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The dematerialization of money: deciphering digital issues and practices

Published on 12 January 2024
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Summary

"Cash continues to disappear from everyday life. Coins and banknotes, still the reference form of money in our imaginations, are gradually disappearing from ordinary gestures. Paying, giving, receiving, lending, sharing, setting aside, counting - all these gestures, like our entire societies, are moving towards a digital, dematerialized form of money.

This issue of Réseaux describes the scope and challenges of the second wave of dematerialization of money.

In an introductory text, the dossier's coordinators, Thomas Beauvisage, researcher at Orange Labs, Aude Danieli,doctoral student in sociology at École des Ponts Paris Tech and Hélène Ducourant, teacher-researcher at Université Gustave Eiffel, distinguish three components of this second wave of dematerialization: the emergence of digital currencies as alternatives to traditional currencies; the emergence of new payment intermediaries, and the success of innovations enabling payment via mobile. The authors identify three areas of research for the study of the transformations of digital money: "The ebb of cash and the heralded advent of cashless societies, money and payment data, and the appropriation of digital money". These three areas of research "are the subject of disparate investments by the social sciences".

David Pucheu, teacher-researcher(Université Michel de Montaigne) examines the ideological roots of cryptocurrencies by exploring the mailing list of the cypherpunks virtual community. Gathered around a core group of Californian hackers, the cypherpunks sketched out the first digital cash projects aimed at equipping individuals with anonymous, untraceable and unforgeable means of online transaction, which gave rise to cryptocurrencies. Part of a vast project for social change with utopian overtones and informed by radical currents of libertarian political economy, digital cash heralded, for its promoters, the advent of a new era, that of "crypto-anarchy". Assimilating online social and economic interactions indiscriminately to a form of individual freedom of expression over which states and large corporations could no longer exercise any control, cyberpunks invented cryptographic protocols designed to actualize their vision. "A vision that has now been nuanced by the deployment of these innovations in the New Industrial World of digital capitalism.

Tristan Dissaux, researcher at the Université Libre de Bruxelles, and Maxime Duval, consulting director at Stratéact, discuss the process of institutionalizing the digital euro currently being planned by the European Central Bank. A systematic analysis of communications on the digital euro published by the ECB shows how it operates a particular framing: ECB communication tends to invisibilize the social and political implications of the digital euro project by approaching it in a mainly technical way, anchored in economic and particularly financial concerns. Tristan Dissaux and Maxime Duval compare this approach with that of alternative projects carried by civil society players, and discuss, in conclusion, the practical and theoretical implications of this situation for the conduct of the digital euro project, as well as for central bank governance.

Aude Danieli examines the way in which means of payment "equip the commercial link in the context of small local shops". Around the means of payment and their material supports, she observes a network of constraints, socio-technical frameworks and norms - sometimes surprising - that guide exchange in different ways. The study suggests that the plurality of means of payment "takes the question of payment out of the transaction, to irrigate the entire exchange, upstream and downstream". Payment methods also renew the question of the balance of power in the commercial relationship. "The consumer generally imposes his or her vision of payment (mostly by card), even though all cash payments had to be accepted from a legal point of view, placing the merchant between domination and consent. Everyday transactions, which are highly instrumented, become small, highly ritualized commercial entities, but above all they are framed by recourse to the law, which (more often than not) brings harshness and arguments to force this or that means of payment".

Marine Al Dahdah, sociologist (CNRS), Nicolas Lainez, researcher at the Centre d'études en sciences sociales sur les mondes africains, américains et asiatiques, and Isabelle Guérin, Director of Research (Institut de Recherche pour le Développement, IRD) question the promises of digital money as a "development solution" and a "lever for financial inclusion". Linking ethnographic observations on a micro-scale to global structural trends, the authors offer an analysis that is both critical of digital money and attentive to its ambiguities and ambivalences. " In line with research that highlights extractivism and the reproduction of inequalities, we propose to question the promises of digital money with regard to examples of money and credit platforms in Africa and Asia. Adopting a bottom-up approach attentive to the uses and effects of political and moral economies, their analysis is based on the notion of appropriation, "taken in its dual sense of ownership and adaptation".

