The rise and fall of Electra: emergence and transformation of a global cryptocurrency community

Abstract

Electra was developed by an unknown man, Electra01. Following its emergence in cryptocurrency markets in 2018, its market capitalization briefly reached 136 billion USD, exceeding Bitcoin in value. The project’s community of 20,000 individuals, wrote its white papers, updated its blockchain, instituted a foundation, introduced a payment system, and voted to be the best crypto project in 2020 in the world by a global vote. Following a fundamental controversy in its community, Electra collapsed as the founder sold his hundreds of millions of Electras in November 2020, effectively killing the project. Within a short period, the community left the founder behind, and moved on to a new project, giving (re)birth to their community money, this time called Electra Protocol. Drawing on an empirical case study, this paper presents an analysis of how cryptocurrency communities emerge, mature and migrate as they make data monies.

Keywords: Cryptocurrency; Electra; community; history; blockchain

JEL Classification: A00