Creating Brand Hive Minds Through Bitcoin and the Blockchain

Abstract

How does a decentralised brand like Bitcoin become resilient? Drawing on ecological resilience framework, we examine how Bitcoin’s hive mind has evolved, thanks to a combination of stabilising and destabilising forces. We draw on a longitudinal ethnographic and netnographic study of Bitcoin/Blockchain from 2014 to 2022. We make three assertions. First, Bitcoin is stronger because it is a decentralised brand. Second, the social memory of the brand’s hive mind is accumulated, consolidated, and crystallised by responses to internal and external crises. Third, the network of the hive mind uses crises as metamorphic moments that become enshrined in social memory and help the brand become resilient over time.