This essay is dedicated to the memory of Katherine Hawley.1Bitcoin was invented to serve as a digital currency that demands no trust in financial institutions, such as commercial and central banks. This paper discusses metaphysical aspects of bitcoin, in particular the view that bitcoin is socially constructed, non-concrete, and genuinely exists. If bitcoin is socially constructed, then one may worry that this reintroduces trust in the communities responsible for the social construction. Although we may have to rely (...) on certain communities, I argue that social construction doesn’t imply a demand for trust because the relevant communities don’t take on any relevant commitments. Bitcoin is indeed trust-free. (shrink)

The advent of virtual currencies such as bitcoin raises a pressing question for lawmakers, regulators, and judges: should bitcoin and other virtual currencies be classified as money or currency for legal and regulatory purposes? I examine two different approaches to answering this question—a descriptive approach and a normative approach. The descriptive approach says that bitcoin and other virtual currencies should be classified as money or currency just in case they really are money or currency, whereas the normative (...) approach says that this question of classification should be answered on the basis of substantive normative considerations. I argue against the descriptive approach and in favor of the normative approach. (shrink)

Paul Krugman and others deny that bitcoin has legitimate uses. Critics like Krugman also fail to distinguish bitcoin from other cryptocurrencies. But once we isolate bitcoin from the rest of the field, we see how special, and how useful, it is. In this chapter, we explain why bitcoin is unique among cryptocurrencies as a credibly neutral monetary asset and why this is important. Its uniqueness doesn’t owe entirely to its age (as the oldest) or market ranking (...) (as the most valuable). As a credibly neutral monetary asset, bitcoin solves problems for those in less than ideal circumstances. And beyond bitcoin’s functionality, its origin and surrounding culture also help to explain why people trust bitcoin more than any other cryptocurrency to solve these problems. Nothing else comes close. This gap between bitcoin and everything else has implications for policy-making, journalism, and academic research. (shrink)

This is a talk given in honor of O'Neill at the Pacific APA when she won the Berggruen Prize in 2018.

Many want to know what bitcoin is and how it works. But bitcoin is as complex as it is controversial, and relatively few have the technical background to understand it. In this paper, I offer an accessible on-ramp for understanding bitcoin in the form of a model. My model reveals both what bitcoin is and how it works. More specifically, it reveals that bitcoin is a fictional substance in a massively coauthored story on a network (...) that automates and distributes jobs normally entrusted to centralized publishing institutions. My model therefore falsifies a popular view according to which each bitcoin is a chunk of code. (shrink)

Bitcoin is a peer-to-peer electronic payment system that operates as an independent currency. This paper is a philosophical investigation of the ontological constitution of Bitcoin. Using Slavoj Žižek’s ontological triad of the real, the symbolic and the imaginary, the paper distinguishes between three ideal typical theories of money: commodity theory, fiat theory, and credit theory. The constitution of Bitcoin is analysed by comparing the currency to each of these ideal types. It is argued that Bitcoin is (...) commodity money without gold, fiat money without a state, and credit money without debt. In conclusion, it is suggested that Bitcoin poses an ideological challenge to conventional forms of money in so far as it not only provokes sedimented beliefs about money but also exposes the forms of exploitation, risk and even violence inherent in the existing system of state authorized credit money. (shrink)

In this study, I use the Critical Realism perspective of power to explain how the Bitcoin protocol operates as a system of power. I trace the ideological underpinnings of the protocol in the Cypherpunk movement to consider how notions of power shaped the protocol. The protocol by design encompasses structures, namely Proof of Work and Trustlessness that reproduce asymmetrical constraints on the entities that comprise it. These constraining structures generate constraining mechanisms, those of cost effectiveness and deanonymisation, which further (...) restrict participating entities’ ‘power to act’, reinforcing others’ ‘power over’ them. In doing so, I illustrate that the Bitcoin protocol, rather than decentralising and distributing power across a network of numerous anonymous, trustless peers, it has instead shifted it, from the traditional actors (e.g., state, regulators) to newly emergent ones. (shrink)

