Crowds, Coins and Communities : Digital Entrepreneuring in Emerging Financial Infrastructures

Sammanfattning: Digitalisation, or activities mediated by digital technologies, is more than the movement of pre-digital practices to digital environments. Instead, it fundamentally changes underlying practices. This thesis studies digitalisation in the field of finance, as entrepreneurs reinvent existing financial infrastructures, piece by piece. It zooms in on the practices of digital entrepreneuring in digital infrastructures through case studies of crowdfunding and cryptocurrencies (and online communities).It finds that digital entrepreneuring differs from its non-digital counterpart when it comes to legitimacy-building and consensus-building. This is because 1) distributed control of digital infrastructures affects how they evolve and are perceived; 2) code forks are used as an organising mechanism; 3) niche groups find, and cooperate with, each other more easily online; and 4) entrepreneuring practices cannot be severed from the digital artefacts upon which they rely. It finds that being reliant on a digital infrastructure is not as democratising as previously theorised: relational practices (like stigma, the formation of standards, and cooperation) anchor entrepreneurs in their chosen digital infrastructures, which limits the options open to them.Digitalisation, or activities mediated by digital technologies, is more than the movement of pre-digital practices to digital environments. Instead, it fundamentally changes underlying practices. This thesis studies digitalisation in the field of finance, as entrepreneurs reinvent existing financial infrastructures, piece by piece. It zooms in on the practices of digital entrepreneuring in digital infrastructures through case studies of crowdfunding and cryptocurrencies (and online communities). It finds that digital entrepreneuring differs from its non-digital counterpart when it comes to legitimacy-building and consensus-building. This is because 1) distributed control of digital infrastructures affects how they evolve and are perceived; 2) code forks are used as an organising mechanism; 3) niche groups find, and cooperate with, each other more easily online; and 4) entrepreneuring practices cannot be severed from the digital artefacts upon which they rely. It finds that being reliant on a digital infrastructure is not as democratising as previously theorised: relational practices (like stigma, the formation of standards, and cooperation) anchor entrepreneurs in their chosen digital infrastructures, which limits the options open to them.