Paper short abstract:

Cryptocurrencies lead to the ‘bitcoin bro’-investor figure. Narratives around them centre rational behaviour when they are in fact highly affective. In their attempts to navigate this contrast, investors use different strategies, which is explored through an anthropological lens.

Paper long abstract:

With the advent of cryptocurrencies, financial and blockchain imaginaries became intertwined. A common thread here is a new type of neoliberal retail investor figure – the ‘bitcoin bro’, a male digital native who meets the responsibility of managing wealth head-on by using blockchain technology, like bitcoin. They are supposed to make rational decisions to manage risk and uncertainty. Contrarily, they are aware that they operate on personal networks of trust to mitigate these fears, which demonstrates that economic activity is fundamentally affective.

However, how these affective dynamics play out and shape narratives of the investor figure is underexplored. To fill this gap, I explore the emotional scripts ‘bitcoin bros’ use to negotiate imaginaries of blockchain technology through an anthropological lens. I carry out discourse analysis on the reddit forum r/wallstreetbets that offers trading-advice combined with collaborative ethnographic research featuring visualisations of interlocutors’ emotional landscapes.

Many of the investors make their emotions explicit and try to find ways to balance them with their task of wealth management. Different strategies for ‘coping’ with their emotions are the use of humour, emphasis on conforming with the figure, integrating that figure into one’s narrative of self, and focusing on the shared imaginaries in what I argue are ‘financial communities of care’.

Looking into affective aspects of the investor figure in blockchain imaginaries goes beyond economic activity to the feelings behind them. Understanding this generates insights into strategies to deal with financial pressure and, the risks and benefits of techno-financial interaction.

Paper short abstract:

Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) have emerged in recent years as tokens which can be tied to digital assets in order to trace, authenticate and sell online media. This paper presents a review of these tokens from an art and economic perspective in anthropology.

Paper long abstract:

In recent years, cryptocurrencies have emerged as alternatives to traditional money. Cryptocurrency technologies have more recently been adapted to produce unique Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) which can trace the provenance and ownership of digital media. These tokens sell in huge volumes online. The digital communities which support NFTs are similarly vast and exist in both art and economic spheres.

This paper explores some of the communities which support NFTs from various angles. While these tokens have generated storms of media attention in recent years, it aims to show that there are many aspects to both the technologies and beliefs behind NFTs which are grounded in precedent social movements, cryptographic techniques, and attitudes in art and economics.

The history of blockchain is set within the context of 1990s punk-cryptography groups. The digitisation of many themes found in the study of physical-world phenomena, such as the notion of an object biography, is recognised. In providing a restricted presence for art to exist on a blockchain, NFTs also recall Benjamin’s concept of the aura.

Moving to the online communities which support NFTs, it is argued that NFTs possess an affective force among these groups, allowing them to endure as enchanted digital sites of future promises, despite risks of deception and scams which pose a constant threat.

This paper draws on a range of ethnographic methods including digital fieldwork, semi-structured interviewing, and web-scraping, as well as making an NFT out of the study's "Participant Information Sheet", to consider the value and values behind NFTs.

Paper short abstract:

The metaverse will start blurring the barriers between the actual and virtual worlds. Transparency in governance and financial management between the actual and virtual worlds is a prerequisite for a fusion of two worlds which can be realized by leveraging blockchain and its related technologies.

Paper long abstract:

The growth of social gaming and the rise of the metaverse are eroding the boundaries between the physical and virtual worlds. Previously, we had distinct platforms for social interaction, commerce, and gaming, but the metaverse will begin to integrate these disparate platforms into one, regardless of whether its presence is physical or virtual. Unifying physical and virtual platforms demands a transparent governance system and a secure bridge for financial transactions and asset management between the two realms.

We suggest that blockchain technology has the potential to be a catalyst for bringing the metaverse to life. Today, blockchain technology encompasses cryptocurrency, NFTs, and smart contracts. The design of transparent governance mechanisms that span the metaverse and the actual world can be accelerated through the use of smart contracts that can execute logic when specific criterias are satisfied. Additionally, users can conduct financial transactions and control ownership of assets, whether physical or virtual, using cryptocurrency and NFTs.

The concept can be expanded to a extended-reality environment in which some people meet in person while others collaborate virtually via technology tools such as HoloLens developed by Activision Blizzard. They can work together to build communities and conduct business within the metaverse environment. It has the potential to create new opportunities for the service sector, the gaming industry, and a variety of other industries while maintaining complete transparency, autonomy, security, and most importantly decentralization.

Paper short abstract:

Existing digital technologies - AI, blockchain/DLT, DAOs - already enable completely autonomous decision-making systems. What would these look like if applied to politics? How could they be embedded in social systems? And how should we walk on the fine line between utopia and dystopia?

Paper long abstract:

According to a recent survey, 25% of respondents would prefer political decisions to be made by AI rather than flesh-and-blood politicians. Such a development would mark the end of an increasing mechanization of social processes, for which "digital" technologies such as AI and distributed ledgers (DLT) are primarily responsible. Regarding the impact that algorithms and digital automatisms have on our everyday life, one could argue that this may already have heralded the end of the anthropocene and the beginning of a posthuman age might be ahead.

The social sciences are currently discussing the influence of digitization on social decision-making through "algorithmic governance" in practical politics - with corresponding questions in the area of legitimacy and ethical justifiability of such, already practiced advances. In accordance to the much-cited "Internet of Things", this could lead to a "Governance of Things". The paper attempts to shed light on the technical nature of such an independent system. While AI is relevant for decision input, DLT methods can be used for decision execution. So-called "DAOs"are already applied in the economic sphere for the participation of autonomous systems as independent actors. However, a corresponding use in social decision-making raises new questions regarding legitimacy and representation and thus also about the relevance of human decision-making in the digital age: Which future is desirable and which development lead us into a dystopia? To what extent is it legitimate to expand technical achievements and push ahead with digital change? What are the challenges and how to face them?