Growing the Blockchain Information Infrastructure

Abstract

In this paper, we present ethnographic data that unpacks the everyday work of some of the many infrastructuring agents who contribute to creating, sustaining and growing the Blockchain information infrastructure. We argue that this infrastructuring work takes the form of entrepreneurial actions, which are self-initiated and primarily directed at sustaining or increasing the initiator's stake in the emerging information infrastructure. These entrepreneurial actions wrestle against the affordances of the installed base of the Blockchain infrastructure, and take the shape of engaging or circumventing activities. These activities purposefully aim at either influencing or working around the enablers and constraints afforded by the Blockchain information infrastructure, as its installed base is gaining inertia. This study contributes to our understanding of the purpose of infrastructuring, seen from the perspective of heterogeneous entrepreneurial agents. It supplements existing accounts of the "when" and "how" of infrastructure, with a lens for examining the "why" of infrastructure.