Name: Politics of Bitcoin
ISBN: 9781517901806

Politics of Bitcoin

Since its introduction in 2009, Bitcoin has been widely promoted as a digital currency that will revolutionize everything from online commerce to the nation-state. Yet supporters of Bitcoin and its blockchain technology subscribe to a form of cyberlibertarianism that depends to a surprising extent on far-right political thought. The Politics of Bitcoin exposes how much of the economic and political thought on which this cryptocurrency is based emerges from ideas that travel the gamut, from Milton Friedman, F.A. Hayek, and Ludwig von Mises to Federal Reserve conspiracy theorists. Forerunners: Ideas First is a thought-in-process series of breakthrough digital publications. Written between fresh ideas and finished books, Forerunners draws on scholarly work initiated in notable blogs, social media, conference plenaries, journal articles, and the synergy of academic exchange. This is gray literature publishing: where intense thinking, change, and speculation take place in scholarship.

What Hacker News says

p4bl0Aug 2022

> some nerds playing around with cryptography to try and create a new trustless financial system

Okay, this is really not what's at play here. I would highly encourage you to read The Politics of Bitcoin by David Golumbia, and will not participate further in this discussion with someone who has personal investments at stakes and who can therefore not be neutral and is already using fallacious arguments (no one said "broken link = broken platform", you're the one making this up) and ad hominem accusations.

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wmfJan 2022

Occasionally someone discusses the idea of a leftist cryptocurrency but pretty much by definition you can't get rich from that so no one cares. Deflationary libertarian cryptos outcompete all others in the market so survivorship bias makes it look like crypto is inherently right-leaning. I guess really the current social/market/media/regulatory environment is easier to exploit by the right.

For a deeper consideration of this topic check out David Golumbia's book The Politics of Bitcoin.

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ZababaNov 2021

I liked the Haskell content on his blog, I'm not sure about his new political line against crypto. This started a bit more than a year ago with this post https://www.stephendiehl.com/posts/crypto.html, which ends on a bizarre claim about a link between crypto and right-wing extremism:

> David Golumbia’s excellent book The Politics of Bitcoin: Software as Right-Wing Extremism outlines the rabbit-hole effect that this ecosystem is having on software engineers onboarding them into deeper forms of right-wing extremism.

This is not crypto-specific, I'd rather read software blogs than political blogs in general. In the spirit of Drew DeVault (https://drewdevault.com/2021/04/26/Cryptocurrency-is-a-disas...), I'll disclose my stake in cryptocurrency: I currently own ~1000€ in Bitcoin, that I bought for something like 800€ earlier in the year. Those ~200€ are the only profit I made on crypto. I use Monero from time to time for stuff where Monero is useful.

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eschatonJun 2021

People wondering why I say this need to read “The Politics of Bitcoin: Software as Right-Wing Extremism” by David Golumbia and “Attack of the 50 Foot Blockchain” by David Gerard. This stuff is based on crackpot economics so it’s inherently a scam.

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gwbas1cJan 2021

Take a look at the book "The Politics of Bitcoin: Software as Right-Wing Extremism," https://www.amazon.com/Politics-Bitcoin-Right-Wing-Extremism...

David Columbia, the author, provides evidence of right-wing associations with cryptocurrency.

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xhrpostDec 2018

The Obstacle is the Way (somewhat encouraging)

The Art of Empathy (very interesting)

The Three Body Problem (good)

The Startup Way (decent)

The Politics of Bitcoin (short but interesting)

Why We Sleep (very much worth it)