This paper challenges the notion that Bitcoin is ‘trust-free’ money by highlighting the social practices, organizational structures and utopian ambitions that sustain it. At the paper's heart is the paradox that if Bitcoin succeeds in its own terms as an ideology, it will fail in practical terms as a form of money. The main reason for this is that the new currency is premised on the idea of money as a ‘thing’ that must be abstracted from social life in order for it to be protected from manipulation by bank intermediaries and political authorities. The image is of a fully mechanized currency that operates over and above social life. In practice, however, the currency has generated a thriving community around its political ideals, relies on a high degree of social organization in order to be produced, has a discernible social structure, and is characterized by asymmetries of wealth and power that are not dissimilar from the mainstream financial system. Unwittingly, then, Bitcoin serves as a powerful demonstration of the relational character of money.
Purpose -Aiming to discover whether Bitcoin prices have an effect on investor decisions in stock market transactions sounds exciting. Therefore, among investment, money, payment system functionalities of the cryptocurrencies which are very popular on economic and financial agenda nowadays, only the investment function regarding to the market volume of Bitcoin (which is very popular) is taken into consideration in this study. Methodology -In the scope of the study, because similar analyses between cryptocurrencies and stock market indices do not exist in the literature, cointegration relation between them are examined. Thus, the cointegration between Bitcoin (since there are many cryptocurrencies and Bitcoin is very popular and has the highest proportion in all terms in general) and selected stock indices can be investigated by the ARDL boundary test method. Since the analysis method gives meaningful information in terms of different time periods, the price and index data of these variables have been analysed. Findings-Cointegration relationship between Bitcoin prices and leading US and Chinese stock market indices is observed. Within this context, it can be told that investors in these stock markets could be influenced by Bitcoin prices in their long-term investment decision process. Any relationship was not found with BIST100, FTSE100 and NIKKEI225 indices. Conclusion -Necessity to examine the relation among Bitcoin, cryptocurrencies and other investment instruments with payment systems, money, e-commerce figures and macroeconomic indicators in the light of the arguments and the results found in our analysis would add more value to the literature. In addition, other dimensions of this topic should be regulated and be analysed by new studies within the scope of other technological developments in the 4 th Industrial Revolution. It is also decided to analyse relationship among related Istanbul Stock Exchange sub-indices, the Turkish Lira, gold, money supply and other cryptocurrencies in the following/future studies.
Blockchains can be used as ledger systems that are verifiable, auditable, transparent, and run on a network of personal computers. Although best known as the computational underpinning of Bitcoin, they have applications beyond digital currency.
They could transform contexts where verification of transactions without a central authority is currently a stumbling block. Among the applications being explored are so-called ‘smart contracts’, reputation systems, intellectual property, asset registers, voting, and the administration of decentralized organizations .
There are also applications with environmental relevance. These include land claims registration, especially in regions where property ownership frequently is contested or where administrative institutions are not trusted, including species-rich parts of the developing world; establishment of alternative currencies backed by renewable energy generation, carbon mitigation, and sustainable innovation supply chain traceability to improve transparency and undermine corruption, particularly in agriculture and fishing; and tracking of illegal wildlife trade.
Blockchain is being termed as the fifth disruptive innovation in computing. In simplest words, it is a distributed ledger of records that is immutable and verifiable. Since its advent in 2008, blockchain as a concept has been used in various ways. The largest impact or application is seen as a multitude of cryptocurrencies that have sprung up. However, with time, it has become clear that blockchain as a technology is likely to have an impact much wider than just the cryptocurrency domain and much deeper than simple distributed ledger storage. This detailed survey intends to bring together all the key developments so far in terms of putting blockchain to practice. While the most common adoption of blockchain is in finance and banking domain, there are experiments being conducted by many big players in various other domains. This paper will explore the various domains where blockchain has had an impact and where future implementations may be expected.
A spectre is haunting the globe. It is not the spectre of communism to which Marx and Engels referred. It is the spectre of smart contracts. These are contracts whose execution is automated, excising human intervention. There is even the pretension that they can circumvent judicial control. The purpose of this manifesto is to raise concern about the ambitions of technocrats to get rid of the law.
