This paper's objective is important for clarifying the economic characteristics of the cryptocurrencies' ecosystem and thus providing an interpretative grid for future research. Far from being limited to the Bitcoin's experience, the number of cryptocurrencies is large and new crypto-like assets are constantly being created. The multiplicity of cryptocurrencies raises questions about their similarities and their differences. Attempts at classification have indeed been made, but these focused either on the strictly technological architecture, or on their socio-technical features in terms of governance. Almost no classification of cryptocurrencies has been done from an economic perspective except for Delfin and Van Der Merwe. This article seeks to fill this gap in the literature. We do so by developing a mixed method (quantitative and qualitative) analysis based on how cryptocurrencies present themselves on the internet. Our results show that cryptocurrencies are not a monolithic bloc when it comes to the width of their goals and the idea of society they put forward. They can be divided according four categories: reform, revolutionary, monetary, blockchain.

中文翻译：

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揭开面纱：绘制加密货币的生态系统

本文的目标对于阐明加密货币生态系统的经济特征非常重要，从而为未来的研究提供解释网格。加密货币的数量远非仅限于比特币，而且数量庞大，并且新的类似加密资产不断被创建。加密货币的多样性引发了关于它们的相似性和差异的问题。确实进行了分类尝试，但这些尝试要么集中在严格的技术架构上，要么集中在治理方面的社会技术特征。除了 Delfin 和 Van Der Merwe 之外，几乎没有从经济角度对加密货币进行过分类。本文旨在填补文献中的这一空白。为此，我们根据加密货币在互联网上的呈现方式开发了一种混合方法（定量和定性）分析。我们的结果表明，就其目标的广度和所提出的社会理念而言，加密货币并不是一个铁板一块的集团。它们可以分为四类：改革类、革命类、货币类、区块链类。