Alexandra Papadopoulos: Die Verzauberung des Werts Blockchain und die Folgen (Band 3)

Without cryptography, perhaps the entire internet would still be that small, open, decentralized, and freely accessible playground for enthusiasts, gamers, scientists, and hackers, with no contradiction between public and private, and without the need to ensure the identity and authenticity of all participants. Simultaneously, trade and e-commerce would be impossible. Cryptography is the technology that enables secure transactions between participants who do not know each other. The value of a functioning cryptocurrency lies solely in its pseudonymous and decentralized transaction form.

A cryptocurrency seems to be a viable solution when a large number of people, for very valid reasons, cannot trust each other but still want to engage in transactions. Cryptos ensure a market outside of social bonds and obligations they embody the currency of libertarian ideology. Blockchains, as eternal lists of past transactions, are their narratives.

EPF ESSAYS - The volumes in the EPF ESSAYS series are attempts at disorientation in an increasingly lucid world. Their audience does not perceive it as an imposition to learn something it did not always know. Their form allows for a committed flirtation between theoretical precision and essayistic lightness. Their topics are arbitrary but exemplary. They form nodes in a network woven from the threads of philosophy, sociology, science studies, economics, cultural studies, psychoanalysis, art, politics. This list is not exhaustive. Their program is strictly undisciplinary and follows the capricious interests or interested caprices of the editor Peter Schneider. Authors are invited to provide new material based on these whims and interests.

Alexandra Papadopoulos pursued studies in computational sciences and film/video in Zürich and Berlin. She engages as a developer in software, designer of user interfaces, entrepreneur, and resides in Zürich.

German
240 pages, softcover
15 x 9,2 cm
ISBN: 978-3-907236-49-9