“Take a Seat”: Overcoming the Enforceability Challenges of Crowdsourced Blockchain Arbitration

Authors

Anna-Sophie Hochgürtel

Abstract

This essay addresses the recent phenomenon of Crowdsourced Blockchain Arbitration (CBA). Within the landscape of new digital dispute resolution tools, I argue that CBA stands out as a cost-effective adjudicative dispute resolution forum for online consumer disputes. I then provide an overview of existing CBA platforms and address the question to what extent CBA constitutes a form of arbitration. Only if it does can CBA arbitration agreements and arbitration awards be enforced domestically and internationally under the New York Convention of 1958. I demonstrate that while CBA proceedings correspond to a conceptual understanding of arbitration, they fall outside the international commercial arbitration regulatory framework as they lack an arbitral seat. I suggest that these procedures can be brought within this framework by attaching a seat and recommend that CBA platforms themselves should choose a seat for disputes resolved via their platform within a technology- and blockchain-friendly jurisdiction such as Singapore.

Recommended Citation

Anna-Sophie Hochgürtel, “Take a Seat”: Overcoming the Enforceability Challenges of Crowdsourced Blockchain Arbitration, 2026 J. Disp. Resol. (2026)
Available at: https://scholarship.law.missouri.edu/jdr/vol2026/iss1/6