Prefigurative Post-Politics as Strategy:The Case of Government-Led Blockchain Projects

Critically engaging with literature on post-politics, blockchain and algorithmic governance, and drawing also on knowledge gained from undertaking a three-year empirical study, the purpose of this article is to better understand the transformative capacity of government-led blockchain projects. Analysis of a diversity of empirical material, which was guided by a digital ethnography approach, is used to support the furthering of the existing debate on the nature of the post-political as a condition and/or strategy. Through these theoretical and empirical explorations, the article concludes that while the post-political represents a contingent political strategy by governmental actors, it could potentially impose an algorithmically enforced post-political ‘condition’ for the citizen. It is argued that the design, features and mechanisms of government-led projects are deliberately and strategically used to delimit a citizens’ political agency. In order to address this scenario, we argue that there is a need not only to analyse and contribute to the algorithmic design of blockchain projects (i.e. the affordances and constraints they set), but also to the metapolitical narrative underpinning them (i.e. the political imaginaries underlying the various government-led projects)

Classification of cryptocurrency coins and tokens by the dynamics of their market capitalisations

We empirically verify that the market capitalisations of coins and tokens in the cryptocurrency universe follow power-law distributions with significantly different values, with the tail exponent falling between 0.5 and 0.7 for coins, and between 1.0 and 1.3 for tokens. We provide a rationale for this, based on a simple proportional growth with birth & death model previously employed to describe the size distribution of firms, cities, webpages, etc. We empirically validate the model and its main predictions, in terms of proportional growth (Gibrat's law) of the coins and tokens. Estimating the main parameters of the model, the theoretical predictions for the power-law exponents of coin and token distributions are in remarkable agreement with the empirical estimations, given the simplicity of the model. Our results clearly characterize coins as being "entrenched incumbents" and tokens as an "explosive immature ecosystem", largely due to massive and exuberant Initial Coin Offering activity in the token space. The theory predicts that the exponent for tokens should converge to 1 in the future, reflecting a more reasonable rate of new entrants associated with genuine technological innovations

Trends in crypto-currencies and blockchain technologies: A monetary theory and regulation perspective

The internet era has generated a requirement for low cost, anonymous and rapidly verifiable transactions to be used for online barter, and fast settling money have emerged as a consequence. For the most part, e-money has fulfilled this role, but the last few years have seen two new types of money emerge. Centralised virtual currencies, usually for the purpose of transacting in social and gaming economies, and crypto-currencies, which aim to eliminate the need for financial intermediaries by offering direct peer-to-peer online payments. We describe the historical context which led to the development of these currencies and some modern and recent trends in their uptake, in terms of both usage in the real economy and as investment products. As these currencies are purely digital constructs, with no government or local authority backing, we then discuss them in the context of monetary theory, in order to determine how they may be have value under each. Finally, we provide an overview of the state of regulatory readiness in terms of dealing with transactions in these currencies in various regions of the world

The political imaginaries of blockchain projects: discerning the expressions of an emerging ecosystem

There is a wealth of information, hype around, and research into blockchain’s ‘disruptive’ and ‘transformative’ potential concerning every industry. However, there is an absence of scholarly attention given to identifying and analyzing the political premises and consequences of blockchain projects. Through digital ethnography and participatory action research, this article shows how blockchain experiments personify ‘prefigurative politics’ by design: they embody the politics and power structures which they want to enable in society. By showing how these prefigurative embodiments are informed and determined by the underlying political imaginaries, the article proposes a basic typology of blockchain projects. Furthermore, it outlines a frame to question, cluster, and analyze the expressions of political imaginaries intrinsic to the design and operationalization of blockchain projects on three analytic levels: users, intermediaries, and institutions.</p

Сryptocurrency and Internet of Things: Problems of Implementation and Realization

IoT (Internet of Things) requires the implementation of digital encryption of information, transaction support and recording of all events for security. It can provide cryptocurrencies protocols with adding an additional possibility of payments. This opportunity is not so much demanded at the hardware level as in the software implementation. We have discovered that IoT devices are widely used for illegal purposes for trusts or network consolidated attacks, and virtually no legal and useful ways of using their hardware-distributed capabilities. Standardization and compatibility in IOT network should become the main tools for the possibility of introducing new solutions, testing their utility, performance and safety. The standardization of a new approach to interactive protocols in the IOT network and the Internet with a finance approach is now inevitable. We need new IEEE standards for cryptocurrencies and IoT functioning. They must include standards for protocol functioning, transaction validation and saving, privacy and security support. Cryptocurrencies and IoT interaction diagram were proposed. The IoT network devices technology will be in the future instance of the smart class of digital-physical systems, which also encompasses technologies such as smart homes, intelligent transportation systems, smart cities etc. The financial aspect for purchasing software, services, solutions and sales of the resulting benefits will complement this network with additional capabilities. The development of standards for the financial level of functioning is also necessary.IoT (Internet of Things) requires the implementation of digital encryption of information, transaction support and recording of all events for security. It can provide cryptocurrencies protocols with adding an additional possibility of payments. This opportunity is not so much demanded at the hardware level as in the software implementation. We have discovered that IoT devices are widely used for illegal purposes for trusts or network consolidated attacks, and virtually no legal and useful ways of using their hardware-distributed capabilities. Standardization and compatibility in IOT network should become the main tools for the possibility of introducing new solutions, testing their utility, performance and safety. The standardization of a new approach to interactive protocols in the IOT network and the Internet with a finance approach is now inevitable. We need new IEEE standards for cryptocurrencies and IoT functioning. They must include standards for protocol functioning, transaction validation and saving, privacy and security support. Cryptocurrencies and IoT interaction diagram were proposed. The IoT network devices technology will be in the future instance of the smart class of digital-physical systems, which also encompasses technologies such as smart homes, intelligent transportation systems, smart cities etc. The financial aspect for purchasing software, services, solutions and sales of the resulting benefits will complement this network with additional capabilities. The development of standards for the financial level of functioning is also necessary