breaking out of bank with bitcoin
DESCRIPTION
Presentation of our paper at SNEE Conference in Mölle, Sweden May 2013, Full paper here: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2263707TRANSCRIPT
Breaking Out of the Bank:Exploring Collective Emergent Institutional
Entrepreneurship through Bitcoin
Research-in-Progress
Robin Teigland, [email protected]
Stockholm School of Economics
Tomas [email protected]
Kairos Future
Zeynep [email protected]
Stockholm School of Economics
Presented atSNEE: The Swedish Network for European Studies in Economics and Business
May 2013
Introduction & Background
Theory & Research Purpose
Research Methodology & Preliminary Results
Discussion & Limitations
Motivation
Institutional Entrepreneurship
& Open Source Communities
Bitcoin Community
Expected Contributions
Thank You!
Overview
~ Open source project on SourceForge Jan 2009 by “Satoshi Nakamoto”~ Peer-to-peer digital currency, i.e., not a fiat currency, no central authority~ >USD 1.3 billion in circulation with 51,000 transactions daily ~ Exchangeable to more than 30 fiat currencies~ Used globally to purchase wide range of virtual and physical goods and to pay salaries
Four Short Years of Bitcoin
A threat to the fiat money
system?
Bitcoin
Institutional Entrepreneurship
& Open Source Communities
Introduction & Background
Theory & Research Purpose
Research Methodology & Preliminary Results
Discussion
Motivation
Bitcoin Community
Expected Contributions
Thank You!
Overview
Institutional Entrepreneurship
Institutional entrepreneurs drive change within
institutional field of actors (Fligstein, 1997; Garud et al.,
2002; Greenwood et al., 2002; Maguire et al., 2004)
May be distributed across numerous actors with different
resources and that act in coordinated or uncoordinated
way (Battilana et al., 2009)
Open Source (OS) Communities
Commons-based peer production argued to be third mode of organizing economic
activity (Benkler, 2002)
But suffer from liability of newness and perceived as less legitimate (Chengalur-Smith et al., 2010; Stinchcombe, 1965 )
Research PurposeTo investigate the process through which an OS community acts as an institutional entrepreneur
Bitcoin Community
MotivationIntroduction & Background
Theory & Research Purpose
Research Methodology & Preliminary Results
Discussion
Institutional Entrepreneurship
& Open Source Communities
Expected Contributions
Thank You!
Overview
An open source community comprising wide variety of individuals and organizations developing peer-to-peer
digital currency URL: http://bitcoin.org/en/
Legitimate currency with
50,000 daily transactions
and >USD 1.3 bln in
circulation in just 4 years
Nov 2009 to Jan 2013
Research Methodology – Multi-method Case Study
Social network analysis & Semantic network analysis• Bitcoin Forum (English)
• 1.15 mln posts by 21,903 people• 85% all posts / 89% all people
• Secondary data• SNS, blogs, websites, etc.
Form
al O
rgan
izati
on Bitcoin Foundation
• Registered as 501c of US Internal Revenue Code • Bylaws effective July 23, 2012• Governed by board with five seats
– Two seats by Individual member class– Two seats by Corporate member class– One seat by Founding member class
• Board member criteria – Individual member in good standing– Any business is conducted openly using real identity– Pass background check for felony conviction
“Bitcoin Foundation standardizes, protects and promotes the use of Bitcoin cryptographic money
for the benefit of users worldwide.”
Info
rmal org
an
izati
on
10 Most Active in Forum
5 Bitcoin entrepreneurs5 anonymous
Forum Topics over Time
TechnicalExchanges
Legal
Introduction & Background
Theory & Research Purpose
Research Methodology & Preliminary Results
Discussion
Motivation
Institutional Entrepreneurship
& Open Source Communities
Bitcoin Community
Expected Contributions
Thank You!
Overview
Preliminary Findings
To investigate the process through which an OS community acts as an institutional entrepreneur
1) OS community acts as distributed institutional entrepreneur as Bitcoin is emergent
collective of countless agents who through autonomous actions self-organize so community gains access to necessary resources
2) High level of anonymity in informal organization but identity revealing is norm and even required in formal organization
3) An ecosystem in which large number of entrepreneurs across globe developing business based on Bitcoin
4) Substantial threats to growth and legitimacy of Bitcoin have primarily come from one or small group of individuals interested in hacking or creating fraud in system as opposed to from institutionalized financial markets and governments
5) Threats mobilized Bitcoin community to self-organize and bring community together around common purpose to legitimize currency - enabling resilience
•Institutional Entrepreneurship literature–Initial insight into how OS communities can act as emergent collective institutional entrepreneurs
•OSS literature–Further support for Open Entrepreneurship in OSS, i.e., entrepreneurs are driving force in these communities despite commons-based production (Teigland, Di Gangi, Yetis, 2012)
•Social Network literature –Exploration and development of semantic network analysis of large datasets–Multilevel network analysis to come
Contribution
Questions?
Thank you for your criticisms and comments!
Acknowledgements: A big thanks to Paul Di Gangi for his help in the layout of this PPT: http://www.linkedin.com/in/pmdigangi, and to Claire Ingram of SSE for her help on the legal issues.
Full paper can be downloaded here: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2263707
Robin [email protected]
www.knowledgenetworking.org
www.slideshare.net/eteigland
RobinTeigland
Photo: Lindholm, Metro
Photo: Nordenskiöld
Photo: Lindqvist
If you love knowledge, set it
free…