The politics and social life of Bitcoin underline the significance of the new currency

Bitcoin is a technological innovation – a currency that exists outside of the control of any central bank or government. However, there is a gulf between the ideology behind Bitcoin and the practical reality of its operation. The ideology behind Bitcoin treats money as a thing whose production is controlled by technology, not as a process whose value is sustained by its users. But Bitcoin is currently being sustained by sociological features that are directly at odds with the political ideology and theory of money that underpin it. We can only reach a proper understanding of the politics behind Bitcoin once we appreciate that it has a social life, writes Nigel Dodd