Annika is a senior social scientist working at the intersection of economic sociology, digital media studies, and science and technology studies (STS). Her research explores the socio-cultural dynamics of crypto and DeFi, how communities form, how people organise participation and belonging, and what financial and socio-technical futures they imagine themselves to be building.
Research in Progress “Permissionless” for Whom? Gender, Legitimacy and the Hidden Gatekeeping in Crypto Ecosystems Blockchain promises a permissionless world: anyone can enter, contribute and build without asking for approval. But removing formal gatekeepers does not necessarily remove gatekeeping itself.
A new study by Annika Aebli and Kobe de Keere examines how women establish letigimacy in the heavily male-dominated world of blockchain and crypto ecosystems. Rather than approaching gender inequality simply as a question of access or numerical representation, the study asks how competence, credibility and worth are established and recognised once formal barriers to entry have supposedly disappeared.
Blockchain thereby provides a diagnostic case for a broader question facing emerging digital systems: open technical access does not automatically produce equal social participation. Gatekeeping may instead shift into informal judgements about whose knowledge counts, whose expertise is recognised and whose contributions carry weight.
Understanding these hidden forms of evaluation is increasingly important as “permissionless” digital infrastructures promise to replace traditional forms of intermediation with systems built around openness and decentralisation.
