web3/claims/narrative-economics.md

What is the narrative economics of crypto assets?

The economist Robert J. Shiller defines narrative economics as:

Epidemiology of narratives relevant to economic fluctuations. The human brain has always been highly tuned towards narratives, whether factual or not, to justify ongoing actions, even such basic actions as spending and investing. Stories motivate and connect activities to deeply felt values and needs. Narratives “go viral” and spread far, even worldwide, with economic impact.

The phenomenon of cryptoasset and their bubble nature is largely driven by narratives, which may differ drastically between projects. These narratives speak to different human needs and beliefs that touch upon ideas as vast as culture, value, money, art, law, identity and politics.

Bitcoin has a narrative economics based on libertarianism, regulatory arbitrage and aspirations of private money.

Ethereum has a narrative economics based on technosolutionism, libertarianism, regulatory arbitrage and aspirations of private money.

Dogecoin is an example of a crypto asset with no political imaginaries, no currency narrative, no pretense of use value, no fundamental value, and no narrative economics whatsoever. it is a pure manifestation of the greater fool theory with an investment thesis rooted purely in financial nihilism.

Narrative Claims

• Cypherpunk
• Anarchism
• Libertarianism
• Cryptoanarchism
• Financial Nihilism
• Post State Technocracy
• Technolibertarianism
• Technosolutionism
• Technocollectivism
• Accelerationism

References

1. Shiller, Robert J. 2017. ‘Narrative Economics’. American Economic Review 107 (4): 967–1004.
2. Reijers, Wessel, and Mark Coeckelbergh. 2018. ‘The Blockchain as a Narrative Technology: Investigating the Social Ontology and Normative Configurations of Cryptocurrencies’. Philosophy and Technology 31 (1): 103–30. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13347-016-0239-x.

• Golumbia, David. 2013a. ‘Cyberlibertarianism: The Extremist Foundations of “Digital Freedom.”’ Clemson University Department of English.

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• Brody, Ann, and Stéphane Couture. 2021. ‘Ideologies and Imaginaries in Blockchain Communities: The Case of Ethereum’. Canadian Journal of Communication 46 (3). https://doi.org/10.22230/cjc.2021v46n3a3701.
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• Husain, Syed Omer, Alex Franklin, and Dirk Roep. 2020. ‘The Political Imaginaries of Blockchain Projects: Discerning the Expressions of an Emerging Ecosystem’. Sustainability Science, 1–16.
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• Anderson, Patrick D. 2021. ‘Privacy for the Weak, Transparency for the Powerful: The Cypherpunk Ethics of Julian Assange’. Ethics and Information Technology 23 (3): 295–308. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10676-020-09571-x.
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• Hellegren, Z. Isadora. 2017. ‘A History of Crypto-Discourse: Encryption as a Site of Struggles to Define Internet Freedom’. Internet Histories 1 (4): 285–311. https://doi.org/10.1080/24701475.2017.1387466.
• Jarvis, Craig. 2021. ‘Cypherpunk Ideology: Objectives, Profiles, and Influences (1992–1998)’. Internet Histories, 1–27. https://doi.org/10.1080/24701475.2021.1935547.
• May, Tim. 1994. ‘Cyphernomicon’.
• May, Timothy. 1992. ‘The Crypto Anarchist Manifesto’. High Noon on the Electronic Frontier: Conceptual Issues in Cyberspace.
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• Phillips, David J. 1998. Digital Cash and the Surveillance Society: Negotiating Identification in New Consumer Payment Systems. University of Pennsylvania. https://search.proquest.com/openview/7ca922683fe4b5a94427e0ba59af4def/1?pq-origsite=gscholar&cbl=18750&diss=y.
• West, Sarah Myers. 2018. ‘Cryptographic Imaginaries and the Networked Public’. Internet Policy Review 7 (2): 1–16. https://doi.org/10.14763/2018.2.792.
• *———. 2020. ‘Survival of the Cryptic: Tracing Technological Imaginaries across Ideologies, Infrastructures, and Community Practices’. New Media and Society, 1461444820983017. https://doi.org/10.1177/1461444820983017.

TODO: group by narrative

References

• [@golumbia_bitcoin_2015]
• [@reijers_blockchain_2018]
• [@beltramini_cryptoanarchist_2021]
• [@shiller_narrative_2017]
• [@may_crypto_1992]
• [@curran_wikileaks_2013]
• [@krugman_technobabble_2021]
• [@krugman_strange_2022]