In the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis, Bitcoin emerged as an alternative monetary system that could circumvent political and financial authorities. A practice in libertarian prefigurative politics, Bitcoin demonstrates the capacity for online subgroups to creatively appropriate internet-based technologies to enact alternative futures. Andrew Feenberg’s critical theory of technology clarifies this capacity and outlines the significance of agency in technical action. As technology mediates many social relations, it has a significant role in the reproduction of social power. (...) Technological agency is therefore a crucial site of resistance in which users can form alternative, democratic rationalizations of technology. Yet are such instances of agency intrinsically democratic? In analysing this aspect of Feenberg’s theory, this article argues that Bitcoin represents a ‘popular rationalization’ of technology – a creative appropriation of technology that empowers some groups while lacking the ethical justification necessary to be considered democratic. (shrink)

The payments industry – the business of transferring value through public and corporate infrastructures – is undergoing rapid transformation. New business models and regulatory environments disrupt more traditional fee-based strategies, and new entrants seek to displace legacy players by leveraging new mobile platforms and new sources of data. In this increasingly diversified industry landscape, start-ups and established players are attempting to embed payment in ‘social’ experience through novel technologies of accounting for trust. This imagination of the social, however, is being (...) materialized in gated platforms for payment, accounting, and exchange. This paper explores the ambiguous politics of such experiments, specifically those, like Bitcoin or the on-demand sharing economy, that delineate an economic imaginary of ‘just us’ – a closed and closely guarded community of peers operating under the illusion that there are no mediating institutions undergirding that community. This provokes questions about the intersection of payment and publics. Payment innovators’ attenuated understanding of the social may, we suggest, evacuate the nitty-gritty of politics. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Advocates of Bitcoin and Modern Monetary Theory present their ideas as radical utopian alternatives to the neoliberal dominant, but these claims neglect the utopian strain in neoliberal monetary theory itself. This strain manifests in that theory’s faith in the capacity of markets to perfect human society. Bitcoin and Modern Monetary Theory express this same faith. After a brief survey of the older, more radical money utopias of More and Proudhon, this article traces the origins of Bitcoin (...) and MMT in the more conventional monetary theories of metallism and chartalism and then analyzes the utopian discourse of both movements, revealing that Bitcoin sees state intervention as the only obstacle to properly functioning markets, while MMT blames disfunction on an inadequate mobilization of labor, proposing state intervention as the remedy. In both cases, their policies only seek to enable the utopian potential of the market, falling in line with neoliberal orthodoxy. The conclusion offers some speculation about what the emergence of these two theories might tell us about the future of neoliberalism. (shrink)

Money has been a polarising and unresolved socio-economic issue for more than 300 years. In this article, we explore how the state became increasingly involved in money and, through the words of prominent monetary theorists, identify the problem of the state in money. We analyse Bitcoin to see if it is a solution to this problem but move on to contend that the political dimension needs to be the focus of theory in the 21st century and that control of (...) the supply of money, and the power that it gives, is the root of contention. (shrink)

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. (shrink)

The philosophy of blockchain technology is concerned, among other things, with blockchain ontology, how it might be characterised, how it is being created, implemented, and adopted, how it operates in the world, and how it evolves over time. This paper concentrates on whether Bitcoin/blockchain can be considered a complex system and, if so, whether it is a chaotic one. Beyond mere academic curiosity, a positive response would raise concerns about the likelihood of Bitcoin/blockchain entering a 2010-Flash-Crash-type of chaotic (...) regime, with catastrophic consequences for financial systems based on it. The paper starts by highlighting the relevant details of the Bitcoin/blockchain ecosystem formed by the blockchain itself, bitcoin end users, capital gains seekers, miners, full nodes maintainers, and developers, and their interactions. Then the Information Theory of Complex Systems is briefly discussed for later use. Finally, the blockchain is investigated with the help of Crutchfield's Statistical Complexity measure. The low non-null statistical complexity value obtained suggests that the blockchain may be considered algorithmically complicated but hardly a complex system and unlikely to enter a chaotic regime. (shrink)

I investigate ethical questions concerning a novel cryptocurrency, Bitcoin, using a Fichtean account of the ethics of currency. Fichte holds that currencies should fulfill an ethical purpose: providing access, in perpetuity, to the material welfare that underwrites citizens' basic rights. In his nineteenth‐century context, Fichte argues that currencies fulfill this purpose better when nations control them (i.e., when they are “national currencies”) than when foreigners freely trade them (as “world currencies”). After exploring conditions in which national currencies fail to (...) secure material stability over time, e.g., in corrupt regimes, I develop a Fichtean model for ethically evaluating currencies and evaluate the extent to which Bitcoin meets its standards for ethical currency. I argue that Bitcoin undermines the (monetary) power of nations and, as such, threatens their ability to provide access to necessary material goods. While offering citizens a means of defending themselves against corrupt regimes, Bitcoin forsakes the general welfare and is, as such, unethical by Fichtean lights. (shrink)

