Blockchain Papers

Matthieu Quiniou

Les promesses d’usage du web3 mobilisent de nombreux acteurs, des communautés se créent, notamment celle qui s’auto-définit comme DéGen. Génération émergente, contre-culture, mouvement artistique ou nouvelle forme d’identité numérique, les DéGens échappent encore aux discours et catégories socio-anthropologiques. Les sciences de l’information et de la communication, la sociologie des médias et l’ethnographie numérique fournissent des méthodes et outils d’analyse des usages et des codes de ces individus représentatifs de l’hypermodernité et du web3. S’il est difficile, à ce stade, de savoir si le mouvement DéGens n’est qu’un épiphénomène transitoire ou un marqueur emblématique d’une évolution sociétale de fond, les efforts déployés par les DéGens pour construire des modes d’organisation adaptés à leurs pratiques hypermodernes justifient une étude approfondie du fonctionnement de cette communauté d’un nouveau type. Cette recherche vise à documenter et éclairer de manière transdisciplinaire, à travers l’apparition de ces nouveaux acteurs, des questions centrales sur les mutations en cours liées au web3, les changements de paradigmes économiques, sociologiques, axiologiques, identitaires. Ces pratiques numériques actent le hic et nunc d’un monde hybride, le numérique n’est plus le double d’une réalité tangible, il ne reproduit pas le monde, il en devient la matrice, il ouvre sur une vision post schopenhauerienne : d’un « monde comme volonté et représentation », dont il convient de décrypter le mode de développement.

Akanksha Jalan, Roman Matkovskyy, Andrew Urquhart, Larisa Yarovaya

No abstract is available for this record.

František Sudzina, Marek Dobeš, Antonín Pavlíček

No abstract is available for this record.

Atte Oksanen, Eerik Mantere, Ilkka Vuorinen, Iina Savolainen

OBJECTIVES: Online platforms enable real-time trading activities that are similar to those of gambling. This study aimed to investigate the associations of traditional investing, real-time stock trading, and cryptocurrency trading with excessive behavior and mental health problems. STUDY DESIGN: This was a cross-sectional population-based survey. METHODS: The participants were Finnish people aged 18-75 years (N = 1530, 50.33% male). Survey asked about monthly regular investing, real-time stock-trading platform use, and cryptocurrency trading. The study had measures for excessive behavior: gambling (Problem Gambling Severity Index), gaming (Internet Gaming Disorder Test), internet use (Compulsive Internet Use Scale), and alcohol use (Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test). Psychological distress (Mental Health Inventory), perceived stress (Perceived Stress Scale), COVID-19 anxiety, and perceived loneliness were also measured. Background factors included sociodemographic variables, instant loan taking, and involvement in social media identity bubbles (Identity Bubble Reinforcement Scale). Multivariate analyses were conducted with regression analysis. RESULTS: Within the sample, 22.29% were categorized into monthly regular investors only, 3.01% were investors using real-time stock-trading platforms, and 3.59% were cryptomarket traders. Real-time stock-trading platform use and cryptocurrency trading were associated with younger age and male gender. Cryptomarket traders were more likely to have an immigrant background and have taken instant loans. Both real-time stock-trading platform use and cryptomarket trading were associated with higher excessive behavior. Cryptomarket traders especially reported higher excessive gambling, gaming, and internet use than others. Cryptomarket traders reported also higher psychological distress, perceived stress, and loneliness. CONCLUSIONS: Regular investing is not a risk factor for excessive behavior. However, rapid online trading platforms and applications were significantly more commonly used by participants reporting excessive behavior and mental health problems. The strong association between cryptomarket trading and excessive behavior in particular underlines the need to acknowledge the potential risks related to real-time trading platforms.