Since 2010, dozens of local currencies have been created in France, initially in the form of paper coupons. Now, some are also circulating digitally. Mathilde Fois Duclerc, temporary teaching and research associate (Sciences Po Bordeaux) examines the case of the eusko, created in the Basque Country in 2013 and given a digital form in 2017. After tracing the main stages in the introduction of digital means of account and payment, the author shows how this process of digitization in the institutionalization of the local currency operates a double normalization of the currency, "through the adjustment of its operation to the common uses of money and through a certain recognition of digital tools by the regulatory authorities of the banking sector". This marginal entry into the payment services sector is accompanied, for those in charge of the currency, "by work aimed at preserving the currency's militant roots and the nature of its political project".

Among digital currencies, some are already at the heart of many consumers' practices, such as video game currencies. Renaud Garcia-Bardidia, Senior Lecturer (University of Lorraine), Caterina Trizzulla, Senior Lecturer (University of Lorraine) and Sarah Maire, Professor (IESEG School of Management) analyze these practices in FIFA's online competitive mode, FIFA Ultimate Team. Based on interviews and participant observations, this study sheds light on the differentiated uses of FIFA points and credits in this game, and their contribution to the structuring of differentiated styles "responding to a triple imperative of efficiency, ethics and playful pleasure".

Contents :

  • Thomas Beauvisage, Aude Danieli, Hélène Ducourant: Bytes in the wallet; Investigating digital money and its devices
  • David Pucheu: Digital cash. The past future of cryptocurrencies?
  • Tristan Dissaux, Maxime Duval: Central bankers' digital money. The euro between evolution and revolution
  • Aude Danieli: Payment in small shops. Between cash and dematerialized money
  • Marine Al Dahdah, Nicolas Lainez, Isabelle Guérin: Digital money, a new development solution
  • Mathilde Fois Duclerc: Digitization, standardization and institutionalization of a local currency. The case of the eusko in the Basque Country
  • Renaud Garcia-Bardidia, Caterina Trizzulla, Sarah Maire: Social uses of currencies in video games. An analysis based on the case of FIFA Ultimate Team

    • Référence :

