| Summary: | "From clay tablets to cigarettes, the materials through which monies can be imagined are limited only by the boundary of human imagination. Despite such a well-documented rich universe of monetary forms, there have been only three globally dominant materialities of fiat currency used within and across politically defined boundaries - metal, paper, and the latest, data. How are we to understand this newly emergent data money? Data Money by Koray Caliskan is an investigation into what cryptocurrency is by developing an understanding of how it is made and exchanged. Crypto is not money in the sense of currency or cash and locates its value in cryptocurrency-making, their markets, and the communities that support them. Through participatory research with two currency exchange communities as well as analysis of the 100 largest currencies, Caliskan covers the history and evolution of blockchains, the workings of exchange platforms and markets, the programmers who create currencies, the rise and fall of the currency Electra, and the future of the crypto-economy. In sum, Caliskan provides an unprecedented vision of data money at the micro and macro levels at a crucial point in their acceptance and expansion"--
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