Crypto Crisis, and Community


Book Description

In the complex tapestry of our modern world, where economic landscapes constantly shift and evolve, three seemingly disparate phenomena have emerged as defining narratives of our time: cryptocurrencies, the Syrian refugee crisis, and the rise of municipal startups. These seemingly unrelated forces have converged to create a fascinating and intricate story of economic development, resilience, and innovation. In this book, we embark on a journey to unravel the intricate threads that connect these three distinct aspects of our global reality and shed light on the unique opportunities and challenges they present. Cryptocurrencies, often heralded as the future of finance, have disrupted traditional economic systems and ignited a revolution in the way we perceive and transact value. While their origins can be traced back to the early 21st century, their impact on global economies has been nothing short of revolutionary. As we explore the realm of cryptocurrencies, we will delve into their potential to democratise finance, mitigate financial inequality, and foster innovative solutions in the face of economic adversity. In stark contrast, the Syrian refugee crisis represents one of the most pressing humanitarian challenges of our time. Millions of displaced individuals have sought refuge in neighbouring countries and beyond, leading to an unprecedented strain on economies and infrastructure. Yet, amidst the adversity, stories of resilience and entrepreneurial spirit have emerged. The Syrian diaspora, driven by a relentless pursuit of stability, has contributed to local economies through innovative business ventures. We will examine these stories of hope and the transformative role of displaced communities in host nations. Amid these global narratives, the emergence of municipal startups has quietly reshaped the way cities are managed and services are delivered. These innovative ventures, driven by a desire to address pressing urban challenges, have the potential to redefine the relationship between local governments, businesses, and communities. Through case studies and real-world examples, we will explore how municipal startups are harnessing technology and community-driven solutions to improve urban living standards and foster economic growth. As we embark on this exploration of interconnected economic developments, we will uncover the underlying themes that bind these seemingly disparate threads together. Through the lens of cryptocurrencies, the lens of the Syrian refugee crisis, and the lens of municipal startups, we will gain insights into the evolving dynamics of our global economy, the resilience of human spirit in times of adversity, and the untapped potential of community-driven innovation. In doing so, we will come to understand how these forces converge to shape the economic landscape of our world today, and the opportunities they present for a more equitable and prosperous future.




Data Money


Book Description

The cryptocurrency world has transformed in a few short years from a niche subculture to a parallel economic universe, reaching a market capitalization of more than $2.5 trillion in 2021 before plummeting in 2022. For their advocates, cryptocurrencies represent a revolution of world-historical significance. To critics, crypto is more of a speculative tool than a true currency. How do tens of thousands of financial actors make these new monies? What forces give cryptocurrencies their value—or take it away? And what does crypto’s spectacular ascent reveal about the nature of money? In this groundbreaking ethnographic analysis of crypto economies and their global markets and communities, Koray Caliskan offers an inside view of how cryptocurrencies are made and traded. He argues that cryptocurrency should be understood as “data money,” a historically novel money type, created as the right to send data privately over an accounting infrastructure called blockchain. Drawing on two years of fieldwork among global cryptocurrency communities and in crypto markets, Caliskan makes visible the production principles of cryptocurrencies and explores how crypto exchanges work from within. He explains why and how we have been misunderstanding, underregulating, and improperly taxing crypto exchanges and actors. He also proposes a radically new way to make sense of new finance and its actors. An invaluable book for all readers seeking to understand cryptocurrency, Data Money sheds new light on a profound transformation of finance and its possible future trajectories.




Regulating the Crypto Economy


Book Description

This book focuses on the building of a crypto economy as an alternative economic space and discusses how the crypto economy should be governed. The crypto economy is examined in its productive and financialised aspects, in order to distil the need for governance in this economic space. The author argues that it is imperative for regulatory policy to develop the economic governance of the blockchain-based business model, in order to facilitate economic mobilisation and wealth creation. The regulatory framework should cater for a new and unique enterprise organisational law and the fund-raising and financing of blockchain-based development projects. Such a regulatory framework is crucially enabling in nature and consistent with the tenets of regulatory capitalism. Further, the book acknowledges the rising importance of private monetary orders in the crypto economy and native payment systems that do not rely on conventional institutions for value transfer. A regulatory blueprint is proposed for governing such monetary orders as 'commons' governance. The rise of Decentralised Finance and other financial innovations in the crypto economy are also discussed, and the book suggests a framework for regulatory consideration in this dynamic landscape in order to meet a balance of public interest objectives and private interests. By setting out a reform agenda in relation to economic and financial governance in the crypto economy, this forward-looking work argues for the extension of 'regulatory capitalism' to this perceived 'wild west' of an alternative economic space. It advances the message that an innovative regulatory agenda is needed to account for the economically disruptive and technologically transformative developments brought about by the crypto economy.




