Quinn DuPont, PhD
Biography
Quinn DuPont is an information scientist with subject matter expertise in cryptocurrencies, blockchains, and cybersecurity. For over a decade, he has held research and development positions at top global universities, startups, and blue chip enterprises. He has a PhD in Information Science from the University of Toronto.
He is the author of Cryptocurrencies and Blockchains (Polity 2019); Associate Editor, Frontiers in Blockchains; Research Fellow at University College London, Center for Blockchain Technologies; and Affiliate at The Future of Money Research Collaborative.
He has held research and teaching positions at York University (Schulich School of Business), University of British Columbia (Information Science), University College Dublin (Quinn School of Business), University of Washington ( Information Science) Rutgers University (Digital Media), Leuphana University (Digital Cultures Research Lab), University of Victoria (Electronic Textual Cultures Lab), and Dalhousie University (Faculty of Management). His multidisciplinary writing has been published in journals such as First Monday, Digital Humanities Quarterly, Communications of the ACM, Global Policy, Metaphilosophy, amodern, Atlantis: Critical Studies in Gender, Culture, and Social Justice, and other venues.
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Recent Research
- New Online Communities: Graph Deep Learning on Anonymous Voting Networks to Identify Sybils in Polycentric Governance (Github)
- This research examines the polycentric governance of digital assets in Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs). It offers a theoretical framework and addresses a critical challenge facing decentralized governance by developing a method to identify sybils, or spurious identities. The method uses graph deep learning techniques to identify sybil activity in a DAO governance dataset (snapshot.org). Specifically, a Graph Convolutional Neural Network (GCNN) learned voting behaviours and a fast k-means vector clustering algorithm (FAISS) used the high dimensional embeddings to identify similar nodes in a graph. The results reveal that deep learning can effectively identify sybils, reducing the voting graph by 2-5%. This research underscores the importance of sybil resistance in DAOs and offers a novel perspective on decentralized governance, informing future policy, regulation, and governance practices. .
- Navigating the Research Landscape of Decentralized Autonomous Organizations: A Research Note and Agenda (with Christian Ziegler)
- This note and agenda serve as a cause for thought for scholars interested in researching Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs), addressing both the opportunities and challenges posed by this phenomenon. It covers key aspects of data retrieval, data selection criteria, issues in data reliability and validity such as governance token pricing complexities, discrepancy in treasuries, Mainnet and Testnet data, understanding the variety of DAO types and proposal categories, airdrops affecting governance, and the Sybil problem. The agenda aims to equip scholars with the essential knowledge required to conduct nuanced and rigorous academic studies on DAOs by illuminating these various aspects and proposing directions for future research.
- "A Progressive Web3: From Social Coproduction to Digital Polycentric Governance" in CryptoCarnival (2023). Forthcoming in Research on the Sociology of Organizations
- "On the Limits of the Imaginary: A Reply to Jacobetty and Orton-Johnson’s “Blockchain Imaginaries and Their Metaphors”," Social Epistemology Review and Reply (2023)
- "Shaping Ethical Computing Cultures," (64)11, Communications of the ACM (with Katie Shilton and Megan Finn) (2021)
- “Prolegomenon to contemporary ethics of Machine Translation.” In H. Moniz and C. Escartin. (Eds.), Towards Responsible Machine Translation. New York: Springer Nature, Machine Translation: Technologies and Applications Series (2021) (with Wessel Reijers).
- “Cryptographic Media.” In J. Hunsinger, L. Klastrup, & Matthew M. (Eds.), Second International Handbook of Internet Research. New York: Springer (2020).
- Cryptocurrencies and Blockchains (Polity Press, 2019)
- "Experiments in Algorithmic Governance: An ethnography of “The DAO,” a failed Decentralized Autonomous Organization" in M. Campbell-Verduyn (Ed.), Bitcoin and Beyond: The Challenges and Opportunities of Blockchains for Global Governance (pp. 157–177). New York: Routledge (2017).
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Art, Culture, & Digital Media
- CryptoCarnival
- Alice and Bob: A History of the World's Most Famous Cryptographic Couple
- Cracking the Agrippa Code
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Speaking & Teaching
Please contact me to book speaking engagements about: decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs), cryptoeconomics, microeconomic and policy design, digital polycentric governance, digital political economy, and decentralized identities.
- Teaching York Univerisity, OMIS 6710 "Operations Management and Information Systems" (Summer 2023)
- Teaching University of British Columbia, LIBR 559 "Blockchain Technology for Information Professionals" (Spring 2023)
- Invited Symposium, Agrippa (A Book of the Dead). Bodleian Library, Oxford University, Oxford 2023
- Invited Workshop, DAO Harvard . Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard University, Boston 2023
- Invited Workshop, Blockchain Constitutionalism: the Role of Legitimacy in Polycentric Systems. Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies, European University Institute, Florence 2023
- Invited Speaker, "Discovering Polycentric Governance in Crypto," Bates College, Lewiston 2023.
- Host, IEEE Research Notes in Blockchain (2021-2023)
- Interview, "Overthrowing The Network State: Untangling Balaji’s Helical Theory of History," Blockchain Socialist podcast 2023
- Invited Workshop, Plurality Workshop. University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley 2023.
- Invited Speaker, “Dance Notation: Grammars for Understanding and Controlling the Body.” Digital Matters, Seigen, Germany, 2022.
- Interview, "Digital Ethnography in Blockchain and Governance," RMIT Mint and Burn podcast (2022)
- Invited Speaker, "Technologies and Best Practice for Next-Gen Organizations" Huawei STW 2022
- Interview, "Understanding Crypto: An Interdisciplinary Approach" Rational Reminder podcast 2022
- Interview, "We’re de-pegging Terra for “research purposes”," Blockchain Socialist podcast 2022
- Organizer, Researching Web3 Workshop 2022
- Invited Speaker, “Guiding Principles for Cryptocurrency, Blockchain, and DLT Research,” Frontiers in Best Practice in Research Ethics. University College London 2022.
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Contact me
I maintain a virtual open door policy. I am always interested in speaking with students, researchers, and technologists with similar interests. If you would like to speak with me please book a date and time on my calendar.
- Email: quinndupont AT ieee.org
Financial disclosure
I maintain small balances of cryptocurrencies for personal use and research purposes. I do not invest in cryptocurrencies; see my research on the ethics of research and development for a more thorough explanation.