In this paper we unpack empirical data from two domains within the Blockchain information infrastructure: The cryptocurrency trading domain, and the energy domain. Through these accounts we introduce the relational concepts of Blockchain Assemblages and Whiteboxing. Blockchain assemblages comprise configurations of digital and analogue artefacts that are entangled with imaginaries about the current and future state of the Blockchain information infrastructure. Rather than being a black box, Blockchain assemblages alternate between being dynamic and stable entities. We propose Whiteboxing as the sociomaterial process which drives blockchain assemblages in their dynamic state to be (re)configured, while related artefacts and imaginaries are simultaneously transformed, creating dynamic representations. Whiteboxing is triggered during disconfirming events when representations are discovered as problematic. Complementing existing historical accounts demonstrating technologies in the making, the contribution of this paper, proposes whiteboxing as an analytical concept which allows us to unpack how contemporary technologies are created through entrepreneurial activities.

In this paper, we present ethnographic data unpacking three different accounts of how Blockchain technology gets introduced into the shipping domain. The results demonstrate that the shipping industry is based upon an information infrastructure with a socio-technical kernel comprising transaction practices between shippers, freight forwarders, ports, shipping lines, and other actors in the shipping industry. These practices are based upon standards, which have evolved over time and are embedded within the installed base of the infrastructure. We find that because of the inertia of the shipping infrastructure, Blockchain technology cannot be seamlessly introduced directly into the shipping domain. Instead, we introduce Infrastructural Grind as the activity by which domains (e.g. shipping) intersect with new technological infrastructures (e.g. Blockchain). Infrastructural grind occurs as a result of various infrastructuring activities taking place at different intersections between the two infrastructures, and is constituted of the sum of these manifestations. We propose that infrastructural grind is enacted through activities expressing elements of consolidation, permeability, and velocity.

In this paper, we present ethnographic data that unpacks the everyday work of some of the many infrastructuring agents who contribute to creating, sustaining and growing the Blockchain information infrastructure. We argue that this infrastructuring work takes the form of entrepreneurial actions, which are self-initiated and primarily directed at sustaining or increasing the initiator's stake in the emerging information infrastructure. These entrepreneurial actions wrestle against the affordances of the installed base of the Blockchain infrastructure, and take the shape of engaging or circumventing activities. These activities purposefully aim at either influencing or working around the enablers and constraints afforded by the Blockchain information infrastructure, as its installed base is gaining inertia. This study contributes to our understanding of the purpose of infrastructuring, seen from the perspective of heterogeneous entrepreneurial agents. It supplements existing accounts of the "when" and "how" of infrastructure, with a lens for examining the "why" of infrastructure.