Blockchain is frequently presented as a decentralised infrastructure capable of enhancing efficiency and trust by replacing or bypassing legacy institutions. Such accounts, however, often treat blockchain as a neutral technical system and overlook the ethical and political consequences of institutional transformation through code. This perspective article applies Andrew Feenberg’s Critical Theory of Technology to examine blockchain as a normative socio-technical system shaping institutional transformation, governance practices, and moral expectations. Using a conceptual, critical-theoretical methodology supported by illustrative cases from decentralised finance, blockchain-based land registries, and decentralised autonomous organisations, the paper illustrates how blockchain design and governance embed values that may reinforce exclusion, obscure accountability, and constrain democratic contestation. In response, the article proposes a set of normative principles intended to guide ethical reflection on blockchain-based institutional change: participatory co-design; reflexivity and reversibility; moral pluralism through modular governance; and embedded ethical impact assessment. These principles are advanced as evaluative criteria for ethically responsible blockchain-based institutional transformation. By extending Feenberg’s framework into the domain of blockchain ethics, the paper shifts ethical debate beyond privacy and compliance toward questions of institutional legitimacy, democratic rationalisation, and context-sensitive innovation.
Motea et al. (2026) studied this question.