IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/ecanth/v10y2023i1p32-43.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

From money to culture: The practical indeterminacy of Bitcoin's values and temporalities

Author

Listed:
  • Yura Yokoyama

Abstract

Bitcoin, regarded as a decentralized currency of the future as well as a digital gold, faces various challenges, such as scalability, the geographical concentration of mining, its politically informed design and history, its high market volatility, and inequalities in the proportion of accumulation. However, the number of Bitcoin owners has risen exponentially, and relevant socioeconomic and political groups have become increasingly diverse. Consequently, this article argues that what has contributed to the global diffusion of Bitcoin and its embeddedness in different human societies is its practical indeterminacy. Practical indeterminacy characterizes the fundamentally undefinable, indeterminate nature of Bitcoin's value, as it can change its form depending on who it encounters. In terms of temporality, practically indeterminate Bitcoin can urge potential owners and users to compare their pasts and futures, thus driving them to perceive, own, and use Bitcoin for their own purposes. By paying attention to the agency of Bitcoin, practical indeterminacy explains how individuals form their own relations with Bitcoin and how these relations lead to Bitcoin's further sociocultural embeddedness. The proliferation of such a wide range of human–Bitcoin relations shows that Bitcoin is not only monetary but also cultural, as it offers different meanings to users and owners.

Suggested Citation

  • Yura Yokoyama, 2023. "From money to culture: The practical indeterminacy of Bitcoin's values and temporalities," Economic Anthropology, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 10(1), pages 32-43, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:ecanth:v:10:y:2023:i:1:p:32-43
    DOI: 10.1002/sea2.12257
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1002/sea2.12257
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1002/sea2.12257?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Luca Fantacci, 2019. "Cryptocurrencies and the Denationalization of Money," International Journal of Political Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 48(2), pages 105-126, April.
    2. Sam Dallyn, 2017. "Cryptocurrencies as market singularities: the strange case of Bitcoin," Journal of Cultural Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 10(5), pages 462-473, September.
    3. Lucien Karpik, 2010. "Valuing the Unique: The Economics of Singularities," Economics Books, Princeton University Press, edition 1, number 9215.
    4. Jon Baldwin, 2018. "In digital we trust: Bitcoin discourse, digital currencies, and decentralized network fetishism," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 4(1), pages 1-10, December.
    5. Sean Foley & Jonathan R Karlsen & Tālis J Putniņš, 2019. "Sex, Drugs, and Bitcoin: How Much Illegal Activity Is Financed through Cryptocurrencies?," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 32(5), pages 1798-1853.
    6. Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing, 2015. "The Mushroom at the End of the World: On the Possibility of Life in Capitalist Ruins," Economics Books, Princeton University Press, edition 1, number 10581.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Vivien Blanchet & Celine Berrier-Lucas, 2021. "15 ans de recherches sur les transitions socio-écologiques : bilan et propositions," Post-Print hal-04135096, HAL.
    2. Simon Mackenzie, 2022. "Criminology Towards the Metaverse: Cryptocurrency Scams, Grey Economy and the Technosocial," The British Journal of Criminology, Centre for Crime and Justice Studies, vol. 62(6), pages 1537-1552.
    3. Fischer, Edward F., 2017. "Quality and inequality: Taste, value, and power in the third wave coffee market," MPIfG Discussion Paper 17/4, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies.
    4. Lars Hornuf & Paul P. Momtaz & Rachel J. Nam & Ye Yuan, 2023. "Cybercrime on the Ethereum Blockchain," CESifo Working Paper Series 10598, CESifo.
    5. Timothy King & Dimitrios Koutmos & Francesco Saverio Stentella Lopes, 2021. "Cryptocurrency Mining Protocols: A Regulatory and Technological Overview," Palgrave Studies in Financial Services Technology, in: Timothy King & Francesco Saverio Stentella Lopes & Abhishek Srivastav & Jonathan Williams (ed.), Disruptive Technology in Banking and Finance, edition 1, chapter 0, pages 93-134, Palgrave Macmillan.
    6. Julia Reynolds & Leopold Sögner & Martin Wagner, 2021. "Deviations from Triangular Arbitrage Parity in Foreign Exchange and Bitcoin Markets," Central European Journal of Economic Modelling and Econometrics, Central European Journal of Economic Modelling and Econometrics, vol. 13(2), pages 105-146, June.
    7. Jan van Duppen, 2021. "Book review: The Botanical City," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 58(8), pages 1746-1750, June.
    8. David M. Waguespack & Robert Salomon, 2016. "Quality, Subjectivity, and Sustained Superior Performance at the Olympic Games," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 62(1), pages 286-300, January.
    9. Tinglong Dai & Sridhar Tayur, 2022. "Designing AI‐augmented healthcare delivery systems for physician buy‐in and patient acceptance," Production and Operations Management, Production and Operations Management Society, vol. 31(12), pages 4443-4451, December.
    10. Hanna Halaburda & Guillaume Haeringer & Joshua Gans & Neil Gandal, 2022. "The Microeconomics of Cryptocurrencies," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 60(3), pages 971-1013, September.
    11. Corbet, Shaen & Cumming, Douglas J. & Lucey, Brian M. & Peat, Maurice & Vigne, Samuel A., 2020. "The destabilising effects of cryptocurrency cybercriminality," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 191(C).
    12. White, Reilly & Marinakis, Yorgos & Islam, Nazrul & Walsh, Steven, 2020. "Is Bitcoin a currency, a technology-based product, or something else?," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 151(C).
    13. Goodell, John W. & Goutte, Stephane, 2021. "Co-movement of COVID-19 and Bitcoin: Evidence from wavelet coherence analysis," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 38(C).
    14. Meagher, Kate, 2019. "Working in chains: African informal workers and global value chains," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 91590, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    15. Itay Goldstein & Wei Jiang & G Andrew Karolyi, 2019. "To FinTech and Beyond," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 32(5), pages 1647-1661.
    16. Febrero-Bande, Manuel & González-Manteiga, Wenceslao & Prallon, Brenda & Saporito, Yuri F., 2023. "Functional classification of bitcoin addresses," Computational Statistics & Data Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 181(C).
    17. Vesa Pursiainen & Jan Toczynski, 2023. "Retail Investors’ Cryptocurrency Investments," Swiss Finance Institute Research Paper Series 23-51, Swiss Finance Institute.
    18. Hervé Charmettant & Yvan Renou, 2021. "Cooperative conversion and communalization: Closely observed interactions between the material and the mental," Annals of Public and Cooperative Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 92(1), pages 55-77, March.
    19. Miklesh Prasad Yadav & Atul Kumar & Vidhi Tyagi, 2023. "Adaptive Market Hypothesis and Cointegration: An Evidence of the Cryptocurrency Market," Contemporary Studies in Economic and Financial Analysis, in: Smart Analytics, Artificial Intelligence and Sustainable Performance Management in a Global Digitalised Economy, volume 110, pages 27-43, Emerald Group Publishing Limited.
    20. Chao Liang & Yaojie Zhang & Xiafei Li & Feng Ma, 2022. "Which predictor is more predictive for Bitcoin volatility? And why?," International Journal of Finance & Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 27(2), pages 1947-1961, April.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:ecanth:v:10:y:2023:i:1:p:32-43. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/journal.asp?ref=2330-4847 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.