Sources

Linked articles

    Complementary local currencies go digital

    The Eusko in the northern Basque country, the Sol-Violette in the Toulouse basin, the Abeille in Villeneuve-sur-Lot, the Miel in Libournais, the Héol in Brest, the Cers in Narbonne or the Pyrène in Foix. There are about forty complementary local currencies in France.Intended to promote the local economy and local employment, these complementary local currencies are often supported by local businesses and services. These currencies (parity with the euro and without pennies) can only be used for everyday purchases, in a restricted area and in a network of businesses, companies and services committed to respecting social and ecological criteria.The Social and Solidarity Economy (SSE) Act of 2014 gave a legal basis to complementary local currencies. Its Article 16 recognizes local currencies as payment instruments, if these instruments are issued by social and solidarity economy (SSE) companies and if these currencies respect the framework set by the monetary and financial code. For its part, the Ministry of the Economy and Finance has clarified theframework for partnerships between local currencies and local authorities.Combined with mobile applications, digital local currencies would be more easily traceable, allowing for more accurate tracking and measuring its impact.At present, only the local currency in Nantes was designed from the outset as a 100% digital currency. The Eusko took the plunge in the spring with the introduction of a payment card.The Normandy regional currency Normandy to be launched in March 2018 will be 100% digital. The Basque Eusko goes digital Eusko, the complementary local currency of the French Basque Country, created in 2013, now has 4000 regular users (individuals, SMEs or associations). 750,000 euskos are currently in circulation. Initially usable only in the form of banknotes, in early 2017 Eusko introduced a payment card. Four municipalities have joined Euskal Moneta, the structure that manages the Eusko. They wish to make and receive payments in Eusko (for certain services such as the municipal swimming pool, transport, the school canteen, the media library or parking lots). First results for the local currency SoNantes Launched two and a half years ago, SoNantes is still limited to a small circle.With 7,000 transactions made by 1,650 users (177 companies and 1,473 individuals) for a total amount of 280,000 euros, the results are far from the initial objectives announced (3,000 user companies and 10,000 individuals). The majority of payments are made by individuals, especially in partner local businesses (bakeries, bars, hairdressers, etc.). In order to move up a gear, the management of the local currency, which until now has been entrusted to the Crédit municipal de Nantes, will be taken over by the SoNantaise association. However, the Crédit Municipal will manage the digital platform. Normandy launches a regional payment method The Normandy region will launch the first regional currency in March 2018. This one will be 100% digital.The project had been announced by the president of the Normandy region, in June 2016. Working groups have been created bringing together social and solidarity economy actors, including the regional chamber of social and solidarity economy (Cress), communities, citizens but also associations managing existing local currencies on the territory. The Monnaie Normande association is carrying the project on behalf of the region and will be in charge of putting it into circulation. The region is financing the project: in total, it is investing 400,000 euros, including for the communication that will be necessary to launch the currency. The association expects to have 1,000 members and 100,000 units after nine months, and hopes to break even within three to four years... A local currency project in Paris The Parisian association MoPPa "une Monnaie Pour Paris" in collaboration with "La Pêche" a local currency created in Montreuil in 2014, are going to experiment in early April 2018, this complementary local currency on five districts of eastern Paris. Initially the Parisian association will use "La Pêche" as a ticket before creating its own currency, which does not yet have a name today. It is about to launch a call for participatory financing in order to raise 135 000 € for the launch of a paper currency and 450 000 € if it is also electronic. The participation of the City of Paris remains pending for the moment. Open source solutions to share digital tools? Several companies now offer digital payment solutions for local currencies.According to the Citizen's Complementary Local Currencies network, "the 'digital payment' tool must be reliable (it must not fail), secure (it must not allow fraud), and sustainable (the competence to maintain and adapt it must exist for the next 5 or 10 years)."A good practice is to rely heavily on a well-known open-source solution (...) Developments should be documented and published in the same way as the core software. Using the same tools in many MLC projects allows for reinforcement/help/information transfer between users as well as between IT staff/managers. It also increases confidence in the system, both in the eyes of the acceptors and the regulators.Ouishare magazine, for its part, has set out to bring the world of local currencies and the world of blockchain closer together: "Each of these movements has its own culture, its own identity and its own technology. Differences that can greatly limit the interactions between these different communities. And if we could remove these barriers, what system could we imagine ? A first meeting was held in Lyon on January 25, 2018. 15th Meeting of Local Currencies in May 2018 These meetings will take place in Riom, from May 18 to 21 with the title "Developing the power to act". The " good use of digital technology" is among the three themes on the agenda of these meetings.

