“My Precious!”: A Values-Affordances Perspective on the Adoption of Bitcoin

Abstract

Given the growing pervasiveness of information systems (IS) in everyday life, recent research has acknowledged that IS technologies are often not value free but are instead infused with fundamental personal values. However, little is known about how such values explain why people assimilate these technologies and their affordances. In the intriguing case of Bitcoin, personal values—especially libertarian political values—played an essential role in clarifying the ideological underpinnings of Bitcoin and its early adoption. Consequently, we draw on research on personal values and affordance theory to develop and test a model explicating how these personal values guide individuals toward using IS applications with salient affordances that address their values. Specifically, we hypothesize and test how individuals’ personal values (i.e., libertarian political values) influence their attitudes toward Bitcoin affordances and their Bitcoin use behavior using data from a multiple administration survey of 236 users and nonusers of Bitcoin. Our results indicate that libertarian political values affect individuals’ attitudes toward Bitcoin affordances, which in turn mediate the effects of these values on actual Bitcoin use. Our findings advance the field by demonstrating the importance of integrating values into the conceptualization of IS technology affordances.