Hee Jin Kim, Ji Sun Hong, Hyunchan Hwang, Sun Mi Kim · 5 authors

Bitcoin has unique characteristics that have inspired people to invest in it as well as distinct drawbacks. With a rapid increase in Bitcoin prices in the short term, more investors enthusiastically began investing in it, raising concerns about a speculative bubble. This study investigated the multiple factors involved in the Bitcoin craze despite concerns about its shortcomings. In what concerns to personality traits and psychological states, online use patterns, and investment patterns, we first hypothesized that Bitcoin investors would show differences in multiple factors when compared to share investors. Based on our assumptions about these differences, we secondly hypothesized that investors’ personality, psychological states, and investment patterns could predict whether they would invest in Bitcoin or shares. In total, 307 respondents completed the research protocol and were sorted into Bitcoin investors (n = 101), share investors (n = 102), and non-investors (n = 104). A self-report questionnaire on demographic data, online use patterns, investment patterns as well as the Fear of Missing Out (FoMO) scale, Temperament and Character Inventory-Revised-Short (TCI-RS), Mood Disorder Questionnaire (MDQ), trait anxiety part of the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI-T), and the Korean version of the Canadian Problem Gambling Index (K-CPGI) were administered. The results of this study indicated that Bitcoin investments can be attributed to the interaction of multiple factors, among which personality, psychological states, and investment patterns are particularly important. Specifically, the investment pattern is the strongest predictive factor for Bitcoin investment. Bitcoin investors were distinct with regard to higher novelty seeking, higher gambling tendencies, and unique investment patterns. Thus, personality, psychological states, and investment patterns could explain the substantial investments in Bitcoin.

George Ritzer, Petar Jandrić, Sarah Hayes

In the year that George Ritzer publishes the ninth edition of The McDonaldization of Society, moving his famous theory firmly Into the Digital Age, critical educator Petar Jandrić and sociologist Sarah Hayes invited George to a dialogue on the digital transformation of McDonaldization and its critical application to Higher Education. In this article, George first traces for us the origins of his theory that has endured for four decades. A key dimension of McDonaldization is the ‘iron cage’ of control, via rationalization. Once contained within physical sites of bricks and mortar, now, we encounter a ‘velvet cage’ in sites of digital consumption, at the hands of non-human technologies, that threaten human labor and autonomy. Whilst the concept of the McUniversity is not without some critique, this interview provides compelling reasons to open new dialogue about McDonaldization in augmented settings such as Higher Education. With the rise of prosuming machines such as blockchain and bitcoin, that can both produce and consume without intervention from human ‘prosumers’, universities cannot afford to ignore the challenges of prosumer capitalism, which George concludes, will explode into unprecedented and unpredictable directions in the years to come.

Mike Thelwall

SteemIt is a Reddit-like social news site that pays members for posting and curating content. It uses micropayments backed by a tradeable currency, exploiting the Bitcoin cryptocurrency generation model to finance content provision in conjunction with advertising. If successful, this paradigm might change the way in which volunteer-based sites operate. This article investigates 925,092 new members’ first posts for insights into what drives financial success in the site. Initial blog posts on average received US$0.01, although the maximum accrued was US$20,680.83. Longer, more sentiment-rich or more positive comments with personal information received the greatest financial reward in contrast to more informational or topical content. Thus, there is a clear financial value in starting with a friendly introduction rather than immediately attempting to provide useful content, despite the latter being the ultimate site goal. Follow-up posts also tended to be more successful when more personal, suggesting that interpersonal communication rather than quality content provision has driven the site so far. It remains to be seen whether the model of small typical rewards and the possibility that a post might generate substantially more are enough to incentivise long-term participation or a greater focus on informational posts in the long term.

Dario De Notaris

This paper is focused on the role of main social activities, as creating and sharing personal content. The reason is connected to the raise up, in last ten years, of User Generated Content as a system to allow people to be active on the Web3. In the first paragraph I analyze the Web-population through recent surveys, showing different ways to classify generations. I comment the Jenkins’ “convergence culture” [2006], the push and pull media definition of Negroponte [1995] and the difference between digital natives and digital immigrants [Prensky 2001]. The second paragraph deals with use and consumption of digital media between young and adults from the computer use to mobile-phone and portable gaming device. In particular the mobile-phone seems to be an important medium to be online in every place and every time: it allows people to take and share photos, video, text and so on. This brings us to the third paragraph where I discuss mobility and applications: following Anderson [2010] the desktop is replaced with the webtop or web-applications that do not require a browser to be used. This is particularly evident for recent mobile devices as iPhone and iPad. Convergence and mobility allow people to share content in every time: yet ten years ago people used to share digital information (file-sharing) as video, music and text, by illegal channels such as Napster, without knowing who uploaded that on the Web. The Web 1.0 phase was characterized by an “anonymous dimension”. Instead, the current Web allows people to share information about their own life, publishing on social media, freely, their own photo, video, text, with real name and surname (life-sharing). At the center of the Web is the “ego”, the user. In the fifth chapter I analyze three social media that are currently catching up people’s attention Facebook, YouTube, Twitter – and I try to explain how they make possible to users to share culture and frame of their life. At the end I spent some words about piracy and privacy issue that social media bring up.