Politics of Bitcoin in Historical Perspective
* Article: Old Utopias, New Tax Havens: The Politics of Bitcoin in Historical Perspective. By Stefan Eich.
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Abstract
"Cryptocurrencies are frequently framed as future-oriented, technological innovations that decentralize money and thereby liberate it from centralized governance structures and the political tentacles of the state. This is misleading on several counts. First, electronic currencies cannot leave the politics of money behind even where they aim to disavow it. Instead we can understand their impact as a political attempt to depoliticize money. Secondly, the dramatic price swings of cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin challenge their claims to be currencies and place them more persuasively as speculative assets. Ironically, while the preferential tax and regulatory treatment of cryptocurrencies hinges on their nominal status as currencies, their success as speculative assets has undermined precisely such claims. Thirdly, far from heralding a radical break with the past, electronic currencies serve as a reminder of the still unresolved global politics of money of the 1970s. To support these three interrelated theses this chapter places the rise of cryptocurrencies in the historical context of the international politics of money since the 1970s and the response to the Financial Crisis of 2008."
More information
- Book (from the same author): Political Theory of Money from Aristotle to Keynes
- Friedrich August Hayek, Denationalisation of Money, Hobart Papers Special 70 (The Institute of
Economic Affairs, 1976); enlarged version reprinted as Friedrich August Hayek, “The Denationalization of Money: An Analysis of the Theory and Praxis of Concurrent Currencies [1978],” in Good Money, Part II, ed. Stephen Kresge, The Collected Works of F.A. Hayek, Vol. 6 (Liberty Fund, 1999) 128-229.