Argues that the internet is not simply a communication network, but also a globe-spanning transactional infrastructure
The transition to digital transactions has initiated the most profound transformation of monetary systems, consumer markets, national sovereignty, and everyday livelihoods in a century. Enabled by the convergence of digital platforms, mobile networks, and finance capital, the transactional reconfiguration of the Internet raises critical technical, moral, and political issues surrounding security, ownership, jurisdiction, and oversight within these essential systems. In this volume, Adrian Athique and Gerard Goggin explain how digital platforms provide the infrastructure for the complex transaction chains that drive contemporary network economies. They detail the diverse field of digital currencies and their complex interactions with sociability and state sovereignty, highlighting their expanding role in the global financial landscape. Illustrating distinctive applications of digital transactions with a focus on Asia, the book analyzes the structures of platform capitalism as meeting points for systemic design, social imagination, and everyday action. Critically analyzing the interplay of financial, social, and political exchanges, Digital Transactions provides a properly contextualized account of the rapid growth of the fintech sector. Restoring human intent to technocratic debates on financial inclusion and digital economies, the authors clearly identify both the imperatives and the consequences of platform finance for citizenship, participation and political economy in the 21st century.