Individuals and businesses make numerous payments every day. They sometimes have choices about what forms of payment to make or accept, and at other times are effectively forced to use a particular form. Often there is an asymmetric power relationship between payer and payee that raises the issue of whether one side unfairly exploits the other. Is it unethical exploitation for an employer to pay employees with a fee-laden payroll card over other more convenient forms of payment? Does the fee (...) structure of payment networks such as Visa and MasterCard unfairly exploit merchants? The bitcoin payment system is an ethical as well as technological evolution as it was designed to be an electronic payment system that does not rely upon trust. Can an entire payment system like bitcoin be “evil,” as charged by Krugman? Payment tools as such are ethically neutral, but can be used in an ethical or unethical manner. (shrink)

What does being money consist in? We argue that something is money if, and only if, it is typically acquired in order to realise the reduction in transaction costs that accrues in virtue of agents coordinating on acquiring the same thing when deciding what thing to acquire in order to exchange. What kinds of things can be money? We argue against the common view that a variety of things (notes, coins, gold, cigarettes, etc.) can be money. All monetary systems are (...) best interpreted as implementing the same basic protocol. Money, i.e. the thing that we coordinate on acquiring in order to lower our transaction costs, is, in all cases, a set of positions on an abstract mathematical object, namely a relative ratio scale. The things that we ordinarily call ‘money’ are merely records of positions on such a scale. (shrink)

Sosyal medya, insanları alış veriş alışkanlıklarından yatırım kararlarına kadar birçok ticari niyetleri üzerinde yüksek etki düzeyi olduğu güncel birçok çalışmada araştırılmaya başlanmıştır ve bu ilişki ortaya konmuştur. Bu ilişki üzerine inşa edilerek geliştirilen güncel analiz yöntemleri yatırım araçlarının gelecek değerlerini tahmin ederek yatırım kararları almada bir destek mekanizması olarak kullanılması çok cazip bir konudur. Bu sebeple bu ilişki yatırımcı ve analistlerden akademisyenlere kadar güncel bir ilgi konusu olmuştur. Bu çalışmanın amacı da sosyal medya ile yatırım kararları arasındaki ilişkiyi metinsel ve (...) finansal analiz aracılığı ile görmeye çalışmaktır. Bu çalışmada Twitter üzerinden metin madenciliği ile veri çekilmiş ve sentiment(duygu) analizi ile yorumların olumlu ya da olumsuz olma durumu incelenmiştir. Sentiment analizinden elde edilen sayısal değerler ile güncel ve küresel bir yatırım aracı olan Bitcoin fiyatları arasındaki ilişkinin varlığını sorgulamak adına Granger Nedensellik analizi gibi finansal analizler kullanılmıştır. (shrink)

This (somewhat polemical) paper focuses on the ontological nature of money and draws comparisons to the ontological status of gauge freedom in physics. The parallels allow us to move beyond the social constructivist theories of Searle et al., and thereby avoid some pitfalls with such views. Since we have a reasonably good grasp of the ontological features in the physics context, we can pull back lessons from there onto the economic domain. In general, we find that this approach offers a (...) nice lens through which to view the ontological peculiarities of money. (shrink)

Vivimos un tiempo de confusión, saturación, agitación, superficialidad, confrontación y polarización, sin rumbo, sin norte y necesitados de un sentido que no sabemos dónde encontrar. En los últimos siglos, hemos construido una sociedad saturada de bienes materiales y extremadamente financiarizada convirtiendo nuestra existencia en una carrera con poca conciencia de que vamos "hacia ninguna parte". El incremento de inquietudes y necesidades sociales, disfrazadas de consumo, nos lleva a buscar la inclusión, el acoplamiento y el reconocimiento social en una lucha de (...) la que resultan nuevos ganadores y muchos perdedores, insatisfechos o excluidos. Unos y otros, desde el éxito o desde el fracaso, con sus formas de interacción social, han dinamitado el contrato social que hasta ahora habíamos tenido por bueno, mientras seguimos pendientes de definir el nuevo contrato para una sociedad rica, abierta y global. (shrink)

