Ghana’s blockchain scene on WhatsApp

Abstract

Social media sites with global reach like Twitter and WhatsApp are playing a paramount role in the communication, socializing, and business practices of Ghana’s blockchain community. Specifically, WhatsApp has become the platform powering the principal instantiation of blockchain in Ghana, which is trading and investing in cryptocurrencies. Considering the country’s high internet fees and sometimes unreliable network access, WhatsApp is a particularly endearing platform to facilitate the blockchain scene due to the low internet data usage that it requires. Drawing on empirical research data from 33 semi-structured interviews with blockchain enthusiasts in Ghana, this paper analyzes the particularities of blockchain’s adoption and spread in its primarily virtual scene. Key to this examination is the consideration of the affordances and constraints of WhatsApp as the primary spatial frame driving and shaping blockchain’s adoption and use in Ghana. As coagents with the digital sphere they transact and interact on, members of the blockchain community are collectively and individually perpetuating processes of knowledge creation and communal exchanges interspersed with values of competitive innovating. Keywords: Ghana, blockchain scene, WhatsApp, cryptocurrency trading and investment