I/O
Meet the Man Who Wants to Fix Dating With the Blockchain
‘We want to take dating and bring it back to being consensual, respectful fun.’
It’s a general truth that if there’s a social problem in the news, someone will propose a technological solution to it. Enter the UK-based Consent Tracker, which is seeking beta testers now and promises a “safer dating experience” by enabling users to “[build] consent throughout your date.”
And yes, before you ask — it is built on the blockchain.
Consent Tracker isn’t the first app to promise a technological solution to the problem of sexual assault; it’s not even the first to use the blockchain to that end. But unlike some of its predecessors, Consent Tracker is not exclusively focused on sex. It encourages users to make use of the app long before they even meet each other. But it’s still shaped by the same assumptions that underlie every other consent app — namely, that digitally logging what we say or do can somehow create a safer, more consensual relationship.
I wanted to know what drives a person to make this sort of app, to ignore years of pushback and other failed attempts, and convince themselves that they’d truly tapped into something innovative. So I reached out to founder Jason Maskell, who was…
