Cryptocurrencies” Phenomenon and Geopolitical Risks

Abstract

This exploratory study attempts to capture a new and emerging phenomenology, namely the relationship between cryptocurrencies, as an expression of global digitization, as a new business model -a process catalyzed against the backdrop of the Covid-19 pandemic -and the geopolitical, tension-ridden and sanctioned world in which we live. It is from this context that the aim of the study derives, namely to create a theoretical framework that captures the "crypto phenomenon" in an interdisciplinary approach. Being an incipient phenomenon, but booming during the pandemic period (2020-2022), the results of this study are based on an extensive and critical literature review, in order to synthesize, on the one hand, the phenomenology related to cryptocurrencies at the business/geopolitical interface, and, on the other hand, to propose in the literature a convincing and comprehensive phrase defining the new theoretical framework, namely "cryptogeopolitics". The results attest to this double relationship: 1. geopolitical risks have major effects on the crypto market (due to high speculation and increased volatility of cryptocurrencies) and 2. the inverse relationship, where cryptocurrencies become a geopolitical tool or can trigger a geopolitical crisis. Thus, the "added value" of this study lies both in the theorization of the concept of "cryptogeopolitics", filling a gap in the literature, and in the interdisciplinary approach to the business/geopolitics interface. The applicability is evident, both in the theoretical realm, by conceptualizing a current phenomenology, and in the practical realm, given the emergence of the cyber phase of humanity.