Nearly twenty-five years ago, the internet disrupted the world and started a new era of technological supremacy. Today, with the rise of cryptocurrencies and its underlying technology, we stand at the helm of another such revolution. Cryptocurrencies like bitcoin are decentralised, digital currencies relying on a peer-to-peer network which operates without the need for a third-party intermediary like the Reserve Bank of India. Coupled with lack of regulatory guidance, its unique technical aspects create huge complications in its taxation. While much ignorance still prevails in respect of cryptocurrencies, countries around the world have finally started taking notice and acting upon it. This paper focuses on what cryptocurrencies are, why they are important, and the prevailing regulatory structure concerning them. It overviews the complete landscape for taxation of cryptocurrencies like bitcoin, analysing the indirect and direct tax structure, particularly after the implementation of Central Goods and Services Tax Act, 2017, while also addressing the issues concerning the evasionary practices. The findings help in assessing the regulatory aspects in light of the technological, economic, social and financial forces, and establishing a set framework for taxation of cryptocurrencies.
Anunay Kulshrestha, Akshay Rampuria, Matthew Denton, Ashwin Sreenivas
We introduce a robust framework that allows for cryptographically secure multiparty computations, such as distributed private value auctions. The security is guaranteed by two-sided authentication of all network connections, homomorphically encrypted bids, and the publication of zero-knowledge proofs of every computation. This also allows a non-participant verifier to verify the result of any such computation using only the information broadcasted on the network by each individual bidder. Building on previous work on such systems, we design and implement an extensible framework that puts the described ideas to practice. Apart from the actual implementation of the framework, our biggest contribution is the level of protection we are able to guarantee from attacks described in previous work. In order to provide guidance to users of the library, we analyze the use of zero knowledge proofs in ensuring the correct behavior of each node in a computation. We also describe the usage of the library to perform a private-value distributed auction, as well as the other challenges in implementing the protocol, such as auction registration and certificate distribution. Finally, we provide performance statistics on our implementation of the auction.
Blockchain technology has been known as the underlying technology of cryptocurrencies, but nowadays it is further considered as a functional technology for improving existing technologies and creating new applications previously never practical. In this paper, we are focused on utilizing blockchain technology to introduce a new ID as a service (IDaaS) for digital identity management. The proposed blockchain-based ID as a service (BIDaaS) is explained with one practical example that shows how the proposed BIDaaS works as an identity and authentication management infrastructure for mobile users of a mobile telecommunication company.
Mobile security has become more and more important due to the boom of mobile commerce (m-commerce). However, the development of m-commerce is facing many challenges regarding data security problems. Recently, blockchain has been introduced as an effective security solution deployed successfully in many applications in practice, such as, Bitcoin, cloud computing, and Internet-of-Things. However, the blockchain technology has not been adopted and implemented widely in m-commerce because its mining processes usually require to be performed on standard computing units, e.g., computers. Therefore, in this paper, we introduce a new m-commerce application using blockchain technology, namely, MobiChain, to secure transactions in the m-commerce. Especially, in the MobiChain application, the mining processes can be executed efficiently on mobile devices using our proposed Android core module. Through real experiments, we evaluate the performance of the proposed model and show that blockchain will be an efficient security solution for future m-commerce.
Bitcoin is a computerized digital money and exchange network, represents an essential change in financial sectors, an interesting number of customers and excellent evaluation of channel inspection. In this research, dataset related to ten cryptocurrencies are used and created a new dataset by taking the closing price of each cryptocurrency for the research goal to ascertain how the direction and accuracy of price of the Bitcoin can be predicted by using data mining methods. Features engineering evaluated that all the ten cryptocurrencies are strongly correlated with each other. The task is achieved by implementation of supervised learning method in which random forest, support vector classifier, gradient boosting classifier, and neural network classifier are used under classification category and linear regression, recurrent neural network, gradient boosting regressor are used under regression category. In the classification category, support vector classifier achieved the highest accuracy of 62.31% and precision value 0.77. In regression category, gradient boosting regressor got the highest R-squared value 0.99.
A controvérsia acerca da emergência do bitcoin como um novo meio de troca e sua conciliação com o teorema da regressão de Mises tem se intensificado nos últimos tempos. A questão principal do debate pode ser assim formulada: teria o bitcoin um valor de uso direto? O presente estudo afirma que o teorema da regressão não tem aplicabilidade à questão da gênese do bitcoin, pois o teorema limita-se a explicar a emergência de um novo meio de troca sob uma economia de troca pura ou escambo. O debate, portanto, está fundamentado em um erro de interpretação do teorema. Entretanto, a questão do valor de uso direto do bitcoin, se é que se pode afirmar que exista, tem sim importância para a avaliação da probabilidade de o bitcoin tornar-se um meio de troca generalizadamente aceito – isto é, dinheiro.
