Crypto-Economics: Infrastructures and Artefacts

In the 1970s, three different developments (the ciphers DES and RSA, as well as the Diffie-Hellman key exchange) came about, allowing individuals with modest computing resources to encrypt communication. These developments came on the eve of the microcomputing revolution, and computers were gradually coming to be seen as tools of empowerment and autonomy rather than instruments of the state. These were the "seeds of the crypto dream.” (Narayanan, 2013). Our contemporary “cryptosphere” is dominated by novel socio-political experiments based on previously unavailable technological parameters which are embedded in distributed ledger technologies, “Smart Contracts” (Szabo, 1994) and “Algocratic Governance” (Aneesh, 2009). This booklet offers a brief overview of the “crypto-economic condition”. Additionally, it gives insights into crypto- and blockchain-related activities within Austria from 2011-2017. By collecting these occurrences, it aims to offer outlooks and perspectives that illuminate our technological future to come.