Another Economy is Possible


Book Description

Throughout the Western world, governments and financial elites responded to the financial crisis of 2008 by trying to restore the conditions of business as usual, but the economic, social and human damage inflicted by the crisis has given rise to a reconsideration of the inevitability of unfettered capitalism as a fact of life. A number of economic practices and organizations emerged in Europe and the United States that embodied alternative values: the value of life over the value of money; the effectiveness of cooperation over cut-throat competition; the social responsibility of corporations and responsible regulation by governments over the short-term speculative strategies that brought the economy to the brink of catastrophe. This book examines the blossoming of innovative new experiments in organizing work and life that emerged in the wake of the financial crisis: cooperatives, barter networks, ethical banking, community currencies, shared time banks, solidarity networks, sharing of goods, non-monetary transactions, etc., experiments that paved the way for the emergence of a sharing economy in all domains of activity oriented toward the satisfaction of human needs. Other innovations included the creation of cryptographic virtual currencies, epitomized by bitcoin, which blended a libertarian, entrepreneurial spirit with information technology to provide an alternative to standard forms of currency. On the basis of a cross-cultural analysis of alternative economic practices, this book develops an important theoretical argument: that the economy, as a human practice, is shaped by culture, and that the diversity of cultures, as revealed in a time of crisis, implies the possibility of different economies depending on the values and power relations that define economic institutions. This book will be of great interest to students and scholars in sociology, economics and the social sciences generally, and to anyone who wishes to understand how our societies and economies are changing today.




Handbook of Research on Blockchain Technology


Book Description

Handbook of Research on Blockchain Technology presents the latest information on the adaptation and implementation of Blockchain technologies in real world business, scientific, healthcare and biomedical applications. The book's editors present the rapid advancements in existing business models by applying Blockchain techniques. Novel architectural solutions in the deployment of Blockchain comprise the core aspects of this book. Several use cases with IoT, biomedical engineering, and smart cities are also incorporated. As Blockchain is a relatively new technology that exploits decentralized networks and is used in many sectors for reliable, cost-effective and rapid business transactions, this book is a welcomed addition on existing knowledge. Financial services, retail, insurance, logistics, supply chain, public sectors and biomedical industries are now investing in Blockchain research and technologies for their business growth. Blockchain prevents double spending in financial transactions without the need of a trusted authority or central server. It is a decentralized ledger platform that facilitates verifiable transactions between parties in a secure and smart way. Presents the evolution of blockchain, from fundamental theories, to present forms Explains the concepts of blockchain related to cloud/edge computing, smart healthcare, smart cities and Internet of Things (IoT) Provides complete coverage of the various tools, platforms and techniques used in blockchain Explores smart contract tools and consensus algorithms Covers a variety of applications with real world case studies in areas such as biomedical engineering, supply chain management, and tracking of goods and delivery




The Politics of Bitcoin


Book Description

Since its introduction in 2009, Bitcoin has been widely promoted as a digital currency that will revolutionize everything from online commerce to the nation-state. Yet supporters of Bitcoin and its blockchain technology subscribe to a form of cyberlibertarianism that depends to a surprising extent on far-right political thought. The Politics of Bitcoin exposes how much of the economic and political thought on which this cryptocurrency is based emerges from ideas that travel the gamut, from Milton Friedman, F.A. Hayek, and Ludwig von Mises to Federal Reserve conspiracy theorists. Forerunners: Ideas First is a thought-in-process series of breakthrough digital publications. Written between fresh ideas and finished books, Forerunners draws on scholarly work initiated in notable blogs, social media, conference plenaries, journal articles, and the synergy of academic exchange. This is gray literature publishing: where intense thinking, change, and speculation take place in scholarship.




