After Money: If you change the representation of value, does it change the values that you can represent?

比特币等加密货币正在挑战我们对货币的看法。比特币等货币提供了基于信任的金融交易新模式，并通过其开放的交易数据库进行维护，挑战了我们目前使用的政府监管的法定货币。然而，加密货币的用户开始意识到，比特币的底层技术可能对我们如何理解货币产生最深远的影响。区块链是一个记录和验证交易的全球开放分类帐，同时加密用户的身份完全改变了价值的计算方式。银行或政府不再是货币的中介，不再拥有撤资或投资的权力，以决定社会内部的价值流动，区块链将货币去中心化，并为货币的创造性使用提供了一个平台。随着区块链等技术改变了价值的表示方式，区块链的用户开始探索如何表示价值的新机会。该项目将向受众介绍区块链的基本原则，否则这些受众在开发新货币时不会被征求意见。该研究项目将采用以设计为主导的参与式方法，通过与家庭、小企业和地方市政服务机构的合作，探索金钱作为软件的潜在用例。这项研究对当代围绕新形式价值交换的辩论做出了重大贡献，并为地方、经济和学术界提供了切实的成果。这个为期18个月的项目直接解决了ESRC的优先领域：“经济绩效和可持续增长”。这个研究项目的创新设计，它与实际商业街环境的关系，以及新经济基金会和苏格兰皇家银行的参与，构成了研究光谱中高风险、高回报的变革性研究。

Cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin are challenging the way we perceive money. Offering new models for financial transactions, based on trust, and maintained through its open transactional database, currencies such as Bitcoin challenge the government-regulated fiat currencies that we currently use today. However, users of cryptocurrencies are beginning to realise that it is the underlying technology of the blockchain that is likely to have the most profound effect on how we understand money. The blockchain is an global open ledger that records and verifies transactions, whilst encrypting the identity of users changes entirely how value is accounted for. No longer are banks or governments the mediators of currencies, with the power to divest or invest to dictate the flow of value within society, the blockchain decentralises money and offers a platform for its creative use. Presenting money as code, users of the blockchain are starting to explore new opportunities for how values can be represented, as technologies such as the blockchain change the representation of value. This project will introduce the underlying principles of the blockchain to audiences that would otherwise not be consulted on the development of new currencies. Using a design-led and participatory approach, the research project will explore potential use cases for money as software through involvement with families, small businesses and local civic services. The research represents a significant contribution to contemporary debates around the emergence of new forms of value exchange and offers tangible outcomes for local, economic and academic communities.This 18 month project addresses directly the ESRC priority area: 'Economic performance and sustainable growth'. The innovative design of this research project, its relationship with actual high street environments and involvement of the New Economic Foundation and the Royal Bank of Scotland constitutes transformative research at the high risk, high reward end of the research spectrum.