加密货币热潮中的故事与观念

The Narratives and Ideas behind the Cryptocurrency Craze

随着近几年区块链技术的推广与比特币价格的暴涨,包括中国在内的很多国家都掀起了轰轰烈烈的加密货币热潮。然而,尽管投资者趋之若鹜,大量的加密货币却只是打着区块链旗号的空壳项目或纯粹骗局。白皮书是加密货币发行人为吸引投资者所撰写的项目介绍,本文搜集和分析了目前金融市场上所有的中文白皮书,揭示出其所包含的七种主要叙事,借此为加密货币热潮中的人们勾勒出了一幅观念画像。本文认为,加密货币是社会在金融资本主义的系统性危机中所产生的一种自我保护性的发明,它带着反抗金融文化的初衷,却最终成为金融文化再生产的载体,这种现象意味着金融资本主义这一历史新形态已经实现了自身的动态生成。

With the spread of blockchain technology and the soaring price of bitcoin in recent years, many countries, including China, have seen a craze of cryptocurrencies. However, despite the rush of investors, a large number of cryptocurrencies are just shell projects or outright scams under the banner of blockchain. In the blockchain industry, the white paper is a project introduction document written by cryptocurrency issuers to attract investors. This paper collects all the white papers currently available in the Chinese cryptocurrency market,analyzes their contents, reveals the seven main narratives of the cryptocurrency industry and makes a portrait of ideas among the people involved. We argue that the cryptocurrency is a self-protective invention when the society is facing a systemic crisis of financial capitalism. Although the cryptocurrency claimed to resist the financial culture, it ultimately served as another channel for financial culture reproduction. This means the financial capitalism has achieved the dynamic generation as a new historical form.