DATA MONEY

All things considered, I remain skeptical about cryptocurrencies. While there are aspects of the underlying technology (i.e., blockchain) that I find interesting, I find that the signal to noise ratio skews too far in favor of the latter to be convinced about their potential where finance and economics are concerned.

For that reason, I occasionally dabble in material that I hope will help put crypto into perspective. This is what drew me to Koray Caliskan's Data Money: Inside Cryptocurrencies, Their Communities, Markets, and Blockchains.

Taking a more multidisciplinary perspective, arguably the most attention-catching if not compelling contribution Caliskan makes to the discourse on crypto is in conceptualizing cryptocurrencies as "data money". He explains it thus (emphasis in original):

"Cryptocurrencies are not merely digital money or cash, for this would make them categorically the same as other fiat currencies, such as the U.S. dollar or the euro. They are not digitally represented but rather computationally made. They as material as metal and paper monies but intangible when compared to other money types. They are not passive memory entrees in a memory device. Computers are essential for them to exist, but computers alone are not sufficient. What makes these date monies new is not that they are made with data but that they are imagined as the right to send data, which a new accounting mechanism called blockchain."


No doubt, there's a lot to unpack there, which to be fair is the whole point of the book. But it struck me as a very thoughtful attempt to make sense of why cryptocurrencies are different from traditional currencies (or the electronic versions thereof). At the very least, it's certainly the most unique description of crypto that I've yet come across.

With that in mind, Data Money (the book) is a useful introduction to data money (crypto) for the uninitiated—but only up to a point. There are the straightforward and to-be-expected explanations of how cryptocurrencies and blockchain work that may (or may not) appeal to readers. Yet the book also suffers for being an academic treatise that focuses on minutiae that will not really appeal to a broader audience.

A pair of examples will drove this point home for me. One: in attempting to describe "how a data money exchange works" Caliskan employs a computational and interpretative text analysis of social media content among crypto enthusiasts as well as the relevant documentation of some cryptocurrencies "to describe the priorities and preferences of the exchange architects and owners." This, however, really comes across like something that would only be of interest in academic circles. Or to put it more cynically: a critical reading of a platform's terms of service is exactly as exciting as it sounds.

Two: A substantial part of the book involves documenting the rise and collapse of the cryptocurrency platform Electra and the subsequent establishment of the offshoot Electra Protocol by the same developers. However, while Caliskan's interest as a direct observer of the goings-on carry through in every page, the story just didn't grip me in the same way (or at all). Maybe it's different if you happen to see such things happen in real time; yet in truth the story here felt no different from many of the struggles that startups face in general, and seemed to me far less interesting by comparison. Maybe in the hands of a writer intent on selling the drama it would be more engaging; but in the more straightforward style of an academic paper, it simply did not appeal.

Ultimately, that's what shaped my perspective on Data Money. Borne of academic research, it's a fine attempt to make sense of a new technology and its impact. But it makes for dry reading for the same reason.

I've been in cryptocurrency since 2015 & I've never heard of the Electra cryptocurrency that Caliskan discusses at length in "Data Money."
It seems the reason he's obsessed about this obscure crypto is that he interviewed the founder and went down the rabbit hole of that coin.

However, if you pull back, you'll see it's just another coin among thousands that pumped and dumped.

Perhaps the author felt it was emblematic of a widespread problem.
Perhaps he wanted to use Electra as a poster child of all that can go wrong with crypto.

However, the synopsis of the book fails to mention the word "Electra."
It should, given how much time he spends on it.

Given how many crypto books there are out there, there are many better ones to select.

I'm baffled why Columbia Press published this one.
It's not overly academic, but it's also not terribly readable either.

Caliskan is a smart person & probably a great analyst, but his writing is weak.