Cryptocurrencies and Inequality

Abstract

This chapter seeks to contextualize the nature of cryptocurrencies as an alternate form of capital that, while being inspired by cryptoanarchist thought, has come to embody extreme forms of inequality among its owners. The concentration of wealth produces a “whale effect” that, as the chapter argues, in fact reflects the forms of inequalities that are found in the ownership of traditional forms of capital. The chapter thus alludes to the mismatch between the professed cryptoanarchist philosophical bent of cryptocurrency owners and the reality of capital ownership in the cryptocurrency domain; while cryptoanarchism postulates autonomy, decentralization, and the spread of ownership, the whale effect suggests that cryptocurrencies are insufficiently different from traditional forms of capital in this regard. This challenges the degree to which the praxis of cryptocurrencies coheres with the philosophy of cryptoanarchism.