Cryptocurrency emerged in the wake of the global financial crisis and was held out as an alternative to the tyranny of state-issued money and a challenge to the power of big banks. I will explain the basic nuts and bolts of crypto, discuss the unravelling of heady promise of the ‘get rich quick’ schemes of cryptofinance collapse of various crypto ventures and how the subsequent subversion of stronger regulatory pushback following this turmoil has reinvigorate crypto-finance and enabled its absorption into the mainstream of finance and both state and corporate-backed digital currencies are being actively explored and promoted
Ramaa Vasudevan is a professor at Colorado State University. Her research focuses primarily on themes related to the political economy of money and finance, and Marxian and Post-Keynesian macro-analysis. She is the author of Things fall apart: From the crash of 2008 to the Great Slump. Her new book The Enchanters Wand: The volatile partnership at the heart of global finance, Verso, will be out later this year.