Disruptive Technologies in the Digital Economy, Week 4 – Oh no, it's Blockchain
I'm not gonna lie to y'all. It's hot. It's June. The week was all about blockchain. It took a lot of effort to actually do anything but play House Flipper Remastered.
Weekly Learning Objectives
- Identify the key transitions in the history of money and the latest developments with Bitcoin.
- Reflect on the broader trajectory of the evolution of money.
- Explore the distinction between physical and social technologies in relation to how digitalisation affects both in the context of money.
- Understand the key concepts around blockchain and its main characteristics and explore some of the start-up blockchain ecosystem.
- Understand the basic principles of quantum computing and the potential that it opens for the further disruption of the financial sector.
HA.
That clinking clanking sound
Most of this week wasn't so much about blockchain as it was about money. Which, okay, fine, that's Dr. Demetis's obviously favourite thing, to the point where he took us through contract currency and fiat currency and digital currency and had examples that he kept on holding up.
But oh lord, I don't care about money. I don't care about how fiat currency isn't real and therefore anything can be currency. This is all stuff I don't care about. Give me my gay space communism already goddammit.
So you give me a bunch of reading about blockchain and it's all focusing on money? Yeah.
I. Don't. Care.
(As a total aside, I just found out that there's a recording of the 2021 version of Cabaret with Eddie Redmayne and Jessie Buckley oh my. Now there's a money I can get behind...)
The problem with academia
I keep on hitting the same problem over and over again with this course. We're supposed to be talking about disruptive technologies, things that are changing every day, and all the articles we're reading are from, like, 10 years ago.
This was especially obvious with "Blockchain, business and the fourth industrial revolution: Whence, whither, wherefore and how?", written by Danson Kimani et al in Technological Forecasting & Social Change in 2020.
Which, okay, is a little more recent, but included the line:
...a survey of experts, suggesting that we might expect to see tax collected by governments via blockchain by 2023, on average, although some thought this would not happen before 2025.
And all the reading was like this. Even the one titled "The risks and unintended consequences of blockchain" was still like "THIS WILL REVOLUTIONISE EVERYTHING WE ARE DOING EVERYTHING".
And...yeah.
How blockchain works
But I did like the reading. It finally made me understand blockchain.
And being that I am a sucker for ridiculous analogies, here is how I see it.
I'm a fashion designer. I like to make jeans. So it's time to make some jeans.
I go to the fabric store. I say "I want to make jeans." They say "We have plenty of denim in stock."
I go to the seamstress. I say "I want to make jeans." They say "I've got a great bootcut pattern."
I go to the company. I say "I want to make jeans." They say "We love making Isla."
They all have different ways of saying the exact same thing — these are jeans. These are how we make jeans. No matter what we're calling it, that "jeans" throughline is there.
And that's what the blockchain is. That throughline where it doesn't matter what you're doing with it — there's still this one definite concrete thing at the heart of it. It doesn't change. It keeps going. And everyone knows what it is and that is exactly what it is.
Sure, there's a lot of crytography and mathematics and networking involved, whatever.
But the problem with blockchain
And there's definitely some possibility in blockchain. Like, a direct line of provenance, with every transaction listed perfectly, verified across multiple databases? God, just think about what that could do for supply chain issues. Think about the logistics!
But, no. No. We use it for magic money.
And unfortunately, there's no way around blockchain being used for magic money. If it's not mining the magic money in Proof of Work, it's giving Proof of Stake blocks magic money.
With how blockchain is organised right now, there's no way to escape that its value only comes from magical money.
And, sure, you can go "All money is magic money", but, ugh, god, at least fiat currency is backed by a government.
My problem with Bitcoin
So, like, the first I heard of Bitcoin was in 2011, at Barcamp Nottingham. And there was One Guy (isn't there always One Guy?) who would not stop talking about it, how cryptocurrency was going to change everything.
And, yeah, ever since, I've side-eyed this entire system, because of that guy.
(He also wouldn't briefly look after a drunk girl, who I was stuck babysitting. So, y'know, there was that.)
But ever since, I'm like "Oh. You're one of those guys."
And I like to think I've been proven right.
[Citation Needed]
But let me tell you the one thing that really annoyed me about the reading.
I could get sources for pretty much everything mentioned in the articles. Things were properly cited.
What wasn't cited in Kimani et al's article?
This.
Some studies have been critical of the technology by arguing that the unregulated, solutionist-driven nature of blockchain, to some extent, seems to exist within the boundaries of anarcho-capitalists who use it as a source of financial and political power with scant regard for political, legal and democratic accountability within the collective interest of other stakeholders. Consequently, blockchain technology may be perceived as creating a neo-modernised form of capitalism that makes corporations difficult to govern, as it may further the creation of plutocratic societies whereby capital is managed and controlled by the ruling, elite and wealthy class of individuals.
COME ONNNNNN GIVE ME THESE STUDIES.
Week 4 — Results
- Blockchain had a lot of potential
- Money makes the world go round of that you can be sure
- Where is my gay space communism goddammit
This week? It's AI. I have already decided that my complaints will mostly be about large language models, in order to save myself from a new word I learned from Behind The Bastards — "loopholism".
From Humanist Perspectives's excerpt of James Alcock's book Belief: What It Means to Believe and Why Our Convictions Are So Compelling:
This is what psychologist Ray Hyman refers to as loopholism. The new information is rejected by finding a loophole, arguing that "it is not the same thing." For example, if research finds that a homeopathic remedy has no effect, the homeopathic believer may dismiss the research on the grounds that the remedy was not properly prepared, or that the circumstances under which it was administered were not appropriate.
Today's Sticker
Look at this adorable kappa!
I really wish I had kept the artist's details with me. They were at EM-Con, but of course the site doesn't list the traders who were there.
But he's adorable and he's eating his cucumber instead of attacking people. You do that, buddy.
References
Kimani, D., Adams, K., Attah-Boakye, R., Ullah, S., Frecknall-Hughes, J. & Kim, J. (2020) Blockchain, business and the fourth industrial revolution: Whence, whither, wherefore and how? Technological Forecasting & Social Change. 161 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.techfore.2020.120254
Iansiti, M. & Lakhani, K. (2017) The truth about blockchain. Harvard Business Review 95(1), 118-127.
Somers, M. (2019) The risks and unintended consequences of blockchain | MIT Sloan. https://mitsloan.mit.edu/ideas-made-to-matter/risks-and-unintended-consequences-blockchain [Accessed 22 Jun 2026]
Evans, R, Zitron, E. & Lichterman, S. (2026) The fake bomb detector grift that killed hundreds. Behind The Bastards https://www.podchaser.com/podcasts/behind-the-bastards-660292/episodes/part-one-the-fake-bomb-detecto-298637773 [Accessed 22 Jun 2026]
Alcock, J. (2018) Belief in the face of contrary evidence. Humanist Perspectives 205.