ABSTRACT
This chapter examines how issues of personal data and privacy are major risks to the users of cryptocurrency, which, despite potential benefits, can exacerbate exclusion through discriminatory user profiling, state surveillance and data rendition practices (so-called surveillance capitalism). The author uses three policy goals – personal autonomy, the development of digital economy and crime prevention – to measure the effectiveness of data protection law and privacy rights under different types of cryptocurrency: unstable coins on the public chain (Bitcoin); stable coins on the private chain created by private entities such as DIEM; and state-backed cryptocurrency created by the state such as a central bank, e.g. the Chinese Digital Currency Electronic Payment (DCEP). The author then discusses the extent to which information generated by cryptocurrency can enhance economic rights or whether it is likely to diminish or transform political rights.
Keywords: cryptocurrency, digital currency, surveillance capitalism, DCEP, DIEM, Bitcoin
