Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/309374 
Year of Publication: 
2019
Citation: 
[Journal:] Finance and Society [ISSN:] 2059-5999 [Volume:] 5 [Issue:] 2 [Year:] 2019 [Pages:] 126-144
Publisher: 
University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh
Abstract: 
How do applications of emergent technologies contribute to the social legitimacy of finance? To address this question, we examine a set of technologies that have received increasing industry, media, and scholarly attention over the past decade: blockchains. Harnessing the concepts of "moral economy" and "scandal", we identify both possibilities and limits for blockchain applications to legitimate a range of monetary and investment activities. However, we also find that a persistent individualisation of responsibility for failures and shortcomings with "live" blockchain experimentation has undermined the potentially legitimating aspects of this technology. Combining a reliance on technological fixes with a persistent individualist moral economy, we conclude, works against efforts to confront head-on the tensions underpinning the on-going legitimacy crises facing finance.
Subjects: 
Blockchain
cryptocurrency
digital money
technology
legitimacy
scandal
Persistent Identifier of the first edition: 
Creative Commons License: 
cc-by-nc-nd Logo
Document Type: 
Article

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