Joshua Rose

The Australian cryptocurrency community exists at the fringe of an international movement intent on disrupting legacy institutions. Preliminary research suggests that adopting cryptographic financial institutions is subversive because they enable circumvention of legacy institutions. However, these cryptographic financial institutions are built upon an ideology that reflects those of the architects of the status quo (legacy financial institutions). I argue that the cryptocurrency community is instead animated by a political struggle for attention, that is, the contested framing and promotion of different forms of relational work.

In other words, debates about the best way to establish and preserve cryptocurrencies as an important institution creates the Australian cryptocurrency community. As people use cryptocurrencies to accrue wealth, they often experience emotional turbulence as prices vacillate. Those who persist through the volatility form communities around variegated strategies for navigating and taking advantage of cryptocurrencies as money, an asset and a type of software. The strategies and practices of community members reveal the extent to which cryptocurrency represents something new, or is a rearticulation of what has come before.