Bitcoin is a virtual currency that provides a completely decentralized secure alternative to the currencies currently used. Nakamoto, the creator of this cryptocurrency, published an article on an encryption mailing list in 2008 with the title “Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System”, thus giving the creation of this virtual currency. This study aims to analyze the Bitcoin and what factors can influence its price, in the context of a pandemic. This work will focus on the bitcoin (...) price and on five different factors likely to have an influence on his price, such as: Hash Rate, Mining Difficulty, Volatility Index, Google Search and Transaction Cost. The period for this research ranges from 15/03/2020 to 14/11/2021, a total of 96 weeks, to integrate the covid-19 factor into the study. The results show that the variables fsCoinCirculation and fsTransationCost are both necessary conditions for an increase on the bitcoin price, but for low values of bitcoin price there are no necessary conditions. Additionally, findings suggest that Hash Rate influences the price of bitcoin. Finally, fsVix variable was found to be a variable with an important implication in price, namely, in its volatility. (shrink)

How promising is Bitcoin as a currency? This paper discusses four claims on the advantages of Bitcoin: a more stable currency than state-backed ones; a secure and efficient payment system; a credible alternative to the central management of money; and a better protection of transaction privacy. We discuss these arguments by relating them to their philosophical roots in libertarian and neoliberal theories, and assess whether Bitcoin can effectively meet these expectations. We conclude that despite its advocates’ enthusiasm, (...) there are good reasons to doubt that Bitcoin can fulfill its promises and act as a functioning currency, rather than as a mere speculative asset. (shrink)

Fıkıhta bir mesele hakkında hüküm verilirken, mevzu belirli usûl ve kaideler çerçevesinde değerlendirilmektedir. Hüküm verilirken temel bakış açısı ve değerlendirme yöntemi genel hatlarıyla fıkıh usûlü ve kavaid kitaplarında mevcut olmakla beraber, bunun karmaşık güncel meselelere uyarlanması her zaman kolay olmamaktadır. Bu makalede konunun işleyişi ortaya konulmaya çalışılarak fıkhî açıdan ilgili konulara değinilecektir. Çalışmada Bitcoin meselesi, garar, bey’ul ma’dûm, kumar, miras ve akit teorisi çerçevesinde değerlendirilerek okuyucuda bir kapının aralanması hedeflenmektedir. Konunun nihai hükmü ise ilgili kurumlar ve fıkıh meclisleri tarafından (...) verilmelidir. Nihayetinde bu çalışma konunun belirli yönleri etrafında şekillenmiş ve sübjektif bakışı açısı potansiyeli taşıyabilmektedir. Kapsamlı bir değerlendirme ve objektif bir nihai karar ancak kurumsal yapılar tarafından gerçekleştirilecek kolektif çalışmalar neticesinde şekillenecektir. (shrink)

The rapid worldwide spread of COVID-19 forced many countries to enforce complete lockdown and strict quarantine policies. The strict lockdown and quarantine affect the psychological state of people toward cryptocurrency. The current research aims to examine the effect of COVID-19 on Bitcoin prices concerning cumulative deaths and confirmed cases. The research comprises daily data from January 20, 2020, to April 30, 2020, during the initial worldwide breakout of COVID-19. This research employed the augmented Dickey-Fuller test to check the stationarity (...) of data, the co-integration test for the interdependency of variables, and the vector error correction model for identifying the direction and long or short-run relationship between Bitcoin prices and COVID-19. The research results show that Bitcoin prices are negatively significant and related to COVID-19 in the short-run. A unidirectional relationship between Bitcoin prices and cumulative deaths is also observed. Investors and the public’s psychological state were positively significant to Bitcoin prices in the long-term because of cashless transactions, unbanked, and less risky virus traveling. The second reason behind the positive psychological relation is un-centralization and easy-to-make payments by Bitcoin. This study’s finding provides timely evidence to decision-makers on Bitcoin price volatility and its impacts on the public’s psychological states regarding COVID-19. (shrink)

