Book Review: DuPont, Q. (2019) Cryptocurrencies and Blockchains Polity

摘要

A deluge in books published on cryptocurrencies, and their underlying block-chain technologies, has mirrored the boom and bust of interest in Bitcoin and its rollercoaster US dollar price. Many of these titles form little more than 'get rich quick' and techno-solutionist accounts written by, and for, technology evangelists, or industry practitioners with 'skin in the game'. Deviating from this flood of largely uncritical publications is a small, but growing, scholarly literature that offers much needed clarity and nuance of the block-chain and cryptocurrency phenomenon. These academic titles are notable for their interdisciplinary character. While economists have commanded (and still command!) much media commentary on Bitcoin dollar price swings; anthropologists (Brunton, 2019), computer scientists (Narayanan et al., 2016), as well as legal scholars (de Filippi & Wright, 2018; Herian, 2018; Werbach, 2018), and media studies scholars (Golumbia, 2016) have all provided insightful analyses.