IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/cnpexx/v27y2022i6p1046-1061.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Bitcoin as a digital commodity

Author

Listed:
  • Tomás N. Rotta
  • Edemilson Paraná

Abstract

The paper demonstrates that Bitcoin is not money but rather a digital commodity that has value but no value-added. We show that both the production of and the speculation with Bitcoin draw from the existing global pool of value-added. By extending the Classical Political Economy approach and the New Interpretation of the labour theory of value to the domain of digital commodities, the paper argues that Bitcoin mining is an automated reproduction process that requires no direct (living) labour and thus creates no new value. Bitcoin, in this regard, is not ‘digital gold’. Between sectors, Bitcoin mining redistributes wealth and value-added already in existence, while Bitcoin miners with more computational power compete to appropriate the mining profits within the blockchain. The Bitcoin blockchain then creates rivalry in both the ownership and the use of the digital commodity through non-legal means. Our approach can be further expanded to the larger domain of automated digital commodities that are reproducible without the expenditure of direct, living labour.

Suggested Citation

  • Tomás N. Rotta & Edemilson Paraná, 2022. "Bitcoin as a digital commodity," New Political Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 27(6), pages 1046-1061, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:cnpexx:v:27:y:2022:i:6:p:1046-1061
    DOI: 10.1080/13563467.2022.2054966
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/13563467.2022.2054966
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/13563467.2022.2054966?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
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Paraná, Edemilson, 2024. "AI as financial infrastructure?," SocArXiv ub92z, Center for Open Science.
    2. Firuze Simay SEZGIN & Caner ÖZDURAK, 2023. "Are Crypto Assets Connected to Real World Shocks? The Nexus Between Terrorist Attacks, Bitcoin and NFTs," Journal of Economic Policy Researches, Istanbul University, Faculty of Economics, vol. 10(1), pages 113-132, January.
    3. Rotta, Tomás N. & Kumar, Rishabh, 2024. "Was Marx right? Development and exploitation in 43 countries, 2000–2014," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 69(C), pages 213-223.

    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:taf:cnpexx:v:27:y:2022:i:6:p:1046-1061. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/cnpe20 .

    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.