The Rhetoric of Bitcoin
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The Rhetoric of Bitcoin: Money, Politics, and the Construction of Blockchain Communities Matthew Bellinger A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy University of Washington 2018 Reading Committee: Christine Harold, Chair Leah Ceccarelli Gina Neff Program Authorized to Offer Degree: Communication © Copyright 2018 Matthew Bellinger University of Washington Abstract The Rhetoric of Bitcoin: Money, Politics, and the Construction of Blockchain Communities Matthew Bellinger Chair of the Supervisory Committee: Christine Harold Department of Communication The rise of Bitcoin and related digital currencies has been accompanied by a proliferation of discourse about these technologies, including debates about their value and status as forms of money. This dissertation examines digital currency discourse from a rhetorical perspective, and traces the development and impact of a key trope of early Bitcoin discourse—the application of commodity money rhetoric to Bitcoin—to understand the rhetorical construction of Bitcoin. It argues that early attempts to establish Bitcoin as a form of money, which figured Bitcoin as a “natural” entity beyond the reach of community politics, produced an unanticipated rhetorical fallout: the displacement of the politics of the Bitcoin community onto the development of Bitcoin as a technology. It further argues that this early displacement continues to influence the rhetorical dynamics of Bitcoin and its heirs by shaping subsequent debates over digital currency governance and valuation. Acknowledgments This project was made possible by the aid of many people. First and foremost among those deserving of thanks are my dissertation advisor, Christine Harold, and the members of my dissertation committee: Leah Ceccarelli, Gina Neff, and Candice Rai. I am deeply grateful for their mentorship throughout my time at the University of Washington. Also worthy of recognition, for the intellectual stimulation and academic commiseration that they provided, are Will Mari, Ruth Moon Mari, Bob Hodges, and Allen Baros. I hope that I always have the fortune to work alongside such gracious colleagues. The Walter Chapin Simpson Center for the Humanities, in concert with the Andrew K. Mellon Foundation, provided support for early stages of this dissertation, and the encouragement of Steve and Jeanne Bellinger, long an integral part of my academic journey, was an invaluable aid in bringing the project to completion. For their years of support, I am truly thankful. And finally, to the love and unending patience of Shannon Liudahl, I am forever indebted. Everyone has to make up their mind if money is money or money isn't money and sooner or later they always do decide that money is money. Gertrude Stein Table of Contents Introduction ................................................................................................................................................................ 1 Nine years later ........................................................................................................................................... 3 The discourse of Bitcoin .......................................................................................................................... 8 From discourse to rhetoric ................................................................................................................. 14 The rhetoric of Bitcoin .......................................................................................................................... 18 Chapter One: Tearing the Veil: Money and Discourse between Economics and Sociology ... 22 Weaving a “neutral veil”: Money and the Methodenstreiten ................................................. 29 The “rediscovery” of money ............................................................................................................... 39 The influence of the performative turn ......................................................................................... 47 Bitcoin and the rhetoric of money ................................................................................................... 58 Chapter Two: Constructing a Collective: Digital Metallism and the Procedural Rhetoric of Bitcoin .......................................................................................................................................................... 61 The rhetorical problem of establishing money .......................................................................... 62 From commodity to code ..................................................................................................................... 67 Procedural rhetoric and rhetorical ecologies ............................................................................. 73 Locating Bitcoin’s procedural rhetoric .......................................................................................... 77 Bitcoin’s rationale ....................................................................................................................................... 80 Digital signatures .................................................................................................................................... 83 Cryptographic hash functions ............................................................................................................ 86 Defining an electronic coin ................................................................................................................. 87 The double spend problem and proof of work ........................................................................... 90 Interpreting the protocol ..................................................................................................................... 97 Chapter Three: Contesting Development: Ethics, Politics, and EXpertise in the Bitcoin Community ............................................................................................................................................... 102 The Satoshi affair ................................................................................................................................... 106 The rhetorical significance of Nakamoto .................................................................................... 111 The ethics and politics of protocol development .................................................................... 118 The block size crisis ............................................................................................................................. 130 What would Satoshi do? ........................................................................................................................ 136 Nakamoto and the politics of development ............................................................................... 145 Chapter Four: Rewriting History: On Blockchain Forks and Cryptocurrency Identity ......... 149 Ethereum, smart contracts, and decentralized autonomous organizations ................ 152 The DAO attack ....................................................................................................................................... 161 Blockchain forks .................................................................................................................................... 166 Responses to the attack on The DAO ............................................................................................ 170 The rhetoric of blockchain forks ....................................................................................................... 181 Conclusion: The Future of Cryptocurrencies ........................................................................................... 186 Bibliography ........................................................................................................................................................... 191 Introduction It began like something from a cyberpunk novel. On November 1st, 2008, an individual or group using the pseudonym “Satoshi Nakamoto” emailed a cryptography mailing list: I’ve been working on a new electronic cash system that’s fully peer-to-peer, with no trusted third party. The paper is available at: http://www.bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf1 The linked paper—nine pages of dense, technical writing—described Bitcoin,2 a new technology for sending payments across the Internet.3 The paper both explicitly and implicitly situated Bitcoin within a multi-decade history of proposals for cash-like online payment systems, but offered a new combination of cryptographic protocols and economic incentives.4 Unlike past proposals in a similar vein, Bitcoin did not require the use of 1 Satoshi Nakamoto, “Bitcoin P2P E-Cash Paper,” November 1, 2008, https://www.mail- archive.com/[email protected]/msg09959.html. 2 The term “Bitcoin” can refer to both the payment system and to the units of account tracked by this system (i.e., to both the means of transferring currency and the currency itself) precisely because the technology erases the distinction between the two. For the sake of clarity, this study uses capitalization to distinguish Bitcoin (the monetary technology) from bitcoins (tokens or units of account), following the convention of Pedro Franco, Understanding Bitcoin: Cryptography, Engineering, and Economics (Chichester, UK: John Wiley & Sons, 2015). Quantities of bitcoins are indicated by the abbreviation “BTC.” 3 Satoshi Nakamoto, “Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer