Tokens (the Future Of Money In The Age Of The Platform)

By (author) O'Dwyer, Rachel
Short description/annotation
The essential guide to this new landscape of NFTs, Web3, Crypto and DAOs and a warning of the political consequences of what happens when platform capitalism comes for the money in your pocket.
Description
Platform capitalism is coming for the money in your pocket

Wherever you look, money is being re- placed by tokens. Digital platforms are issuing new kinds of money-like things: phone credit, shares, gift vouchers, game tokens, customer data-the list goes on. But what does it mean when online platforms become the new banks? What new types of control and discrimination emerge when money is tied to specific apps or actions, politics or identities?

Tokens opens up this new and expanding world. Exploring the history of extra- monetary economies, Rachel O''Dwyer shows that private and grassroots tokens have always haunted the real economy. But as the large tech platforms issue new money-like instruments, tokens are suddenly everywhere. Amazon''s Turk workers are getting paid in gift cards. Online streamers trade in wishlists. Foreign remittances are sent via phone credit. Bitcoin, gift cards, NFTs, customer data, and game tokens are the new money in an evolving economy. It is a development challenging the balance of power between online empires and the state. Tokens may offer a flexible even subversive route to compensation. But for the platforms them- selves they can be a means of amassing frightening new powers.

An essential read for anyone concerned with digital money, inequality, and the future of the economy.
Table of contents
1. A Bit of Cheer
2. Money Talks, Tokens Track
3. Programmable Butter
4. Money, but Let''s Make It Social
5. Eat the Rich
6. Trust in the Code
7. Outside of Borders
8. A Celestial Cyberdimension
9. ''When You Live in a Shithole, There''s Always the Metaverse''
Review quote
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.
Review quote
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.
Review quote
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.
Review quote
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.
Biographical note
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