    • Innovation

    Published on 28/02/18

    The laborious digitization of local currencies: the Breton case

    Intended to promote the local economy and local employment, these currencies (parity with the euro and devoid of cents) can only be used for everyday purchases, in a restricted area and in a network of shops, businesses and services committed to respecting social and ecological criteria. The Social and Solidarity Economy (SSE) law of 2014 had given a legal basis to complementary local currencies.Combined with mobile applications, digital local currencies would be more easily traceable, allowing for more accurate tracking and measuring its impact.Of the 83 local currency projects that exist in France, only a little over a dozen circulate a digital currency in addition to a paper currency.For local currency promoters, the transition to digital technology represents a test "forcing the collectives behind the projects to reexamine themselves and to change the desired compromise between capacity, control and ambition," observe five researchers from the GIS Marsouin, François Coldefy, Karine Roudaut, Valérie Deruelle, Nicolas Jullien and Jorge Muñoz, in their study of local currencies in Brittany.survey they dedicate to local currencies in Brittany."Informing, distributing and convincing users of the currency takes time, as does organizing exchanges and conversions, in a context where volunteer resources are limited. The digitization, total or partial, of exchanges, because it reduces these "transaction costs" appears to be an almost "obvious" solution.Nine complementary local currencies (MLCC) in Brittany, out of the 12 existing ones, have announced their decision to converge towards a common regional digital currency by 2021. The objective is to pool efforts and costs of digitization, to allow exchanges with the same currency between several areas of life (especially for professionals) and to extend the use to territories not yet covered by associations.The five researchers of the GIS Marsouin retrace the debates that cross the promoters of local currencies in Brittany, about this project of digital and regional currency."The arguments are threefold: internal, on the management of exchange operations, and external, on the diffusion of the local currency (the number of users), and on its speed of circulation (the number of transactions per unit of local currency in circulation). Digital technology would make it possible to "reach a younger audience" while providing an alternative to bank cards, thus avoiding the potential uses of digital tracking of purchasing habits. It would also "simplify and facilitate the circulation between professionals" via the online account and the mobile application. ..."Despite all these advantages, and the initial enthusiasm, the experimentation raises as many problems as it solves. ... The digital currency implies new commitments for volunteers. Digital technology re-interrogates projects and their bearers on three dimensions: "Which actors (especially institutional ones) should be involved? How can they be involved and what risk does this entail for the autonomy of the project? Between the economic reality of exchanges and the definition of a place to live, what is the relevant territory?

    • Inclusion

    Published on 15/11/21

The dematerialization of money: deciphering digital issues and practices

"Cash continues to disappear from everyday life. Coins and banknotes, still the reference form of money in our imaginations, are gradually disappearing from ordinary gestures. Paying, giving, receiving, lending, sharing, setting aside, counting - all these gestures, like our entire societies, are moving towards a digital, dematerialized form of money.

This issue of Réseaux describes the scope and challenges of the second wave of dematerialization of money.

In an introductory text, the dossier's coordinators, Thomas Beauvisage, researcher at Orange Labs, Aude Danieli,doctoral student in sociology at École des Ponts Paris Tech and Hélène Ducourant, teacher-researcher at Université Gustave Eiffel, distinguish three components of this second wave of dematerialization: the emergence of digital currencies as alternatives to traditional currencies; the emergence of new payment intermediaries, and the success of innovations enabling payment via mobile. The authors identify three areas of research for the study of the transformations of digital money: "The ebb of cash and the heralded advent of cashless societies, money and payment data, and the appropriation of digital money". These three areas of research "are the subject of disparate investments by the social sciences".

David Pucheu, teacher-researcher(Université Michel de Montaigne) examines the ideological roots of cryptocurrencies by exploring the mailing list of the cypherpunks virtual community. Gathered around a core group of Californian hackers, the cypherpunks sketched out the first digital cash projects aimed at equipping individuals with anonymous, untraceable and unforgeable means of online transaction, which gave rise to cryptocurrencies. Part of a vast project for social change with utopian overtones and informed by radical currents of libertarian political economy, digital cash heralded, for its promoters, the advent of a new era, that of "crypto-anarchy". Assimilating online social and economic interactions indiscriminately to a form of individual freedom of expression over which states and large corporations could no longer exercise any control, cyberpunks invented cryptographic protocols designed to actualize their vision. "A vision that has now been nuanced by the deployment of these innovations in the New Industrial World of digital capitalism.

Tristan Dissaux, researcher at the Université Libre de Bruxelles, and Maxime Duval, consulting director at Stratéact, discuss the process of institutionalizing the digital euro currently being planned by the European Central Bank. A systematic analysis of communications on the digital euro published by the ECB shows how it operates a particular framing: ECB communication tends to invisibilize the social and political implications of the digital euro project by approaching it in a mainly technical way, anchored in economic and particularly financial concerns. Tristan Dissaux and Maxime Duval compare this approach with that of alternative projects carried by civil society players, and discuss, in conclusion, the practical and theoretical implications of this situation for the conduct of the digital euro project, as well as for central bank governance.

