IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/jculte/v10y2017i5p462-473.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Cryptocurrencies as market singularities: the strange case of Bitcoin

Author

Listed:
  • Sam Dallyn

Abstract

Since its creation in 2009, the electronic currency Bitcoin has generated volumes of online debate in the business press. While there have been plenty of economic arguments situating it as a financial bubble about to collapse including from Nobel Prize winning economists, its price value has proven to be more durable than many have predicted. To explain this durability, Karpik’s conception of market singularities is used to understand the Bitcoin phenomenon by outlining the beliefs that maintain Bitcoin’s status as a volatile financial asset. Market singularities are markets for particular kinds of goods and services that are of uncertain and incommensurable value. Singularities markets have communities of followers and a distinctive belief system that ascribes value to a particular product, service, or asset. Developing Karpik’s conception, the paper explores the libertarian political belief system that surrounds Bitcoin’s status as a financial asset. I also outline some political tensions within the electronic currency community concerning governance and centralisation.

Suggested Citation

  • 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.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:jculte:v:10:y:2017:i:5:p:462-473
    DOI: 10.1080/17530350.2017.1315541
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/17530350.2017.1315541
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/17530350.2017.1315541?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.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Lucien Karpik, 2010. "Valuing the Unique: The Economics of Singularities," Economics Books, Princeton University Press, edition 1, number 9215.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. 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).
    2. 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.
    3. 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.
    4. Aslanidis, Nektarios & Bariviera, Aurelio F. & López, Óscar G., 2022. "The link between cryptocurrencies and Google Trends attention," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 47(PA).

    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. 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.
    2. Jason Potts & John Hartley, 2015. "How the Social Economy Produces Innovation," Review of Social Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 73(3), pages 263-282, September.
    3. Pollock, Neil & D’Adderio, Luciana, 2012. "Give me a two-by-two matrix and I will create the market: Rankings, graphic visualisations and sociomateriality," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 37(8), pages 565-586.
    4. Gerhard Rainer, 2021. "Geographies of qualification in the global fine wine market," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 53(1), pages 95-112, February.
    5. Julian Hamann & Frerk Blome & Anna Kosmützky, 2022. "Devices of evaluation: Institutionalization and impact—Introduction to the special issue," Research Evaluation, Oxford University Press, vol. 31(4), pages 423-428.
    6. Jean-Marc Touzard & Yuna Chiffoleau & Camille Maffezzoli, 2016. "What Is Local or Global about Wine? An Attempt to Objectivize a Social Construction," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 8(5), pages 1-20, April.
    7. Beckert, Jens & Rössel, Jörg & Schenk, Patrick, 2014. "Wine as a cultural product: Symbolic capital and price formation in the wine field," MPIfG Discussion Paper 14/2, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies.
    8. David A. Harper, 2021. "Entrepreneurial aesthetics," The Review of Austrian Economics, Springer;Society for the Development of Austrian Economics, vol. 34(1), pages 55-80, March.
    9. repec:hal:journl:hal-00782455 is not listed on IDEAS
    10. repec:spo:wpmain:info:hdl:2441/5fb16v625i8vdbgdiskfbht5i5 is not listed on IDEAS
    11. Shailendra Gurjar & Usha Ananthakumar, 2023. "The economics of art: price determinants and returns on investment in Indian paintings," International Journal of Social Economics, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 50(6), pages 839-859, January.
    12. Camille Chaserant & Sophie Harnay, 2013. "The regulation of quality in the market for legal services: Taking the heterogeneity of legal services seriously," European Journal of Comparative Economics, Cattaneo University (LIUC), vol. 10(2), pages 267-291, August.
    13. Mears, Ashley, 2013. "Working it in the fashion market," economic sociology. perspectives and conversations, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies, vol. 15(1), pages 22-28.
    14. Bessy, Christian & Diaz-Bone, Rainer, 2013. "Economics of convention as the socio-economic analysis of law: Christian Bessy interviewed by Rainer Diaz-Bone," economic sociology. perspectives and conversations, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies, vol. 14(2), pages 54-60.
    15. Carter, Elizabeth, 2015. "Constructing quality: Producer power, market organization, and the politics of high value-added markets," MPIfG Discussion Paper 15/9, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies.
    16. Francesco Angelini & Massimiliano Castellani & Lorenzo Zirulia, 2022. "Overconfidence in the art market: a bargaining pricing model with asymmetric disinformation," Economia Politica: Journal of Analytical and Institutional Economics, Springer;Fondazione Edison, vol. 39(3), pages 961-988, October.
    17. Camille Chaserant & Sophie Harnay, 2015. "Self-regulation of the legal profession and quality in the market for legal services: an economic analysis of lawyers’ reputation," European Journal of Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 39(2), pages 431-449, April.
    18. Bouty, Isabelle & Gomez, Marie-Léandre & Drucker-Godard, Carole, 2013. "Maintaining an Institution: the institutional work of Michelin in haute cuisine around the world," ESSEC Working Papers WP1302, ESSEC Research Center, ESSEC Business School.
    19. Jean Samuel Beuscart & Kevin Mellet & Marie Trespeuch, 2016. "Reactivity without Legitimacy? Online Consumer Reviews in the Restaurant Industry," Post-Print hal-03389275, HAL.
    20. Bronk, Richard & Beckert, Jens, 2022. "The instability of preferences: Uncertain futures and the incommensurable and intersubjective nature of value(s)," MPIfG Discussion Paper 22/1, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies.
    21. Amélie Clauzel & Hélène Delacour & Sébastien Liarte, 2019. "When cuisine becomes less haute : The impact of expert ratings on consumers' legitimacy judgments," Post-Print hal-02513471, HAL.
    22. 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.

    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:jculte:v:10:y:2017:i:5:p:462-473. 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/RJCE20 .

    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.