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Peter J. Phillips, Gabriela Pohl
No abstract is available for this record.
Peter J. Phillips, Gabriela Pohl
Bitcoin is one of those less common financial innovations that threatens to up-end the status quo in a more general sense. This not only instils fear in some decision-makers but loathing too. Which leads to an interesting question. That is, how does fear work itself into the construction of a Savage âSmall Worldâ? What happens if something terrifying is thought to be lurking in one of Weitzmanâs boxes? Fear disrupts the very nature, the very structure, of search and decision.
Jansen, Mark A.
This paper concerns the open source software project Bitcoin, which is often described as virtual cash. The paper investigates what âvirtualâ signifies when applied to âcashâ and in turn what âvirtual cashâ says about Bitcoin. Bitcoin is the latest cryptographic effort to create digital cash-like tokens, where Bitcoinâs designer Nakamoto argues that users now no longer have to trust a third party, traditionally the bank. Paradoxically, for Bitcoin it is key that nodes in the network agree on the status of the shared block chain database. Trust remains to be established, albeit in a different manner. Power is not destroyed, but transferred from banks to Bitcoinâs protocol. The paper concludes that âvirtualâ refers to Bitcoinâs model of how cash appears to function in everyday exchange, allowing user privacy. Bitcoin does not model another aspect of cash, its function as a credential referring to debt. Bitcoin discontinues the concept of debt.