Bitcoin and the Politics of Non-Political Money

Bitcoin and the Politics of Non-Political Money

An early trope about bitcoin was that it was ‘non-political’ money. That’s a tantalizing notion, given the ugliness of politics. But a monetary system is a social system, technology is people, and open-source software development requires intensive collaboration – particularly around a protocol with strong network effects. When the group is large enough and the subject matter important enough, human relations become politics. I think that is true even when it’s not governmental (read: coercive) power at stake. Bitcoin’s politics burst into public consciousness last week with the “whiny....


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