Bail Bloc 2017–2023
Bail Bloc

Medium: Cryptocurrency Mining Application / Rhetorical Software

Role: Creator & Developer

Context: Featured in The New Yorker, Vice, Wired, Fast Company, and major international press

Created by Dark Inquiry collective for The New Inquiry.
Contributors: Grayson Earle, Francis Tseng, Maya Binyam, Sam Lavigne, and Rachel Rosenfelt.

The app mined Monero cryptocurrency using only 10–25% of users' computing power, pooling resources from participants worldwide to generate bail funds.

Press:
The New Yorker: "Can a Social-Justice App Be Art?"
Vice, Wired, Fast Company, The Guardian, Artforum, Art in America, Hyperallergic.

Bail Bloc was a desktop application that bailed people out of jail by mining cryptocurrency. It operated as a distributed crypto mining operation, converting and donating 100% of proceeds to bail people out of pre-trial detention and pay bonds for immigrants detained by ICE. The project challenged the anti-human logic of the bail system while demonstrating how technology could be repurposed for social justice.

bailbloc.thenewinquiry.com
Presenting Bail Bloc at the Ethereal Summit, 2018.

Presenting Bail Bloc at the Ethereal Summit, 2018.

Discussing the intersection of cryptocurrency and social justice.

Discussing the intersection of cryptocurrency and social justice.