{"id":4398,"date":"2019-05-20T12:58:37","date_gmt":"2019-05-20T11:58:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newmoneyreview.com\/?p=4398"},"modified":"2019-08-13T08:41:44","modified_gmt":"2019-08-13T07:41:44","slug":"the-hidden-politics-of-cryptocurrencies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newmoneyreview.com\/index.php\/2019\/05\/20\/the-hidden-politics-of-cryptocurrencies\/","title":{"rendered":"The hidden politics of cryptocurrencies"},"content":{"rendered":"

Cryptocurrency networks are intensely political. But it\u2019s often fiendishly hard to work out how those politics operate.<\/p>\n

Who made the decision to split the ethereum network in 2016<\/a>, or to hive off bitcoin cash from bitcoin in 2017<\/a>?<\/p>\n

Can governance problems be addressed by industry codes<\/a>, or should software developers carry legal responsibility as fiduciaries<\/a>?<\/p>\n

According to Donald MacKenzie<\/a>, professor of sociology at the University of Edinburgh and the guest in our latest podcast<\/a>, many of cryptocurrencies\u2019 political problems remain open.<\/p>\n

\u201cA new cryptocurrency is a piece of technological design work\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In his academic work, MacKenzie looks at the political consequences of apparently mundane choices regarding computer hardware and programming languages.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen someone sets up a cryptocurrency what they are doing is a piece of technological design work,\u201d MacKenzie tells listeners during the podcast.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m interested in how Satoshi Nakamoto solved the crucial technical problem of achieving consensus in a decentralised system, where some of the actors can be assumed to be bad.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to MacKenzie, who trained as an applied mathematician before devoting his research efforts to sociology, the pseudonymous inventor(s) of the first cryptocurrency, bitcoin, deserve great credit.<\/p>\n

\u201cProof-of-work is a conceptually brilliant idea,\u201d says MacKenzie.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe problem Satoshi set out to solve was a very difficult one. Unfortunately, what has also become clear is that it is an extraordinarily energy-intensive way of solving the problem.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe centralising and decentralising forces are in permanent tension\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Aside from the rising energy costs of cryptocurrency mining, this activity has also changed from an amateur pastime to a highly specialised form of computing, dependent on specially designed chips.<\/p>\n

This has created an unstable balance between network participants, says MacKenzie.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe centralising forces and the decentralising forces are in a kind of permanent tension,\u201d he says in the podcast.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou have a decentralised model that in actual practice can become a lot more centralised than one might imagine: both at the level of the core software developers and at the level of mining.\u201d<\/p>\n

More broadly, says MacKenzie, there are always political consequences of apparently neutral technical decisions, such as those regarding software protocols.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s very commonly the case that apparently technical design decisions\u2014say, what should be the block size in bitcoin, or should a cryptocurrency be designed around bitcoin-style proof of work\u2014are simultaneously political. They involve vested interests, as well as cultural and political goals,\u201d MacKenzie says.<\/p>\n

\u201cBitcoin has become a fairly conservative system\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Are the disputes over bitcoin\u2019s protocol now over?<\/p>\n

Perhaps surprisingly, MacKenzie says he doesn\u2019t expect further major upheavals in the most widely traded cryptocurrency, at least at the protocol level.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy sense is that bitcoin has become a fairly conservative system. It\u2019s difficult to anticipate any radical change in its design,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

But the same is not true for other cryptocurrencies, whose protocols may still see significant change, says MacKenzie.<\/p>\n

\u201cEthereum seems to more in flux. A move from proof-of-work to proof-of-stake would be very interesting. But there\u2019s also the issue of the fundamental security of proof-of-stake. By comparison, proof-of-work seems pretty robust.\u201d<\/p>\n

MacKenzie has written extensively on the technology of high-frequency trading (HFT). On the face of it, bitcoin is the antithesis of HFT.<\/p>\n

\u201cBitcoin was designed to be slow finance\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u201cBitcoin was designed to be slow finance\u2014like the slow food movement\u2014precisely to achieve this goal of global decentralisation,\u201d says MacKenzie. \u201cIt takes time for blocks to percolate through the network.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bitcoin blocks (files of transaction data) are processed around every ten minutes. By contrast, HFT operates at close to the speed of light.<\/p>\n

But under the surface both HFT and cryptocurrencies are examples of the application of the latest technology to financial markets, he adds.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is a curious structural structural parallel between the world of high-frequency trading and bitcoin. In both cases you\u2019ve got a kind of arms race. In HFT it\u2019s a speed race. In the case of bitcoin mining it\u2019s a computational capacity race. But in each case there\u2019s a reward available. In the case of bitcoin, it\u2019s the block reward. In HFT it\u2019s the opportunities for arbitrage.\u201d<\/p>\n

MacKenzie finishes his comments on the podcast by returning to cryptocurrency protocols. He reminds listeners of the origins of cryptocurrencies as a protest movement.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople have this democratic idea\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Popular support, he suggests, may be tied to the principle that the users of these new forms of money should have some kind of say in how they operate.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople have this democratic idea\u2014that in a properly designed cryptocurrency, ordinary users should be able to do the mining and earn the rewards. Hence there have been attempts to build ASIC-resistant currencies.\u201d<\/p>\n

ASIC-resistant cryptocurrencies are those in which standard computer chips, rather than expensive, specialist application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs), are used in the mining process.<\/p>\n

And so, in MacKenzie\u2019s view, there are a few key questions for analysts to focus on as cryptocurrencies continue to evolve.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf the world of cryptocurrencies does get its momentum back, for me the key question will be which design wins out,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\u201cWill it be bitcoin-style proof-of-work or proof-of stake? Will people succeed in making ASIC-resistant currencies mainstream, or will industrial-scale mining continue to dominate?\u201d<\/p>\n

Sign up here<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0for New Money Review\u2019s monthly content updates\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Cryptocurrency networks are intensely political. But it\u2019s often fiendishly hard to work out how those politics operate. Who made the decision to split the ethereum network in 2016, or to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":4400,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1013,1053,1026,1011],"tags":[1137,1034,1105,1451,1450,1452,1116],"class_list":{"0":"post-4398","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-account","8":"category-featured-1","9":"category-latest-slider","10":"category-value","11":"tag-asic","12":"tag-bitcoin","13":"tag-bitcoin-cash","14":"tag-core-developers","15":"tag-donald-mackenzie","16":"tag-hft","17":"tag-mining"},"yoast_head":"\nThe hidden politics of cryptocurrencies - New Money Review<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/newmoneyreview.com\/index.php\/2019\/05\/20\/the-hidden-politics-of-cryptocurrencies\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_GB\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The hidden politics of cryptocurrencies - New Money Review\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Cryptocurrency networks are intensely political. 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