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World monies or money-worlds: A new perspective on cryptocurrencies and their moneyness

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 November 2023

Adam Hayes
Adam Hayes*
Affiliation:
Hebrew University, Israel
*
Corresponding author: Department of Sociology and Anthropology, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Mt. Scopus, Jerusalem 91905, Israel. Email: Adam.Hayes@mail.huji.ac.il.
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Abstract

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This essay makes the case that current debates about the ‘moneyness’ of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are occurring at the incorrect scale. Rather than being some form of transnational digital money to be used alongside or compete with national fiat currencies, I argue that, instead, each cryptocurrency represents its own self-contained ‘money-world’. Put differently, a cryptocurrency is the uniquely specified unit of account and medium of exchange within the socio-technical bounds of its own blockchain. This new perspective can open new lines of intellectual dialogue and inform better policy choices for regulating cryptocurrencies.

Keywords

Bitcoincryptocurrencymoneyblockchain
Type
Essay
Information
Finance and Society , Volume 7 , Issue 2 , 2021 , pp. 130 - 139
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BYCreative Common License - NCCreative Common License - ND
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits noncommercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is unaltered and is properly cited. The written permission of Cambridge University Press must be obtained for commercial re-use or in order to create a derivative work.
Copyright
© 2021 The Author(s)

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