We investigate the cross-correlations of return-volume relationship of the Bitcoin market. In particular, we select eight exchange rates whose trading volume accounts for more than 98% market shares to synthesize Bitcoin indexes. The empirical results based on multifractal detrended cross-correlation analysis reveal that the nonlinear dependencies and power-law cross-correlations in return-volume relationship are found; all cross-correlations are multifractal, and there are antipersistent behaviors of cross-correlation for q=2; the price of small fluctuations is more persistent than that of the (...) volume, while the volume of larger fluctuations is more antipersistent; and the rolling window method shows that the cross-correlations of return-volume are antipersistent in the entire sample period. (shrink)

Money has come a long way from the substances and shapes it had in antiquity and early modernity to the ever more ephemeral forms it took on in the last decades. A further step in this direction to an increasingly virtual world of finance is digital money. Amongst digital currencies, cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and the many hundred altcoins created lately, stand out because of the challenge they pose to the conventional contour and conception of monetary systems. In addition to (...) private banks and the public hand, via cryptocurrencies now also individuals emerge as emitters of currency. Whereas formerly the sovereignty over the issuance of money was anchored locally or nationally, backed by tangible private or public institutions, cryptocurrencies immediately surface globally within the intangible cyberspace of the worldwide web. In this novel realm of money, the cryptocurrencies Bitcoin and Ripple stand for two different approaches to the question as to which impact money ought to have in people’s lives, and as to how individuals in turn can influence the nature and future of money. The article discusses the moral claims of these rivaling conceptions. (shrink)

Due to the inherent chaotic and fractal dynamics in the price series of Bitcoin, this paper proposes a two-stage Bitcoin price prediction model by combining the advantage of variational mode decomposition and technical analysis. VMD eliminates the noise signals and stochastic volatility in the price data by decomposing the data into variational mode functions, while technical analysis uses statistical trends obtained from past trading activity and price changes to construct technical indicators. The support vector regression accepts input from (...) a hybrid of technical indicators and reconstructed variational mode functions. The model is trained, validated, and tested in a period characterized by unprecedented economic turmoil due to the COVID-19 pandemic, allowing the evaluation of the model in the presence of the pandemic. The constructed hybrid model outperforms the single SVR model that uses only TI and rVMF as features. The ability to predict a minute intraday Bitcoin price has a huge propensity to reduce investors’ exposure to risk and provides better assurances of annualized returns. (shrink)

Following the catastrophic events of the 2008 global financial crisis, an anonymous hacker released Bitcoin to claw back power from commercial and central banks. Its underlying architecture, blockchain, is now championed for delivering a decentralised global economy--a world free from hierarchy and control. Money Code Space shatters these emancipatory claims by revealing acute geographies of power that lie behind blockchain networks. Drawing on first-hand experience in cryptocurrency communities and start-up companies from Silicon Valley to London, Jack Parkin untangles the (...) complex web of culture, politics, and economics that truly drive decentralisation. (shrink)

This paper examines the spillover effect between bitcoin, gold, crude oil, and major stock markets by using the MSV model with dynamic correlation and Granger causality. The empirical results of the DC-GC-MSV model are logically correct and convergent. The DIC test result has proved that the DC-GC-MSV model is better and more accurate. Bitcoin has no significant Granger causality spillover effect than other assets. As a safe haven product for stock assets, gold price has one-way spillover effect from (...) stock market volatility. Moreover, crude oil has the highest correlation with the stock market. In the recent COVID-19 epidemic and the sluggish economic environment, investors need to consider a balanced asset allocation among low-correlation assets, medium-correlation assets, and high-correlation assets to reduce risks. (shrink)

In the bitcoin whitepaper, Satoshi Nakamoto (2008: 2) defines an electronic coin as a chain of digital signatures. Many have since defined a bitcoin as a chain of digital signatures. This latter definition continues to appear in reports from central banks, advocacy centers, and governments, as well as in academic papers across the disciplines of law, economics, computer science, cryptography, management, and philosophy. Some have even used it to argue that what we now call bitcoin is not (...) the real bitcoin. The definition fails, however. This is important because the Chain Definition obscures Satoshi’s solution to a dilemma in the design of electronic cash, as well as the truth about bitcoin’s privacy and fungibility. In this article, I explain why the Chain Definition fails and what Satoshi likely endorsed instead. Along the way, I untangle some issues around bitcoin fungibility and clarify some others around the ontology of digital assets. (shrink)

