Abstract
The word “cryptocurrency” refers to records of value on a publicly accessible ledger that only the holder of an encrypted key may alter. The ledger is immutable and therefore requires no third party such as a bank or an attorney for authentification. The word cryptocurrency increasingly appears in public media concerning economic policy. However, it has yet to appear in language analyses and language policy papers. This paper speaks to the exigence of financial solutions though cryptocurrencies for individuals, generations, and nations in whole and ties cryptocurrency to communitarian language policy solutions. Furthermore, cryptocurrency, if entered into the conversation of language policy scholars will assist their arguments in favor of mother-tongue languages and their attempts at cultural preservation. In reference to the edited collection of Language Policy and Political Economy: English in a Global Context (2015) by Thomas Ricento, this article provides non-technical academics with enough credible information about cryptocurrencies to adequately conceptualize the impact of cryptocurrencies on language and language policy.