An Enlightened Island: Original Vision, Community Politics, and the Failure of Bitcoin

Abstract

One of the first paradoxes of Bitcoin was how the community would uphold Satoshi’s original vision and founding principles after its creation. Despite much recent scholarly discussion on the idea of Bitcoin, intellectual history of money, and optimistic, progressive historiography, little has been written to answer the question of whether Bitcoin has succeeded in its original vision. The article argues that Bitcoin has failed to remain civil libertarian, radically democratic, and equal and open due to community politics and an ensuing civil war over the block size debate and the future of the blockchain. In addition to drawing from two historicizations, Yap stone money and the Enlightenment, the article sources online social archives to support the thesis that various actions by the Bitcoin community during the civil war overturned and failed the original vision.