Rethinking Money


Book Description

This study reveals how our monetary system reinforces scarcity, and how communities are already using new paradigms to foster sustainable prosperity. In the United States and across Europe, our economies are stuck in an agonizing cycle of repeated financial meltdowns. Yet solutions already exist, not only our recurring fiscal crises but our ongoing social and ecological debacles as well. These changes came about not through increased conventional taxation, enlightened self-interest, or government programs, but by people simply rethinking the concept of money. In Rethinking Money, Bernard Lietaer and Jacqui Dunne explore the origins of our current monetary system—built on bank debt and scarcity—revealing how its limitations give rise to so many serious problems. The authors then present stories of ordinary people and communities using new money, working in cooperation with national currencies, to strengthen local economies, create work, beautify cities, provide education, and more. These real-world examples are just the tip of the iceberg—over four thousand cooperative currencies are already in existence. The book provides remedies for challenges faced by governments, businesses, nonprofits, local communities, and even banks. It demystifies a complex and critically important topic and offers meaningful solutions that will do far more than restore prosperity—it will provide the framework for an era of sustainable abundance.




The Financial Crisis Inquiry Report


Book Description

The Financial Crisis Inquiry Report, published by the U.S. Government and the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission in early 2011, is the official government report on the United States financial collapse and the review of major financial institutions that bankrupted and failed, or would have without help from the government. The commission and the report were implemented after Congress passed an act in 2009 to review and prevent fraudulent activity. The report details, among other things, the periods before, during, and after the crisis, what led up to it, and analyses of subprime mortgage lending, credit expansion and banking policies, the collapse of companies like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and the federal bailouts of Lehman and AIG. It also discusses the aftermath of the fallout and our current state. This report should be of interest to anyone concerned about the financial situation in the U.S. and around the world.THE FINANCIAL CRISIS INQUIRY COMMISSION is an independent, bi-partisan, government-appointed panel of 10 people that was created to "examine the causes, domestic and global, of the current financial and economic crisis in the United States." It was established as part of the Fraud Enforcement and Recovery Act of 2009. The commission consisted of private citizens with expertise in economics and finance, banking, housing, market regulation, and consumer protection. They examined and reported on "the collapse of major financial institutions that failed or would have failed if not for exceptional assistance from the government."News Dissector DANNY SCHECHTER is a journalist, blogger and filmmaker. He has been reporting on economic crises since the 1980's when he was with ABC News. His film In Debt We Trust warned of the economic meltdown in 2006. He has since written three books on the subject including Plunder: Investigating Our Economic Calamity (Cosimo Books, 2008), and The Crime Of Our Time: Why Wall Street Is Not Too Big to Jail (Disinfo Books, 2011), a companion to his latest film Plunder The Crime Of Our Time. He can be reached online at www.newsdissector.com.




The Future of Money


Book Description

A cutting-edge look at how accelerating financial change, from the end of cash to the rise of cryptocurrencies, will transform economies for better and worse. We think weÕve seen financial innovation. We bank from laptops and buy coffee with the wave of a phone. But these are minor miracles compared with the dizzying experiments now underway around the globe, as businesses and governments alike embrace the possibilities of new financial technologies. As Eswar Prasad explains, the world of finance is at the threshold of major disruption that will affect corporations, bankers, states, and indeed all of us. The transformation of money will fundamentally rewrite how ordinary people live. Above all, Prasad foresees the end of physical cash. The driving force wonÕt be phones or credit cards but rather central banks, spurred by the emergence of cryptocurrencies to develop their own, more stable digital currencies. Meanwhile, cryptocurrencies themselves will evolve unpredictably as global corporations like Facebook and Amazon join the game. The changes will be accompanied by snowballing innovations that are reshaping finance and have already begun to revolutionize how we invest, trade, insure, and manage risk. Prasad shows how these and other changes will redefine the very concept of money, unbundling its traditional functions as a unit of account, medium of exchange, and store of value. The promise lies in greater efficiency and flexibility, increased sensitivity to the needs of diverse consumers, and improved market access for the unbanked. The risk is instability, lack of accountability, and erosion of privacy. A lucid, visionary work, The Future of Money shows how to maximize the best and guard against the worst of what is to come.




Terrorist Use of Cryptocurrencies


Book Description

Terrorist organizations might increase use of digital cryptocurrencies to support their activities. RAND researchers consider the needs of such groups and the advantages and disadvantages of the cryptocurrency technologies available to them.