PAR, a blockchain-based complementary currency in Argentina, we examine how diverse agents — including grassroots activists, political actors, academics and software developers — collaborated to design a financial social innovation aimed at economic inclusion. Building on the tension between democratic and technocratic social innovation paradigms, our analysis reveals that while blockchain technology addressed key limitations of earlier initiatives such as Clubes de Trueque (barter clubs), it also introduced new dependencies on technical experts. We show how conflicting motivations and unequal power over technological tools disrupted governance processes and undermined the long-term sustainability of the initiative. In so doing, this paper contributes to scholarship on digitalisation and social innovation by highlighting how technologies, while offering inclusionary potential, can also reproduce power asymmetries.