The unexpected consequences of a pandemic: Crypto-finance as cultural commons

Abstract

This Cultural Commons article provide some coordinates that help explain why cryptocurrencies have recently become mainstream, indicating their connection to precarisation and new class formations. It considers how this change has been achieved by examining the impact of ICTs (information and communications technologies) on the process of socialisation and re-signification of finance. Finally, it explores how these shifts might be related to the emergence of a peculiar form of digital and cultural commons. It grants that this last idea might appear odd, far-fetched, or downright inappropriate, since investment by individuals for individual profit is a defining characteristic of the realm of crypto-finance. It hopes to show, however, that what lies behind these individualised actions is an ambivalence in which exploitation coexists with a redefinition of the genetic code of finance, giving rise to a shared culture and a commoning of resources.