Wessel Reijers is a digital currency researcher at Dublin City University’s Institute of Ethics in the ADAPT project, a global center of excellence for digital content and media innovation. His current research focuses on the philosophy and ethics of emerging digital technologies. He earned his MSc degree for his investigation into the philosophy and ethics of digital money.
Mr. Reijers’ presentation for Bitcoin Wednesday 24 addresses The Moral Status of Bitcoin. He writes:
In line with last month’s presentation by professor Jan Bergstra I will discuss some open questions that were raised from an ethical point of view.
The open questions are (1) the neglect of theorization of money in economics, (2) the origins of money, (3) the social acceptance of money and (4) the relation between Bitcoin and ownership. I will briefly discuss these issues according to a sociological theory of money and a philosophical account of social reality. I will conclude my talk with the moral consequences of the way Bitcoin is designed.