This paper argues that the practical implementation of blockchain technology can be considered an institution of property similar to legal institutions. Invoking Penner's theory of property and Hegel's system of property rights, and using the example of bitcoin, it is possible to demonstrate that blockchain effectively implements all necessary and sufficient criteria for property without reliance on legal means. Blockchains eliminate the need for a third-party authority to enforce exclusion rights, and provide a system of universal access to knowledge (...) and discoverability about the property rights of all participants and how the system functions. The implications of these findings are that traditional property relations in society could be replaced by or supplemented with blockchain models, and implemented in new domains. (shrink)

In this article, we describe what cryptocurrency is, how it works, and how it relates to familiar conceptions of and questions about money. We then show how normative questions about monetary policy find new expression in Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. These questions can play a role in addressing not just what money is, but what it should be. A guiding theme in our discussion is that progress here requires a mixed approach that integrates philosophical tools with the purely technical (...) results of disciplines like computer science and economics. Note: this article is the first entry within a two-part sequence on the Philosophy, Politics, and Economics of Cryptocurrency. (shrink)

In this article, we identify three key design dimensions along which cryptocurrencies differ -- privacy, censorship-resistance, and consensus procedure. Each raises important normative issues. Our discussion uncovers new ways to approach the question of whether Bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies should be used as money, and new avenues for developing a positive answer to that question. A guiding theme is that progress here requires a mixed approach that integrates philosophical tools with the purely technical results of disciplines like computer science (...) and economics. Note: this article is the second entry within a two-part sequence on the Philosophy, Politics, and Economics of Cryptocurrency. (shrink)

Digital artifacts — humanly-constructed items that inhabit our computers and networks — suffer an unfortunate reputation as being virtual and therefore unreal, and all too easy to reproduce on the cheap. These features together prompt the question of this article: if digital artifacts can be reproduced for free, and if they are unreal, why do they have economic value at all? Using a focal case study of bitcoin — the most unreal digital artifact of them all, and one that (...) has been copied and pasted a thousand times over — I answer the question. Some digital artifacts can't be copied on the cheap, as it turns out, and they are real enough to be useful. (shrink)

The main goal of this thesis is to provide a clear basis for the analysis of alternative currencies, such as Bitcoin, LETS, Local currencies, the WIR or Carbon currencies. It attempts to determine whether alternative currencies might constitute just and workable alternatives, either in the form of small-scale experiments or in the form of more radical reforms. The first chapter proposes a new way to classify currencies. The second examines the case in favour of monetary plurality. The third analyses (...) the claims in favour of restricting the use of money locally, within a community, or to certain goods. The fourth studies the link between money and the market. Finally, a post-scriptum focuses on Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies. This thesis highlights that these currencies are drivers of several potential conflicts. Their widespread use might conflict with the adequate management of monetary policy, with social justice, and with liberal values. These conflicts are potential, for they would come into existence only if alternative currencies increased in scope. However, there is no reason to disregard potential conflicts when the case in their favour relies mostly on their potential benefits. (shrink)

У статті визначено поняття криптовалюти. Проаналізовано відповідність криптовалюти статусу грошей. Висвітлено основні етапи розвитку криптовалюти. Розглянуто переваги та недоліки використання криптовалюти біткоїн. Досліджено правовий статус криптовалюти в країнах світу. Охарактеризовано стан використання найбільш відомої криптовалюти Bitcoin в Україні.

Cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, SETLcoin, Ether, Solar Coin, or Liberty Reserve exist since 2009. Because of their decentralized control, they are often considered a threat or alternative to the conventional centralized banking system. While the technological implication of some such currencies, especially of Bitcoin, has attracted much attention, so far there is little discussion about the entire field of cryptocurrencies and very little academic literature addressing its ethical significance. In this article, we thus address the impact of “blockchain (...) technology” on the nature of financial transactions from a business ethics perspective. We begin with a survey on relevant literature from neighboring disciplines. Next, we work towards a 3 × 3 framework for current debates on the ethics of cryptocurrencies : we combine the micro, meso, and macro levels of business and society with assessments of the potential ethical impact of cryptocurrencies as morally beneficial, detrimental, and ambiguous. In addition, we highlight possible avenues for future research, such as the changing roles of the miners and regulators, the prosocial use of cryptocurrencies, the antisocial use for shadow banking and transactions in the ‘dark net’ and cryptocurrencies’ effect on inflation and deflation. (shrink)

