News
Bitcoin as Legal Tender: El Salvador’s Crypto Experiment Revisited - Result Presentation of the Research Project
19.October 2026; 14:30 - 18:00; Conference room, Department of Political Science, Universitätsstraße 7, 2nd floor
On September 7, 2021, El Salvador became the first country in the world to make Bitcoin legal tender. Over the past three years, the research project "The Cultural Political Economy of Bitcoin in the Global South" (BITELSA) has investigated Bitcoin adoption in the Central American country, examining the political economy, infrastructure, and politics surrounding the Salvadoran crypto experiment. The event will present the project's results, situate them within a broader context, and discuss future research avenues.
Registration to: lina.schmid(at)univie.ac.at
Finance and Society Conference 2026: Presentation "Crypto conjunctures, techno futures and digital states? Delving into El Salvador’s digital agenda"
10-11 September 2026
Finance and Society Conference
Copenhagen, Denmark
Lina Schmid participated in the Finance and Society Conference and presented the co-authored paper "Crypto conjunctures, techno futures and digital states? Delving into El Salvador’s digital agenda". In this paper they place current crypto developments into a broader conjuncture of digital capitalism, analyzing El Salvador's "Digital Agenda".
Workshop "Politics of Payment. Theorizing the Transformation of Monetary Orders"
07-09 September 2026
Hamburg Institute for Social Research
Hamburg, Germany
The Hamburg Institute for Social Research working group on monetary sovereignty organised a three day workshop on the transformation of payments and monetary orders, bringing together researchers from different disciplines. Lina Schmid participated and presented the current research agenda of the BITELSA team.
SASE Conference 2026: Presentation "Crypto: From the Fringes to the Centre (of Government)?"
01-04 July 2026
SASE Conference
Bordeaux, France
Tobias Boos and Lina Schmid presented and discussed their paper “Crypto: From the Fringes to the Centre (of Government)?” at the SASE Conference in Bordeaux. This presentation was part of the digital economy network stream. "Digital finance: FinTech, identity and crypto experimentation in the context of global political change.", organized together with Malcolm Campbell-Verduyn, Jingting Lei, Carla Coburger and Tony Porter.
BITELSA expert comment in the El Pais: From libertarian dream to political weapon: How the far right appropriated the crypto wave
In this El País article Tobias Boos comments on how ideas of modernity work as propaganda tools when it comes to crypto politics in El Salvador and on the role of crypto in the current geopolitical conjuncture.
Lecture "El Salvadors Bitcoin Experiment: Techno-Utopie im Globalen Süden"
17 March 2026
Wiener Volkshochschulen & Österreichisches Lateinamerika-Institut
Vortragsreihe "Junge Wissenschaft"
In this lecture Tobias Boos and Lina Schmid recapituled and reflected on the Salvadoran Bitcoin experiment, embedding this experiment in the political economy of El Salvador, Nayib Bukeles political project and a broader conjuncture of techno-populism.
2nd Annual Viennese Workshop in Political Economy
3 October 2025
University of Vienna
Organized by Dorothee Bohle and Laurenz Ennser-Jedenastik
This workshop brought together political economists from different Viennese universities (University of Vienna, WU Wien, Central European University) to foster exchange and discussion around current research in the field. It featured a keynote lecture by Herman Mark Schwartz (University of Virginia) on "The Unbearable Tightness of Status Quo Thinking: European Industrial Policy in an Era of Change". Tobias Boos and Lina Schmid presented future avenues in researching the trajectories of crypto in El Salvador from an IPE perspective.
SASE Conference 2025: Presentation "Remittances, Cryptocurrencies and Infrastructure: Plugging in the Salvadorian Crypto experiment"
9-12 July 2025
SASE Conference
Montréal, Canada
Tobias Boos and Lina Schmid presented and discussed their paper "Remittances, Cryptocurrencies and Infrastructure: Plugging in the Salvadorian Crypto experiment" at the SASE Conference in Montréal. This presentation was part of the panel "Digital finance: FinTech, identity and crypto experimentation in the context of global political change.", organized together with Malcolm Campbell-Verduyn, Jingting Lei, Carla Coburger and Tony Porter.
RIPE Special Issue: Workshop "A digital fix? Digital Finance in Times of Geoeconomic Challenges"
2-3 June 2025
Department of Policial Science, University of Vienna
Organized by Tobias Boos, Lina Schmid, Sebastian Heidebrecht and Juan Grigera
This two-day workshop was organized to bring together the authors of a Special Issue in Review of International Political Economy (RIPE). The workshop featured presentations of paper drafts and intensive discussions around the concept of a "digital fix" concerning the field of digital finance in times of geoeconomic challenges.
BITELSA expert comment in the BBC World Business Report
Project team member Juan Grigera was interviewed by the BBC World Business Report about the deal between El Salvador and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). He discussed the conditions attached to the deal and its implications for bitcoin policy in the Central American country.
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Workshop on "Geopolitical and Geo-economic Challenges of International Financial Relations"
4 June 2024
Department of Policial Science, University of Vienna
Organized by Tobias Boos and Sebastian Heidebrecht (University of Vienna) following the IPW Lecture by Carola Westermeier on June 3, 2024.
The workshop featured Carola Westermeier from Justus-Liebig-University Gießen, who presented on "Monetary Sovereignty and Digital Autonomy." Discussions included insights from Jenny Simon (University of Hamburg) and Beat Weber (ÖNB), focusing on recent changes in international financial relations, their geopolitical and geo-economic impacts, and the role of digital technologies. The event facilitated interdisciplinary collaboration among researchers in this field.
IPW Lecture by Carola Westermeier: "Technologies of (In)Security? Re-designing International Financial Relations with Central Bank Digital Currencies"
3 June 2024
Department of Political Science, University of Vienna
Speaker: Carola Westermeier (Justus-Liebig-University Gießen)
Moderators: Sebastian Heidebrecht and Tobias Boos (University of Vienna)
The lecture discussed the evolving role of financial institutions and technologies, especially Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs), in international financial relations, highlighting how CBDCs, unlike cryptocurrencies, are integrated within traditional financial systems and developed by central banks. It examined the geopolitical implications of CBDCs, their potential to reshape global finance, and the contrasting development approaches by various nations, including China’s digital yuan. The talk addressed the impact of CBDCs on international cooperation, fragmentation, and governance.
OeNB Ein.Blick Wissenschaft interview with Tobias Boos
Interview with Tobias Boos on the BITELSA research project funded by the Anniversary Fund of the Austrian National Bank (OeNB).
Circle-U Workshop "Grounding Crypto" on Digital Infrastructures
1-3 November 2023
Institute of European Ethnology, Humboldt University Berlin
Researchers, including Tobias Boos, Ia Eradze, Juan Grigera, Alexander Harder, and Bernd Kasparek, gathered to discuss themes related to digital infrastructures, sovereignty, and cryptocurrency. The workshop included a public roundtable on ephemeral tokens and digital sovereignty, alongside internal sessions on blockchain, digital ethnographies, and big data, aimed at fostering collaboration among European academics.
Interview on Ö1 Radio - "Der Peso ist einen Sch...dreck wert"
19 October 2023
Radio Ö1, Punkt Eins
Tobias Boos discussed the economic crisis in Argentina, touching on dollarization, hyperinflation, and the country’s political economy. The discussion examined Argentina's economic policies and their interaction with its political environment.
