Will Bitcoin Incarnate Satoshi Nakamoto’s Vision of Depoliticized Money?

Abstract

Cryptocurrencies are oftentimes cast as future-oriented technological innovations that decentralize money, thereby liberating it from centralized governance and the political tentacles of The State; more specifically, as a trustless substructure, Bitcoin endeavors to operate irrespective of any social institutions. The protocols underpinning the platform are embedded directly into the network protocol, coupling the Bitcoin community towards technological determinism, a spell wherein technological artifacts can rudder both culture and society without the necessity of any political intermediation, whether by The State or Central Bank.Blockchain has focused too narrowly on providing a technological solution to the issue of scarcity and solving the double-spending problem. Problems involved in monetary and payment systems provide for a broad range of mechanisms supporting the circulation of money, which must be backed by the state for the scale and complexity of a modern economy. Cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin are better perceived as a technological innovation that does not remove money from politics but rather is part of a struggle over the political status of money in an age of financialization. Money is a hybrid public-private institution, and technology alone cannot render the role of state institutions in monetary and payment systems obsolete.