The first successful application of a blockchain dates back to the early ‘90s, but since then, applications and understandings of this technology have continuously evolved while hype around its most famous byproduct, the cryptocurrency, has flourished. As a relatively recent innovation in Information and Communication Technology (ICT), blockchain technologies have the potential to transform the way we store, transfer and authenticate information in a network (Swan, 2015; Han, 2018). As corporate and government stakeholders take an increasingly active stance on its development and regulation, it has become important for scholars from various disciplinary backgrounds to join the conversation. The underlying hash-inscription process that powers a blockchain network is algorithmic, and while much research has been done in critical algorithmic studies, they have tended to focus more on the material conditions that produce the technology (Dyer-Witherford, 2019; Hews, 2017; Zuboff, 2019) and less on the design and ideation of a technology during its nascent stages.
This work attempts to model an interdisciplinary approach that is interventionist by combining a framework from critical discourse analysis with concepts drawn from science and technology studies (STS) and the work of American sociologist, Susan Leigh Star. I examine reports by Xinhua and the China Daily following a group study session of the CPC Central Committee Politburo that occurred on October 24th, 2019. The event saw remarks by Xi Jinping speaking out in strong favour of the technology’s adoption. Soon after, the CPC announced that its members could pledge their party loyalty on a blockchain via an app. Since then, both the UK-based paper, the Independent and cryptocurrency news source, cnLedger, have reported that anti-blockchain sentiments have been removed on Chinese social media, Binance Research has released a report about a new “China coin” — a proposed Chinese Central Bank digital currency, and the China Daily has reported on the use of blockchain technology in the fight against Covid-19. Meanwhile, China’s National Development and Reform Commission quietly removed cryptocurrency mining from its list of banned industries (cryptocurrencies have been banned since 2017).
I discuss these reports in order to show how the technology is partially emerging from an “incubation” stage. The “incubation process” is an STS term describing the institutional practice of removing technologies to controlled environments so that they can be studied, tinkered with, and allowed to develop in a way that is of benefit to powerful stakeholders (Feenberg and Callon, 2010). By examining recent developments in China from an STS lens, we can pose questions on the reasons why a technology is incubated and adapted and how it might be transformed on both the material level (in terms of circuits, networks and infrastructure) and immaterial level (ideological and imaginary). It is an interventionist approach that may help us better understand how a technical object comes to be associated with certain social meanings and values — what might be referred to as its cultural encoding. This, in turn, allows us to critique the way technologies are transformed and used to do the work of organizations.