Money code space: hidden power in Bitcoin, blockchain, and decentralisation

In: Oxford studies in digital politics

Abstract

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. This text 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.