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Embedding into an Emerging Money System: The Case of Bitcoin

ABSTRACT As global economic crises place the issue of money at the forefront of media attention, a growing minority are turning to “cryptocurrencies” as an emerging digital alternative to state-issued currencies. Bitcoin, the most popular version of this emerging medium, is a useful proxy to answer a key question to the sociology of money: how do people embed themselves into an emerging money system, and what role does value play in this process? Drawing on 23 interviews with Bitcoin adopters, I find that embedding into Bitcoin is closely tied to personal experience and temporal contexts. This study demonstrates that the adoption of Bitcoin follows a distinct process. First adopters discover the value Bitcoin on their own terms. Next, they reflexively overcome challenges to these initial perceptions of value. Finally, they reaffirm their embeddedness in the system through rituals of commitment. This finding has implications for the sociology of money and economic sociology by distilling the connection between fictional expectations that are used to anchor value systems and the social construction of monetary utilities and group identities. Additionally, this connection helps to unpack how Bitcoin continues to mature as a money system despite being characterized by diverse adopters that often engage in economically inefficient activities.