The price of Bitcoin is once more soaring. From early October 2020 to early January 2021, the price of a single Bitcoin token went from roughly $10,000 to nearly $65,000, reinspiring the hopes of the crypto-faithful in the inevitability of a future beyond centralized banking and leaving the rest to dread the jargon of computational libertarianism. The speculative betting driving this recent price action, however, belies a more rudimentary and overlooked shift in the digital economy signaled by cryptocurrencies (...) and Bitcoin in particular. Unlike an earlier industrial logic that sought to reduce heat loss and improve efficiency to maximize surplus value, Bitcoin’s proof-of-work system shifts the basis of value production from efficiency to inefficiency. Moreover, it does so by using a cryptographic algorithm whose purpose is to destroy the meaning of its inputs. Through an exploration of Bitcoin’s proof-of-work technics and its inversion of traditional models of value extraction, the text argues that Bitcoin reveals a profound transformation in the nature of surplus represented by computational capitalism. (shrink)

Tobey Scharding claims that Bitcoin’s lack of a central regulator makes it open to price fluctuations. I argue that a currency not having a central regulator does not necessitate it being more volatile than centrally regulated currencies. First, I argue that Scharding’s reason for suggesting that Bitcoin is open to price fluctuations – its potential to face legal restrictions – is also faced by centrally regulated currencies. Second, I use silver in London as an example of a non-centrally (...) regulated currency with relatively low price volatility when compared to other centrally regulated currencies showing that non-centrally regulated currencies are not necessarily more volatile. (shrink)

Cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin are offering new avenues for economic empowerment to individuals around the world. However, they also provide a powerful tool that facilitates criminal activities such as human trafficking and illegal weapons sales that cause great harm to individuals and communities. Cryptocurrency advocates have argued that the ethical dimensions of cryptocurrency are not qualitatively new, insofar as money has always been understood as a passive instrument that lacks ethical values and can be used for good or ill purposes. (...) In this paper, we challenge such a presumption that money must be ‘value-neutral.’ Building on advances in artificial intelligence, cryptography, and machine ethics, we argue that it is possible to design artificially intelligent cryptocurrencies that are not ethically neutral but which autonomously regulate their own use in a way that reflects the ethical values of particular human beings – or even entire human societies. We propose a technological framework for such cryptocurrencies and then analyse the legal, ethical, and economic implications of their use. Finally, we suggest that the development of cryptocurrencies possessing ethical as well as monetary value can provide human beings with a new economic means of positively influencing the ethos and values of their societies. (shrink)

Scharding argues that Bitcoin is unethical on Fichte’s view because its instability makes it unable to guarantee that users can afford what they need to live. She contrasts Bitcoin with currencies controlled by central authorities that can guarantee their stability. Allison objects that not all centrally controlled currencies are stable and not all non-centrally controlled currencies are unstable. I clarify that both stability and a means of securing stability are necessary, but not sufficient, for a currency to be (...) ethical. (shrink)

The invention of Bitcoin in 2008 as a new type of electronic cash has arguably been one of the most radical financial innovations in the last decade. Recently, developer communities of blockchain technologies have started to turn their attention towards the issue of governance. The features of blockchain governance raise questions as to tensions that might arise between a strictly “on-chain” governance system and possible applications of “off-chain” governance. In this paper, we approach these questions by reflecting on a (...) long-running debate in legal philosophy regarding the construction of a positivist legal order. First, we argue that on-chain governance shows striking similarities with Kelsen’s notion of a positivist legal order, characterised by Schmitt as the machine that runs itself. Second, we illustrate some of the problems that emerged from the application of on-chain governance, with particular reference to a calamity in a blockchain-based system called the DAO. Third, we reflect on Schmitt’s argument that the coalescence of private interests is a vulnerability of positivist legal systems, and accordingly posit this as an inherent vulnerability of on-chain governance of existing blockchain-based systems. (shrink)

