Date of Award

Fall 2016

Document Type

Thesis

Terms of Use

© 2016 Eric Yao. All rights reserved. This work is freely available courtesy of the author. It may only be used for non-commercial, educational, and research purposes. For all other uses, including reproduction and distribution, please contact the copyright holder.

Degree Name

Bachelor of Arts

Department

History Department

First Advisor

Marjorie Murphy

Second Advisor

Robert Weinberg

Abstract

One of the first paradoxes of Bitcoin was how the community would uphold Satoshi’s original vision and founding principles after its creation. Despite much recent scholarly discussion on the idea of Bitcoin, intellectual history of money, and optimistic, progressive historiography, little has been written to answer the question of whether Bitcoin has succeeded in its original vision. The article argues that Bitcoin has failed to remain civil libertarian, radically democratic, and equal and open due to community politics and an ensuing civil war over the block size debate and the future of the blockchain. In addition to drawing from two historicizations, Yap stone money and the Enlightenment, the article sources online social archives to support the thesis that various actions by the Bitcoin community during the civil war overturned and failed the original vision.

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