L’alternative monétaire Bitcoin : une perspective institutionnaliste

Over the past few years, we have witnessed the rise of a new kind of currencies, based on cryptographic processes and managed by peer-to-peer networks. The first and most popular of them, the Bitcoin, was launched after the financial crisis of 2008 and disputes a credit-based monetary order supported by banks. In general, crypto-currencies are challenging the traditional design of the currency as a unitary, territorialized and centralized system. Consequently, they raise theoretical problems and renew the debate on the nature of money. In this paper, we develop an analysis of Bitcoin through an institutionalist approach. Much more than a pure technology, money is a social institution. Therefore it builds a trade space that must be thought in articulation with a socioeconomic order. This is why we highlight the ideological roots underlying the contesting Bitcoin system no more centralised hierarchical control over social and economic affairs (encryption) and the naturalization of money (mining). Putting forward the central idea of trust, we test the ability of Bitcoin to build up a new stable monetary order