Aude Danieli examines the way in which means of payment "equip the commercial link in the context of small local shops". Around the means of payment and their material supports, she observes a network of constraints, socio-technical frameworks and norms - sometimes surprising - that guide exchange in different ways. The study suggests that the plurality of means of payment "takes the question of payment out of the transaction, to irrigate the entire exchange, upstream and downstream". Payment methods also renew the question of the balance of power in the commercial relationship. "The consumer generally imposes his or her vision of payment (mostly by card), even though all cash payments had to be accepted from a legal point of view, placing the merchant between domination and consent. Everyday transactions, which are highly instrumented, become small, highly ritualized commercial entities, but above all they are framed by recourse to the law, which (more often than not) brings harshness and arguments to force this or that means of payment".

Marine Al Dahdah, sociologist (CNRS), Nicolas Lainez, researcher at the Centre d'études en sciences sociales sur les mondes africains, américains et asiatiques, and Isabelle Guérin, Director of Research (Institut de Recherche pour le Développement, IRD) question the promises of digital money as a "development solution" and a "lever for financial inclusion". Linking ethnographic observations on a micro-scale to global structural trends, the authors offer an analysis that is both critical of digital money and attentive to its ambiguities and ambivalences. " In line with research that highlights extractivism and the reproduction of inequalities, we propose to question the promises of digital money with regard to examples of money and credit platforms in Africa and Asia. Adopting a bottom-up approach attentive to the uses and effects of political and moral economies, their analysis is based on the notion of appropriation, "taken in its dual sense of ownership and adaptation".

Since 2010, dozens of local currencies have been created in France, initially in the form of paper coupons. Now, some are also circulating digitally. Mathilde Fois Duclerc, temporary teaching and research associate (Sciences Po Bordeaux) examines the case of the eusko, created in the Basque Country in 2013 and given a digital form in 2017. After tracing the main stages in the introduction of digital means of account and payment, the author shows how this process of digitization in the institutionalization of the local currency operates a double normalization of the currency, "through the adjustment of its operation to the common uses of money and through a certain recognition of digital tools by the regulatory authorities of the banking sector". This marginal entry into the payment services sector is accompanied, for those in charge of the currency, "by work aimed at preserving the currency's militant roots and the nature of its political project".

Among digital currencies, some are already at the heart of many consumers' practices, such as video game currencies. Renaud Garcia-Bardidia, Senior Lecturer (University of Lorraine), Caterina Trizzulla, Senior Lecturer (University of Lorraine) and Sarah Maire, Professor (IESEG School of Management) analyze these practices in FIFA's online competitive mode, FIFA Ultimate Team. Based on interviews and participant observations, this study sheds light on the differentiated uses of FIFA points and credits in this game, and their contribution to the structuring of differentiated styles "responding to a triple imperative of efficiency, ethics and playful pleasure".

Contents :

  • Thomas Beauvisage, Aude Danieli, Hélène Ducourant: Bytes in the wallet; Investigating digital money and its devices
  • David Pucheu: Digital cash. The past future of cryptocurrencies?
  • Tristan Dissaux, Maxime Duval: Central bankers' digital money. The euro between evolution and revolution
  • Aude Danieli: Payment in small shops. Between cash and dematerialized money
  • Marine Al Dahdah, Nicolas Lainez, Isabelle Guérin: Digital money, a new development solution
  • Mathilde Fois Duclerc: Digitization, standardization and institutionalization of a local currency. The case of the eusko in the Basque Country
  • Renaud Garcia-Bardidia, Caterina Trizzulla, Sarah Maire: Social uses of currencies in video games. An analysis based on the case of FIFA Ultimate Team

    • Référence :

Sources

Labo Société Numérique

Labo République Française Agence nationale de cohésion des territoires
The dematerialization of money: deciphering digital issues and practices