Beach's Gaelic Symphony is plausibly an abstract object that Beach created. The view that people create some abstract objects is called abstract creationism. There are abstract creationists about many kinds of objects, including musical works, fictional characters, arguments, words, internet memes, installation artworks, bitcoins, and restaurants. Alternative theories include materialism and Platonism. This paper discusses some of the most serious objections against abstract creationism. Arguably, these objections have ramifications for questions in metaphysics pertaining to the abstract/concrete distinction, time, causation, vague (...) existence, vague identity, and inadvertent creation. (shrink)

This article introduces the symposium “Toward a Philosophy of Blockchain,” which provides a philosophical contemplation of blockchain technology, the digital ledger software underlying cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin, for the secure transfer of money, assets, and information via the Internet without needing a third-party intermediary. The symposium offers philosophical scholarship on a new topic, blockchain technology, from a variety of perspectives. The philosophical themes discussed include mathematical models of reality, signification, and the sociopolitical institutions that structure human life and interaction. (...) The symposium also investigates the metaphilosophical theme of how to create a philosophy of anything, specifically a new topic such as blockchain technology. Repeated themes are identified, in all areas of philosophical inquiry, and conceptual resources are elaborated to contribute to a philosophical understanding of blockchain technology. Thus, philosophy as a metaphilosophical approach is shown to be able to provide an understanding of the conceptual, theoretical, and foundational dimensions of novelty and emergence in the world, with a particular focus on blockchain technology. (shrink)

The paper focuses on the philosophical challenges of governance over trustless ledgers, namely Bitcoin Layer 2 solutions in El Salvador. Blockchain adoption in El Salvador is an example of policy based on a ‘frontier epistemology’ (Nickles 2009 ), creating a situation where “facts are uncertain, values are in dispute, stakes are high, and decisions are urgent” (Funtowicz and Ravetz 1993 ). Trustless ledgers play a role of such ‘frontiers’ of knowledge and governance that support a variety of technocratic, heuristic, (...) and experimental policy approaches. They challenge the traditional knowledge frameworks and governance processes responsible for attempts to embed (align) predetermined ideologies (values and stakes) into the technology over standards. Instead, as amalgams of social, political, legal, and economic interventions, ledgers function simultaneously as a contract, a monetary system, a political value commitment, and a governance structure. By integrating facts, values, and stakes into algorithms, they define the frontiers of epistemology and governance in two opposing ways. On the one hand, trustless ledgers embody Augustine’s Civitas Dei (the City of God) as a new design (novum consilium) that promises a future world (futurum saeculum) (Augustine 1968 ). With a promise of a system, where everyone is ‘free’ to not being able to ‘sin’ (non posse peccare - delet the res non peccare), social agency is reduced to a code of a trustless infrastructure. On the other hand, ledgers support experimental (Sabel and Zeitlin 2012 ) and heuristic policymaking (Nickles 2009 ) that saves social agency and cuts ‘through traditional discovery/justification and descriptive/ normative distinctions’ (Nickles 2009 ). The distributed ledgers as governance experiments then redefine Civitas Terrena’s governance as a challenge of ‘heuristic appraisal’ (Nickles 2009 ), ‘directly deliberative polyarchy’ (Cohen and Sabel 1997 ), and ‘experimentalist governance’ (Sabel and Zeitlin 2012 ). To elaborate on the blockchain governance experiments, we will use two Bitcoin initiatives in El Salvador (Bitcoin City and Bitcoin Beach) and discuss them in the context of a broader adoption of blockchain in South America. (shrink)

The main goal of this thesis is to provide a clear basis for the analysis of alternative currencies, such as Bitcoin, LETS, Local currencies, the WIR or Carbon currencies. It attempts to determine whether alternative currencies might constitute just and workable alternatives, either in the form of small-scale experiments or in the form of more radical reforms. The first chapter proposes a new way to classify currencies. The second examines the case in favour of monetary plurality. The third analyses (...) the claims in favour of restricting the use of money locally, within a community, or to certain goods. The fourth studies the link between money and the market. Finally, a post-scriptum focuses on Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies. This thesis highlights that these currencies are drivers of several potential conflicts. Their widespread use might conflict with the adequate management of monetary policy, with social justice, and with liberal values. These conflicts are potential, for they would come into existence only if alternative currencies increased in scope. However, there is no reason to disregard potential conflicts when the case in their favour relies mostly on their potential benefits. (shrink)