Cryptocurrencies are quickly being adopted by many cultural narratives around the world.
The most famous Ur-coin, Bitcoin, clearly came out of the post-government, libertarian, off-shore pirate narrative that thrives on the Internet. Bitcoin narratives often contract the “rugged beauty” of the Bitcoin gold standard to the bad old “fiat” currency, AKA, normal money. These loaded terms are right out of libertarian politics, and signal that BC is about getting away from government and authority.
While the Bitcoinistas may think cryptocurrency technology defines their narrative, we know that is not true. I have pointed out the development of multiple narratives built on the same technology, including Dogecoin, which is consciously the “not Bitcoin” cryptocurrency.
It is quite telling that a technology that started with an antigovernment, outlaw, narrative is now being picked up by numerous nationalist factions, grafting their own stories and goals onto the same technology.
One of the earliest cases, and also one of the most interesting, is Mazacoin, the currency of the Lakota Nation. This case clearly shows the independence of the technology and the cultural narrative employing it: the Lakota nationalist theme is centuries old.
The mostly imaginary Serene Republic of Venice is imagining independence, and possibly a CryptoDucat. The maybe soon independent Scotland is considering a cryptocurrency (Scotcoin).
Existing nation states are also experiencing variations of this theme, especially where existing economic regimes have imposed punishing austerity narratives on the people. We see SpainCoin, which offers financial liquidity to the parched people of Spain, and Auroracoin, which offers succor to impoverished Icelanders. (Warning note: having been crushed by hot money, Iceland has extremely strict capital controls, under which the government considers the use of cyptocurrencies mostly illegal.)
These cases are interesting, as they employ anti-central bank, populist rhetoric to support what are essentially alternative national currency schemes. Students of US history will recognize the similarity to the nineteenth century populist “free silver” movement. I wonder if an economic historian wouldn’t see cryptocurrencies as playing the role of gold for gold bugs and silver for free silver enthusiasts. This technology is very malleable, much more flexible than metal-based currencies.
In all these cases, we see the cryptocurrencies being deployed pretty much as “fiat” currencies, issued by and intended for use within a specific sovereignty. Technically, there is no reason at all not to do this, the cryptocurrencies work just as well if minted by a national authority as by “some guys” on the Internet. But boy-oh-boy, its a totally different narrative. These cryptocurrencies are not aimed at post-national, offshore, freebooting, but rather at nation building and freedom from international and offshore capitalists (who, for example, impose austerity narratives).
As the Shibes might say, “Such Narrative. Much Irony.”
While regulators have been lenient toward many of these experiments, there are limits to what the real world will tolerate. Case in point, the amusing cryptocurrency dubbed Coinye West was not amusing to Kanye, whose battalion of lawyers effectively crushed it. Of course, it is only a matter of time before major celebrities begin to issue their own cryptocurrencies. (BieberCoins, anyone?)
Robert McGrath's Blog 