Bitcoin And Beyond: Cryptocurrencies, Blockchains, And Global Governance

223 Pages·2018·2.505 MB·English

by  Malcolm Campbell-Verduyn

Bitcoin and Beyond
Since the launch of Bitcoin in 2009, several hundred different ‘cryptocurrencies’
have been developed and become accepted for a wide variety of transactions in
leading online commercial marketplaces and the ‘sharing economy’, as well as
by more traditional retailers, manufacturers, and even by charities and political
parties.
Bitcoin and its competitors have also garnered attention for their wildly fluc-
tuating values as well as implication in international money laundering, Ponzi
schemes and online trade in illicit goods and services across borders. These and
other controversies surrounding cryptocurrencies have induced varying govern-
ance responses by central banks, government ministries, international organiza-
tions, and industry regulators worldwide. Besides formal attempts to ban Bitcoin,
there have been multifaceted efforts to incorporate elements of blockchains, the
peer- to-peer technology underlying cryptocurrencies, in the wider exchange,
recording, and broadcasting of digital transactions. Blockchains are being mobil-
ized to support and extend an array of governance activities. The novelty and
breadth of growing blockchain-b ased activities have fuelled both utopian prom-
ises and dystopian fears regarding applications of the emergent technology to
Bitcoin and beyond.
This volume brings scholars of anthropology, economics, science and techno-
logy studies, and sociology together with global political economy (GPE)
scholars in assessing the actual implications posed by Bitcoin and blockchains
for contemporary global governance. Its interdisciplinary contributions provide
academics, policymakers, industry practitioners, and the general public with
more nuanced understandings of technological change in the changing character
of governance within and across the borders of nation-s tates.
Malcolm Campbell- Verduyn is an SSHRC Postdoctoral Fellow at the Balsillie
School of International Affairs, Canada.
RIPE Series in Global Political Economy
Series Editors:
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Eleni Tsingou (Copenhagen Business School, Denmark)
and
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Beyond Defeat and Austerity
Disrupting (the Critical Political Economy of ) Neoliberal Europe
David Bailey, Monica Clua-L osada, Nikolai Huke and Olatz Ribera-A lmandoz
Civil Society and Financial Regulation
Consumer Finance Protection and Taxation after the Financial Crisis
Lisa Kastner
Bitcoin and Beyond
Cryptocurrencies, Blockchains, and Global Governance
Edited by Malcolm Campbell-V erduyn
Bitcoin and Beyond
Cryptocurrencies, Blockchains, and Global
Governance
Edited by Malcolm Campbell- Verduyn
First published 2018
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
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Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2018 selection and editorial matter, Malcolm Campbell-V erduyn;
individual chapters, the contributors
The right of Malcolm Campbell-V erduyn to be identified as the author of
the editorial matter, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has
been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright,
Designs and Patents Act 1988.
The Open Access version of this book, available at www.taylorfrancis.com,
has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non
Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or
registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation
without intent to infringe.
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A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
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ISBN: 978-0-415-79214-1 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-315-21190-9 (ebk)
Typeset in Times New Roman
by Wearset Ltd, Boldon, Tyne and Wear
Contents
List of figures vii
List of tables viii
Notes on contributors ix
Acknowledgements xiii
1 Introduction: what are blockchains and how are they relevant
to governance in the contemporary global political economy? 1
MALCOLM CAMPBELL- VERDuYN
2 Moneys at the margins: from political experiment to
cashless societies 25
MORITz HüTTEN AND MATTHIAS THIEMANN
3 The internal and external governance of blockchain-b ased
organizations: evidence from cryptocurrencies 48
YING- YING HSIEH, JEAN-PHILIPPE (JP) VERGNE ,
AND SHA WANG
4 The mutual constitution of technology and global
governance: Bitcoin, blockchains, and the international
anti- money-laundering regime 69
MALCOLM CAMPBELL- VERDuYN AND MARCEL GOGuEN
5 Between liberalization and prohibition: prudent enthusiasm
and the governance of Bitcoin/blockchain technology 88
KAI JIA AND FALIN zHANG
6 Cryptocurrencies and digital payment rails in networked
global governance: perspectives on inclusion and innovation 109
DAIVI RODIMA- TAYLOR AND WILLIAM W. GRIMES
vi Contents
7 Governing what wasn’t meant to be governed: a
controversy- based approach to the study of Bitcoin
governance 133
FRANCESCA MuSIANI, ALEXANDRE MALLARD, AND
CéCILE MéADEL
8 Experiments in algorithmic governance: a history and
ethnography of “The DAO,” a failed decentralized
autonomous organization 157
QuINN DuPONT
9 Conclusion: towards a block age or blockages of global
governance? 178
MALCOLM CAMPBELL- VERDuYN
Index 198
Figures
3.1 Variation of the five cryptocurrencies in our sample along the
decentralization spectrum 58
4.1 The mutually constitutive relationship between technologies
and international regimes 71
5.1 Spectrum of Bitcoin/blockchain governance 91
5.2 Bitcoin price fluctuations, 2009–17 (US dollars) 94
9.1 Interrelationships between governance by, with, and of
blockchains 186
Tables
2.1 Evolution of the Bitcoin money game 41
3.1 List of variables 62
3.2 Regression results 63
5.1 Key events and policies in China 102
Contributors
Malcolm Campbell- Verduyn is an SSHRC postdoctoral fellow at the Balsillie
School of International Affairs. His research combines a general focus on lan-
guage and ideas in the global political economy, with a specific interest in the
roles of private actors, technologies, and technical artefacts in contemporary
global governance. His research has appeared in the journals Business and
Politics, Competition and Change, Global Society, Journal of European
Public Policy, New Political Economy, and New Political Science. He is the
author of Professional Authority after the Global Financial Crisis, published
in 2017 by Palgrave Macmillan.
Quinn DuPont is a postdoctoral researcher at the university of Washington. He
studies human and social dimensions of cybersecurity, cryptography, and
code. He has a PhD in information science (Toronto), and is an ALA-
accredited librarian (Western), with a decade of industry experience as a
senior information specialist at IBM, an IT consultant, and a usability and
experience designer. He is currently writing a book on cryptocurrencies and
blockchains (Polity).
Marcel Goguen is a PhD candidate in political science at McMaster university,
Hamilton, Canada. He studied political science at l’université de Moncton
and the university of Ottawa. His research focuses on the interstice between
international relations theory, political theory, and global finance. Under the
supervision of Tony Porter, he is participating in research funded by the
Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) on
‘Numbers in the changing fabric of global governance’.
William W. Grimes is Associate Dean for Academic Affairs and Professor of
International Relations and Political Science at the Frederick S. Pardee
School of Global Studies at Boston university. He is the author of Unmak-
ing the Japanese Miracle: Macroeconomic Politics, 1985–2000 (Cornell
university Press, 2001) and Currency and Contest in East Asia: The Great
Power Politics of Financial Regionalism (Cornell university Press, 2009).
He has published extensively on financial policy and the political economy
of East Asia.