Tokens

The Future of Money in the Age of the Platform

Rachel O'Dwyer

$64.95

Hardback

In stock
Ready to ship

QTY:

English

Verso Books
03 January 2024

Sociology; Economics & Business; Information technology industries

Wherever you look money is being replaced by tokens. These are digital assets, issued by the platforms, that can be traded, but also offer news types of relationships, forms of ownership as well as governance. Bitcoin, Dogecoin, facebook's proposed Libra, as well as other forms of value such as air time, special access, data are the new money within an evolving economy. Platforms are now paying in tokens rather than cash - Amazon's Mechanical Turk offers gift cards, M-Pesa trades in phone calls. But is this a liberation or a dangerous warning of the future?

What does it mean when Platforms become the new banks? Tokens opens up this new world and warns that we are unwittingly welcoming new forms of surveillance and discipline. O Dwyer argues that this challenges the balance of power between on the online empires and the state. In effect, the platforms determine the value and the methods of

exchange, or allow the value of the asset to be speculated over. They are siphoning vast wealth and power with few regulations. In response, O' Dwyer argues that money's really transformative power comes when we consider it as a 'commons', produced and held collectively.

By: Rachel O'Dwyer
Imprint: Verso Books
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions: Height: 234mm, Width: 153mm,
Weight: 480g
ISBN: 9781839768347
ISBN 10: 1839768347
Pages: 320
Publication Date: 03 January 2024
Audience: General/trade , ELT Advanced
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active

Rachel O' Dwyer is a lecturer at the School of Visual Culture at the National College of Art & Design, Dublin. She was a Fulbright Scholar at UC Irvine and the Microsoft Research labs, Cambridge; she is currently a fellow at Connect, the centre for Networks and Telecommunications at Trinity College, Dublin. She is the co-editor of Neural Magazine and has written for outlets such as Convergence, MIT Press and the London Review of Books. She has curated a number of exhibitions of digital practise that explore the intersection of art and the Blockchain.

Reviews for Tokens: The Future of Money in the Age of the Platform

"Rachel O'Dwyer offers an introduction to the politics of modern tech darlings: from cryptocurrency to Web3. [Tokens] explores the future of money, which O'Dwyer points out is increasingly ""being replaced by tokens"", and questions what it means when digital platforms become the new banks. While these tokens offer new types of relationships, ownership, and governance, O'Dwyer warns that they also usher in novel forms of surveillance and discipline. -- Brit Dawson, All the best books to look forward to in 2023 * GQ * Rachel O'Dywer takes us on a fascinating and important journey into the vast realm of hidden currencies that operate in the shadows of mainstream money systems. She shows how unorthodox tokens have been enlisted by those seeking emancipation, but rather than uncritically praising them as breakthrough innovations, she also skillfully draws out the deep ambiguities inherent within them: powerful corporate players are quick to take advantage of the grey area on the edge of standard monetary systems to accumulate more profit and data. A must read for anyone exploring the politics of Big Tech and Big Finance. -- Brett Scott, author of Cloud Money No one has done more thoughtful research or has more nuanced takes than Rachel O'Dwyer. She mercilessly cuts through the hype and yet leaves room for hope. -- Lana Swartz, author of New Money In this endlessly fascinating book, Rachel O'Dwyer illuminates the deep strangeness and complexity of money. Written with engaging style and deep intellectual rigour, Tokens is a bracing and enriching exploration of the future of techno-capitalism. -- Mark O'Connell, author of A Thread of Violence Token economies are not your typical markets. Enabling a recent explosion of digital grey economies, tokens are used to represent belonging, appreciation, fandom and exclusivity mediating identities, access and incomes across the vast peripheries of the formal economy. Read O'Dwyers book immediately for a full spectrum overview of how tokens have facilitated fields of social potential and experimentation that have nevertheless been locked down and exploited by the tech companies who own the underlying rails. -- Jaya Klara Brekke"