Ali Dorri, Salil S. Kanhere, Raja Jurdak, Praveen Gauravaram
BlockChain (BC) has attracted tremendous attention due to its immutable nature and the associated security and privacy benefits. BC has the potential to overcome security and privacy challenges of Internet of Things (IoT). However, BC is computationally expensive, has limited scalability and incurs significant bandwidth overheads and delays which are not suited to the IoT context. We propose a tiered Lightweight Scalable BC (LSB) that is optimized for IoT requirements. We explore LSB in a smart home setting as a representative example for broader IoT applications. Low resource devices in a smart home benefit from a centralized manager that establishes shared keys for communication and processes all incoming and outgoing requests. LSB achieves decentralization by forming an overlay network where high resource devices jointly manage a public BC that ensures end-to-end privacy and security. The overlay is organized as distinct clusters to reduce overheads and the cluster heads are responsible for managing the public BC. LSB incorporates several optimizations which include algorithms for lightweight consensus, distributed trust and throughput management. Qualitative arguments demonstrate that LSB is resilient to several security attacks. Extensive simulations show that LSB decreases packet overhead and delay and increases BC scalability compared to relevant baselines.
Bitcoin is an electronic monetary system, where transactions are carried out without a third party . The Bitcoins network is not dependent on the central organization .Bitcoin is based on an open cryptographic protocol. The Bitcoin network is distributed between a computer connected to the network. Bitcoin allows you to pay through a computer or smartphone without financial organizations. In this article, we analyzed the scientific-theoretical and practical issues in the Bitcoin network, attacks on the Bitcoin network, security and anonymity issues in the Bitcoin e-wallet .
New technologies, such as blockchain, cryptocurrency (e.g., Bitcoin), and artificial intelligence are rapidly changing how transactions occur in the United States. While scholars have started to examine how a number of areas of law should adapt, very little work has been done on what these changes mean for taxation. Yet these developments could have a huge impact on tax revenues. For example, some approaches to taxing transactions using cryptocurrency could result in these transactions being conducted abroad, beyond the reach of the U.S. taxing authorities. And if robots replace large segments of the labor force, this could drastically shrink federal and state income tax bases.
The approach to taxing new technologies is a careful balance of capturing value and not disincentivizing growth. For example, if governments decide to levy a “robot tax” to replace revenues the income tax is no longer generating, they may accidentally stifle innovation in that jurisdiction.
At the same time, these new technologies also provide tools that governments can harness to levy taxes far more effectively than they currently do. For example, using blockchain technology to track the history of income and company shares allows for the potential of an integrated tax system, which combines the currently separate corporate and personal taxes into one unified taxation regime. The effects of this transition are a removal of many distortions and behavioral inefficiencies.
Just because technology can be used to levy taxes far more creatively does not mean that it should be. But given the rapid rate at which technological change is occurring, governments cannot afford to sit back and make these decisions by inertia. Rather, the main argument of this is that governments should: (i) recognize and adapt to shifting tax bases; and (ii) use technology such as blockchain to better target the populations and behaviors desired to be taxed. The paper recommends specific examples of how to better tax and use technologies, such as blockchain, to reform current taxation schemes.
There is also ample discussion of whether cryptocurrency will be regulated as a security (as per the Howey test and recent SEC enforcement actions), a discussion of foreign jurisdictions' approaches to cryptocurrency regulation and taxation, and recommendations to the SEC and IRS on how they should adjust their taxation of cryptocurrency.
K.W. Yeow, Abdullah Gani, Raja Wasim Ahmad, Joel J. P. C. Rodrigues · 5 authors
With the exponential rise in the number of devices, the Internet of Things (IoT) is geared toward edge-centric computing to offer high bandwidth, low latency, and improved connectivity. In contrast, legacy cloud-centric platforms offer deteriorated bandwidth and connectivity that affect the quality of service. Edge-centric Internet of Things-based technologies, such as fog and mist computing, offer distributed and decentralized solutions to resolve the drawbacks of cloud-centric models. However, to foster distributed edge-centric models, a decentralized consensus system is necessary to incentivize all participants to share their edge resources. This paper is motivated by the shortage of comprehensive reviews on decentralized consensus systems for edge-centric Internet of Things that elucidates myriad of consensus facets, such as data structure, scalable consensus ledgers, and transaction models. Decentralized consensus systems adopt either blockchain or blockchainless directed acyclic graph technologies, which serve as immutable public ledgers for transactions. This paper scrutinizes the pros and cons of state-of-the-art decentralized consensus systems. With an extensive literature review and categorization based on existing decentralized consensus systems, we propose a thematic taxonomy. The pivotal features and characteristics associated with existing decentralized consensus systems are analyzed via a comprehensive qualitative investigation. The commonalities and variances among these systems are analyzed using key criteria derived from the presented literature. Finally, several open research issues on decentralized consensus for edge-centric IoT are presented, which should be highlighted regarding centralization risk and deficiencies in blockchain/blockchainless solutions.
