The Cryptocurrency Bubble, Blockchain and Beyond

Abstract

This paper intends to shed light into the nature of blockchain technology and investigates to what extent the product of this technology, the cryptocurrencies, should be seen as a financial bubble. A presentation of the historical context within which this technology emerged after the 2008 great meltdown in the world economy is elaborated. The historical, sociological and financial characteristics of the so-called blockchain revolution are presented and after a brief discussion of the bubbles in world history, the paper intends to show the similarities and differences of the cryptocurrency euphoria of the recent times with that of the historical bubbles, especially with respect to the Ponzi scheme.

Keywords

• blockchain
• bitcoin
• finance

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