Selected Publications by Affiliated Faculty, Researchers, and Associates

The Center for Spatial Studies was founded in 2007 with the vision that spatial thinking and computing serve all scientific disciplines and support trans-disciplinary problem solving. The Center mission is to engage in interdisciplinary research and education in how people and technology solve spatial problems. The Center organizes research-oriented events, such as the ongoing ThinkSpatial brownbag talks for the local community at UCSB and annual Specialist Research Meetings on a variety of spatially relevant themes. It also promotes spatial thinking and spatial literacy at the elementary, secondary, graduate, and postgraduate levels, offering a Freshman Seminar in Spatial Thinking and a unique Minor in Spatial Studies, as well as advanced training workshops for on- and off-campus Ph.D. students and researchers. To learn more about these programs, visit http://spatial.ucsb.edu.

Understanding the Spatial, Platial, and Temporal Properties of Cryptocurrency Ecosystems

(2022)

Cryptocurrencies and their underlying technologies such as blockchains and smart contracts are rapidly gaining traction in sectors such as banking, identity management, supply chain management, cloud-computing, voting, forecasting, and so forth. With this change in visibility and first signs of mainstream adoption, there is a growing interest in understanding the cryptocurrency ecosystem, e.g., regarding market trends or inherent risks. Interestingly, however, spatial and platial aspects have not yet received much attention. One possible reason for this lack of analysis may be due to the perception of cryptocurrencies being global and living outside of legal frameworks. We will show that this is a misconception and that understanding the cryptocurrency ecosystem requires looking at the spaces and places involved in their creation, consumption, and regulation.