In blockchain networks adopting the proof-of-work schemes, the monetary incentive is introduced by the Nakamoto consensus protocol to guide the behaviors of the full nodes (i.e., block miners) in the process of maintaining the consensus about the blockchain state. The block miners have to devote their computation power measured in hash rate in a crypto-puzzle solving competition to win the reward of publishing (a.k.a., mining) new blocks. Due to the exponentially increasing difficulty of the crypto-puzzle, individual block miners tends to join mining pools, i.e., the coalitions of miners, in order to reduce the income variance and earn stable profits. In this paper, we study the dynamics of mining pool selection in a blockchain network, where mining pools may choose arbitrary block mining strategies. We identify the hash rate and the block propagation delay as two major factors determining the outcomes of mining competition, and then model the strategy evolution of the individual miners as an evolutionary game. We provide the theoretical analysis of the evolutionary stability for the pool selection dynamics in a case study of two mining pools. The numerical simulations provide the evidence to support our theoretical discoveries as well as demonstrating the stability in the evolution of miners' strategies in a general case.
Antonio Ramón Bartolomé Pina, Carles Bellver Torlà, Linda Castañeda, Jordi Adell Segura
La tecnología de las cadenas de bloques (blockchain) abandonan el terreno de la moneda digital para invadir otros campos. También en Educación, aunque muy tímidamente, aparecen aplicaciones todavía con un carácter piloto. Pero las expectativas que están levantando llevan a plantearse qué es esa tecnología, para qué se usa, cómo podría aprovecharse en Educación y que oportunidades y qué amenazas puede suponer. El análisis del estado de la cuestión aprovecha para proporcionar numerosas referencias y enlaces que deben llevar a conocer y reflexionar sobre esta nueva tecnología
Recently, cryptocurrencies and bitcoin have become the main topics in the financial industry. A cryptocurrency is a digital or virtual currency that uses cryptography for security. A cryptocurrency is difficult to counterfeit because of this security feature. A defining feature of a cryptocurrency, and arguably its most endearing allure, is its organic nature; it is not issued by any central authority, rendering it theoretically immune to government interference or manipulation. Cryptocurrencies have their benefits and drawbacks. The paper elaborates different aspects of cryptocurrencies, starting with their early development, challenges and risks, opportunities, advantages and disadvantages, and their future. In addition, the paper covered issues related to the practical and technical function of cryptocurrencies. It was concluded that is not easy to predict the future of cryptocurrencies, since there is a lot to be done especially in the field of formal regulations. However, the banks and other financial institutions should see and consider cryptocurrencies as an alternative for the financial transactions in the future. Key words: cryptocurrencies, development, advantages disadvantages, financial transactions
Ying‐Ying Hsieh, Jean‐Philippe Vergne, Philip C. Anderson, Karim R. Lakhani · 5 authors
Bitcoin represents the first real-world implementation of a “decentralized autonomous organization” (DAO) and offers a new paradigm for organization design. Imagine working for a global business organization whose routine tasks are powered by a software protocol instead of being governed by managers and employees. Task assignments and rewards are randomized by the algorithm. Information is not channeled through a hierarchy but recorded transparently and securely on an immutable public ledger called “blockchain.” Further, the organization decides on design and strategy changes through a democratic voting process involving a previously unseen class of stakeholders called “miners.” Agreements need to be reached at the organizational level for any proposed protocol changes to be approved and activated. How do DAOs solve the universal problem of organizing with such novel solutions? What are the implications? We use Bitcoin as an example to shed light on how a DAO works in the cryptocurrency industry, where it provides a peer-to-peer, decentralized, and disintermediated payment system that can compete against traditional financial institutions. We also invited commentaries from renowned organization scholars to share their views on this intriguing phenomenon.
The internet and digital transfer of money is set to fundamentally change the way financial audits are conducted. This paper critically assesses the way that such assets are currently audited when stored in distributed ledgers, transmitted via a blockchain or whose value is stored in crypto rather than sovereign currency form. In it, we identify the self-verifying nature of such financial data which negates the need for traditional audit methods. Despite the promise of such methods, we highlight the many weaknesses that still exist in the blockchain and how these presents issues for verification. We address distributed transaction and custody records and how these present auditing challenges. We suggest how auditors can use smart contracts to address these and at the same time provide arbitration and oversight. Our contribution is to propose a protocol to audit the movement of blockchain transmitted funds in order to make them more robust going forward.