Political economy entanglements of cryptocurrency

A few interesting news items in the past twenty-four hours illustrate the far-reaching impact of blockchain technology and its growing entanglement with structural political and economic realities. Kosovo has moved to ban cryptocurrency mining within its borders, in the face of a countrywide energy crisis. Meanwhile, The Guardian reports that the ongoing political unrest in Kazakhstan has led to a crisis for global bitcoin mining, as the government shuts down the nation’s internet backbone to attempt to thwart protesters’ communications. Finally, Casey Newton’s Platformer blog is running a piece on Signal’s imminent foray into cryptocurrency integration: Newton’s take is that this disruption is needless provocation of US authorities and may result in finally coalescing sufficient political will to outlaw end-to-end encryption outright, a move for which many voices worldwide have long been advocating.

Whatever the outcome of these specific dossiers, the data points are fast accumulating to support the claim that blockchain has broken through to mainstream status: going forward, it will be seen as a key variable shaping our future, alongside such old twentieth century factors as the right to free expression or the price of oil.