The senatorial governance of Bitcoin: making (de)centralized money

Abstract

In recent years the development of cryptocurrencies and wider implementations of blockchain technology have been valourized as digitally decentralized networks that dissipate control evenly among their peers. With Bitcoin, the first blockchain-based cryptocurrency, monetary policy is enacted via software built through an open source consensus model. This promotes a techno-decentralist ideology that promises to democratize societies by eradicating centralized points of control in economic systems. Contrastingly, this paper demonstrates how Bitcoin's production process operates through strict authoritative channels. The overall political framework for altering the Bitcoin code is described as senatorial governance: a (de)centralized model of bureaucratic parties who compete to change the monetary policy (codified rules) of the protocol. This model shows how Bitcoin is not an autonomous system but is assembled and maintained via human discretion.