The Social Life of Bitcoin

Abstract

This paper challenges the notion that Bitcoin is ‘trust-free’ money by highlighting the social practices, organizational structures and utopian ambitions that sustain it. At the paper's heart is the paradox that if Bitcoin succeeds in its own terms as an ideology, it will fail in practical terms as a form of money. The main reason for this is that the new currency is premised on the idea of money as a ‘thing’ that must be abstracted from social life in order for it to be protected from manipulation by bank intermediaries and political authorities. The image is of a fully mechanized currency that operates over and above social life. In practice, however, the currency has generated a thriving community around its political ideals, relies on a high degree of social organization in order to be produced, has a discernible social structure, and is characterized by asymmetries of wealth and power that are not dissimilar from the mainstream financial system. Unwittingly, then, Bitcoin serves as a powerful demonstration of the relational character of money.

Acceptance and Penetration of Bitcoin: The Role of Psychological Distance and National Culture

“…Abstract construal can support someone to better understand the complexity of political symptoms and take participatory steps that are in line with superordinate meanings or core principles. This proposition is in line with the premise established by Dodd (2018) that Bitcoin contains meaning plurality that contested one another on a political or even a sociological level. Dodd (2018, p. 1) stated, "The new currency is premised on the idea of money as a 'thing' that must be abstracted from social life in order for it to be protected from manipulation by bank intermediaries and political authorities.…”

Current Trends in Sustainability of Bitcoins and Related Blockchain Technology

“…In this condition, the logic of market competition between alternative solutions becomes the only possibility and the government of the original protocol is abandoned. Dodd (2017) states that real independence of the bitcoin system is not achievable, because its anarchism is compromised by the way that the system operates in practice: it favors the most powerful producers of the currency to become even more powerful. In other words, this means that it incentivizes monopolistic practices and makes bitcoin not a "distributed network" but a way to support strong tendencies towards the centralization of monetary production.…”

The soft spot of hard code: blockchain technology, network governance and pitfalls of technological utopianism

“…In contrast to the need to separate technology from politics, it is important to examine blockchains as an organic whole consisting of the technical, scientific, social, economic and political considerations of engineers who combine scientific, technical and sociological analyses when envisioning technological innovation (Callon 1993). Nigel Dodd (2015Dodd ( , 2017, for example, has repeatedly argued that one should view Bitcoin and the blockchain as a social movement to promote a utopian vision for society. While many techno-activists in the blockchain community pride themselves on creating technological fixes for political problems, the utopian vision embedded in this technology is anything but apolitical.…”