Anthropology's crypto blind spot

Abstract

This guest editorial examines how anthropologists approach the study of cryptocurrency communities, revealing a tendency to treat ‘crypto people’ as unworthy subjects deserving only critique rather than serious ethnographic enquiry. Drawing on fieldwork experiences within crypto communities, the author challenges the discipline's selective application of ethical principles and questions why certain groups are deemed less deserving of anthropological understanding. The article argues that anthropology's political homogeneity and growing reluctance to engage with challenging subjects threatens the discipline's cosmopolitan ideals. It calls for a more inclusive approach to fieldwork and subject selection – one that welcomes dissenting voices and extends anthropological curiosity to all people, including those the discipline might find politically or ideologically unpalatable.