✧༺ Becoming Constellations ༻✧

Breadchain

4 min read

Breadchain

Created: 250422 Monday, 22 April Tags: dual-power cooperative dao p2p mutual-aid solidarity-economy blockchain

What is Breadchain?

Breadchain is a cooperative infrastructure provider and developer collective that builds web3 tools for a solidarity economy. Founded to support mutual aid networks and to empower the cooperative movement, Breadchain creates decentralized applications and technical infrastructure that embody solidarity principles and empower collective organizing. The project’s name references both the anarchist concept of “bread” from Kropotkin’s “The Conquest of Bread” and blockchain technology.

Breadchain defines itself as “a peer-operated digital services institution for the cooperative economy” that offers a broad suite of digital tools and services to support cooperatives, mutual aid networks, and other solidarity-based organizations 1.

Core Principles

  1. Cooperative Ownership: Operating as a multi-stakeholder cooperative owned by its members and stakeholders.

  2. Mutual Aid: Building tools that enable communities to support each other outside traditional economic systems.

  3. Solidarity Economy: Contributing to an economic system based on cooperation rather than competition.

  4. Open Source: Developing tools that are free to use, modify, and distribute.

  5. Democratic Governance: Implementing participatory decision-making processes within their own organization and the tools they build.

  6. Accessibility: Creating tools that are usable by diverse communities regardless of technical expertise.

Services and Solutions

Infrastructure

  • Web3 infrastructure for cooperative organizations
  • Decentralized application (dApp) hosting
  • Technical support and maintenance

Application Development

  • Custom software development for cooperatives and solidarity economy organizations
  • Smart contract design and implementation
  • Open-source tools for mutual aid coordination

Education & Consultation

  • Technical workshops and training for cooperative members
  • Guidance on implementing decentralized governance
  • Support for technology adoption within solidarity economy networks

Decentralized Financial Tools

  • Mutual credit systems
  • Community currencies
  • Cooperative treasury management

Key Products and Platforms

Breadchain App

The Breadchain App 2 serves as a portal for accessing various cooperative economy tools and services, including:

  • Member management interfaces
  • Governance tools
  • Treasury dashboards
  • Project coordination spaces

LegalPods

A platform that facilitates the formation and management of legal entities for cooperative organizations, helping groups navigate regulatory requirements while maintaining cooperative principles.

Mutual Aid Tools

Software specifically designed to coordinate and track mutual aid activities including:

  • Resource sharing networks
  • Needs matching systems
  • Time banking infrastructure

Relevance to Dual Power Strategies

Breadchain exemplifies dual power approaches by:

  1. Building Alternative Infrastructure: Creating technical tools that operate outside mainstream capitalist platforms

  2. Enabling Autonomous Organization: Providing the technical means for communities to self-organize

  3. Lowering Technical Barriers: Making blockchain technology accessible to cooperative and mutual aid movements

  4. Prefigurative Politics: Embodying in its own structure the cooperative principles it aims to spread

  5. Strategic Resource Allocation: Directing technical skills and resources toward solidarity economy initiatives

Theoretical Foundations

Breadchain draws from multiple theoretical traditions, including:

  • Anarchist Mutual Aid: Inspired by Peter Kropotkin’s concepts of cooperation and mutual support as evolutionary advantages

  • Cooperative Economics: Building on traditions of worker and consumer cooperatives

  • Commons-Based Peer Production: Applying principles of knowledge commons and peer production to software development

  • Distributed Systems: Leveraging blockchain’s capacity for trustless coordination to enhance solidarity networks

Governance Structure

Breadchain operates as a multi-stakeholder cooperative with several membership classes:

  • Worker Members: Technical contributors and developers who build and maintain the infrastructure
  • User Members: Organizations and collectives that use Breadchain services
  • Community Members: Individuals and groups who support Breadchain’s mission

Decision-making follows cooperative principles through:

  • Regular member assemblies
  • Working groups focused on specific projects or domains
  • Consensus-based processes for major decisions
  • Token-based voting for certain operational decisions

Challenges and Opportunities

Challenges

  • Balancing technical sophistication with user accessibility
  • Navigating regulatory frameworks while maintaining decentralization
  • Securing sustainable funding without compromising cooperative principles
  • Scaling infrastructure while preserving community governance

Opportunities

  • Growing interest in alternative economic models following economic crises
  • Increasing disillusionment with extractive platform capitalism
  • Maturation of blockchain technology making decentralized systems more viable
  • Rising interest in cooperative models among technical workers

Relationship to Other Movements

Breadchain connects with and supports various adjacent movements:

  • Platform Cooperativism: Providing technical infrastructure for cooperatively-owned digital platforms
  • Data Sovereignty: Building tools that allow communities to control their own data
  • Commons Movement: Supporting digital and physical commons through technical tools
  • Solidarity Economy Networks: Integrating with broader efforts to build economic alternatives

Examples of Supported Projects

  • Local Mutual Aid Networks: Technical infrastructure for neighborhood-based resource sharing
  • Worker Cooperative Federations: Shared services platforms for cooperative businesses
  • Community Land Trusts: Digital tools for collective land management
  • Timebanking Initiatives: Software for tracking and exchanging time-based value

References

Footnotes

  1. Breadchain Website ↩

  2. Breadchain App ↩