[csaa-forum] Cryptocurrencies Workshop

[Ned Rossiter]

Cryptocurrencies Workshop

17 May 2016

Institute for Culture and Society

Western Sydney University, Parramatta South

Room: EA.1.33

Time:    1–4 pm

Organized by Liam Magee, Jack Parkin and Ned Rossiter, ICS Digital Life research program http://www.westernsydney.edu.au/ics/events/cryptocurrencies_workshop



Misunderstood outside the boutique industries of micro-finance and tech startups, cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology are moving fast into the mainstream. Banks, insurance companies and the financial press are scrambling to understand their implications. Once a conceptual twinkle in the eye of Cypherpunks – an online movement of anarchic libertarian-leaning cryptographers – cryptocurrencies have become a social, technical and economic reality. Bitcoin, the first widely implemented cryptocurrency, arose from the ashes of the 2008 global financial crisis as a codified alternative to trusting fiat currencies that are heavily influenced by private banks and the nation state. Bitcoin’s decentralized protocol – the blockchain – promised to free people from an oppressive global monetary system and put financial power back into the hands of the masses. But for those not technically inclined, a host of startup companies have produced fee-based systems that simplify use of the blockchain. A fledgling industry sector has spawned, receiving over one billion U.S. dollars in capital investment to date. As the spectacular collapse of Mt Gox, a Bitcoin exchange, demonstrated in 2014, financial distrust is far from being eliminated in the new systems of digital capital distribution. Yet the world of the blockchain moves on. Its software architecture and algorithms are being configured by startup companies and platforms such as Ethereum to reorganize information in banking, law and accountancy via smart contracts, techno-equity and decentralized registers. This workshop introduces cryptocurrencies, bringing academic researchers together with industry representatives to discuss the phenomenon of alternative monetary systems such as Bitcoin and the capacity of blockchain architectures to scale and reorganize institutional cultures and social practices.


Registration (free)

Spaces are limited, so please register at: http://tinyurl.com/jfkjvo3

Coffee/tea will be provided.


Schedule (with Q&A after each presentation)

1:00    Introduction – Ned Rossiter and Liam Magee

1:10    Bit Trade Labs<http://bittradelabs.com/>, What is the Blockchain?

1:35    Jack Parkin, Grounding Digital Currencies: The Geography of Bitcoin

2:00    Chris Mountford, Blockchain as an Application Platform

2.25    Teresa Swist & Liam Magee, Crypto-research: Blockchains, Academia and Decentralisation

2:50    Bit Trade Labs, SovereignID: Towards the Blockchained Self

3:15    Ned Rossiter, Blockchains and the Territoriality of Organization

3:30    General discussion, with reference to presentations and readings

4:00    Closing remarks



Speaker bios

Liam Magee is Senior Research Fellow in the Institute for Culture and Society, and with Ned Rossiter co-convenes the Digital Life Research Program. He is author of Interwoven Cities (Palgrave Macmillan, 2016).


Jonathon Miller is co-founder of Bit Trade Australia and is a director of Bit Trade Labs. He holds an honours degree in political economics and runs an indie record label, but exercises the force of his creativity as a blockchain consultant with specialist understanding of product development and blockchain technology.


Chris Mountford is a senior software developer with a heavy involvement in the Bitcoin space. He is widely regarded as Australia’s leading technical speaker on Bitcoin and related technologies.


Jack Parkin is a PhD candidate at Western Sydney University. His PhD looks at the spatial relationships of Bitcoin drawing from ethnographic fieldwork in the ‘Bitcoin hubs’ of Silicon Valley, London and New York.


Ned Rossiter is Professor of Communication with a joint appointment in the Institute for Culture and Society and the School of Humanities and Communication Arts at Western Sydney University. He is author of Software, Infrastructure, Labor: A Media Theory of Logistical Nightmares (Routledge, 2016).


Teresa Swist is Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Young and Well Research Cooperative Centre at the Institute for Culture and Society. She researches participatory design and processes of innovation, and is preparing a manuscript, Improvising the University: How We Learn Through Making, for Springer.


Readings

‘The Magic of Mining’, The Economist, 10 January, 2015, http://www.economist.com/news/business/21638124-minting-digital-currency-has-become-big-ruthlessly-competitive-business-magic


Eyres, James. ‘Why the Blockchain will Propel a Services Revolution’, Australian Financial Review, 14 December, 2014, http://www.afr.com/technology/why-the-blockchain-will-propel-a-services-revolution-20151212-glm6xf


Kostakis, Vasilis and  Giotitsas, Chris. ‘The (A)Political Economy of Bitcoin’, Triple C (Communication, Capitalism and Critique): Journal for a Global Sustainable Information Society 2.2 (2014), http://www.triple-c.at/index.php/tripleC/article/view/606


Lanchester, John. ‘When Bitcoin Grows Up’, London Review of Books 38.8 (2016): 3–12, http://www.lrb.co.uk/v38/n08/john-lanchester/when-bitcoin-grows-up


—
Ned Rossiter
Professor of Communication
Institute for Culture and Society /
School of Humanities and Communication Arts
Western Sydney University
Parramatta Campus
Locked Bag 1797
Penrith NSW 2751
Australia
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