Current Position & Biography
Shermin Voshmgir is the founder of Token Kitchen and the author of Token Economy. Her work explains blockchain infrastructure, token design and the organizational questions raised by decentralized networks. Her current personal biography places her in Portugal and describes an interdisciplinary practice spanning technology, social science, agriculture and art.
She founded BlockchainHub Berlin and previously directed the Research Institute for Cryptoeconomics at Vienna University of Economics and Business. Those are historical institutional roles, not current executive appointments. Her present biography describes work on Money Patterns, a nonfiction book about monetary systems, alongside artistic projects.
Notable Contributions
Token Economy reached its third edition in 2025. Voshmgir's publication announcement describes a unified treatment of Web3 infrastructure, money and programmable assets, and DAOs and purpose-driven tokens. Its subjects include Bitcoin, Ethereum, decentralized finance and the design of incentives for different types of networks. The book provides an educational framework, rather than investment recommendations or proof that a particular token model will succeed.
Her institutional research has also addressed the mechanics of crypto networks. A June 2018 WU announcement identified her as director of its new cryptoeconomics institute, which brought together researchers across departments to study blockchain technology, cryptocurrencies and distributed ledgers. The university documented public lectures, conferences and work connecting technical research with business and policy questions.
With Michael Zargham, she co-authored the 2019 working paper Foundations of Cryptoeconomic Systems. It treats blockchain networks as complex socioeconomic systems and proposes combining economic analysis, engineering and network science. This contribution links token incentives to questions about coordination, feedback and the behavior of participants, rather than examining cryptocurrency prices alone.
Why Katharos Is Following Them
Voshmgir contributes to the language and analytical frameworks used to understand tokenized networks. Her combination of public education and cryptoeconomics research is directly relevant to how builders, readers and institutions distinguish blockchain infrastructure from the financial and governance arrangements built around it.
Areas to Follow
Relevant areas include her published explanations of token design, analysis of decentralized organizations, and work connecting monetary systems with technological infrastructure. Future coverage should separate a model's intended incentives from demonstrated behavior in a deployed network, and distinguish educational analysis from operational responsibility for a project.
Reporting Scope
Coverage focuses on published work and verified institutional history. Portugal is her stated current professional base; Austria and Germany describe past institutional connections. The profile does not present her as a current WU director or BlockchainHub operator. The archival portrait dates from 2016, and inclusion does not endorse a token, protocol or financial product.
Katharos Category
Community, Media & Education
Photo Credit
Justin Farrelly / re:publica, “#rpDUB,” October 20, 2016. CC BY 2.0. Cropped and resized. Archival photograph; original caption identifies Shermin Voshmgir.