While previously a nascent theoretical construct, decentralized autonomous organizations (DAO) have grown rapidly in recent years. DAOs typically emerge around the management of decentralized financial applications (DeFi) and thus benefit from the rapid growth of innovation in this sector. In response, global regulators increasingly voice the intent to regulate these activities. This may impose an excessive compliance burden on DAOs, unless they are deemed sufficiently decentralized to be regulated. Yet, decentralization is an abstract concept with scarce legal precedence. We investigate dimensions of decentralization through thematic analysis, combining extant literature with a series of expert interviews. We propose a definition of “sufficient decentralization” and present a general framework for the assessment of decentralization. We derive five dimensions for the assessment of decentralization in DAOs: Token-weighted voting, Infrastructure, Governance, Escalation and Reputation (TIGER). We present a discretionary sample application of the framework and five propositions on the future regulation and supervision of DAOs. We contribute new practical insights on the topic of compliance and decentralized organizations to the growing discourse on the application of blockchain technology in information systems (IS) and management disciplines.
Abstract Higher regulatory compliance requirements, fast and continuous changes in regulations and high digital dynamics in the financial markets are powering RegTech (regulatory technology), defined as technology‐enabled innovation applied to the world of regulation, compliance, risk management, reporting and supervision. This work builds on a systematic literature review and a bibliometric analysis of the literature on RegTech, its influential papers and authors, its main areas of research, its past and its future. The resulting multi-dimensional framework bridges across four main dimensions, starting with regulation and technology, where one or more regulations, not necessarily financial ones, are addressed with the support of technologies (e.g. artificial intelligence, DLT, blockchain, smart contracts, API). Data play a central role, as sharing them enables data ecosystems, where additional value can be attained by each market participant, while data automation and machine-readable regulations empower regulators to pull data directly from the banks’ systems and combine these data with data obtained directly from customers or other external sources. Several applications emerge, both for regulated entities, covering matters of compliance, monitoring, risk management, reporting and operations, as well as for authorities, which can leverage on RegTech (SupTech) solutions to make policies, to undertake their authorising, supervising and enforcement operations, for monitoring and controlling purposes, and even to issue fines automatically. As a consequence, stakeholders can reap a series of benefits, such as higher efficiency and effectiveness, accuracy, transparency and lower compliance costs but also risks, such as cyber risk, algorithmic biases, and dehumanization.
This study examines Kenyan youths' level of knowledge and involvement in the cryptocurrency industry. Digital currencies, known as cryptocurrencies, use a peer-to-peer technology to speed up internet transactions. The idea of cryptocurrencies started in the 1980s but has since developed significantly. The study collected secondary data and conducted online surveys. In this study, panel data from four different cryptocurrencies' values, transaction fees, and volumes over a six-year period were studied. The findings indicate a connection between the number of cryptocurrency transactions, their prices, and their transaction costs. The research also demonstrates how much the youth in Kenya are aware of and use cryptocurrencies. This paper also highlights some factors that may be considered when engaging in crypto business. It also highlights some of the principal properties of cryptos. The study concludes that there is a need for both local and international regulation of the cryptocurrency market to boost investor confidence and improve security.
Public health harms from gambling are now well recognised. Public Health England estimates societal gambling-related harm in England exceeds £1·27 billion. Australian research estimates that the years lost to disability from gambling exceeds that of diabetes.1 Policy makers have begun to take action; gambling advertising and sponsorship is banned in Italy, and English football clubs and the UK government are currently considering sponsorship bans for the Premier League.2
Sina Rafati Niya, Simon Bachmann, Claudio Brasser, Michael Bucher · 6 authors
Abstract Event tickets being sold in their electronic instances are subject to counterfeiting, profiteering, and black markets. Therefore, suitable service management mechanisms are required to overcome such deficits. This work designs, develops, and evaluates the approach of a Decentralized Ticketing platform—called DeTi—for managing the distribution of electronic event tickets and “regulating” the aftermarket. DeTi offers a dedicated service management functionality by operating through Smart Contracts of Ethereum, such that users can verify tickets’ validity for a given event. Especially, a new mechanism for users to detect fraudulent events is introduced, too. The evaluation performed indicates that DeTi invalidates or validates tickets efficiently via its decentralized and BC-based service management approach. By securing technically a set of underlying processes, DeTi obviates forging, replication, and scalping of tickets, allowing for a well-managed resale ecosystem of tickets based on and limited to the organizers’ initial pricing.
Abstract As blockchain and DLTs technology makes its presence felt strongly in many industries like finance and banking,<br> this study investigates the business case for the application to social impact bonds (SIBs). Technological innovation in<br> general, and distributed ledger technology (DLT) in particular, could become a game changer in the development of new<br> social impact bonds sector. This paper discusses the potential impact of DLT on SIBs market and the potential scenarios of<br> DLT adoption. Alongside presenting strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats analysis (SWOT), the study exhibits<br> the requirements for and steps toward a SIBs structure facilitated by blockchain technology.
Marc Pilkington, Erdita Kumaraku, Kejsi Bushi, Katia Haveri
Albania is a small country of the West Balkans situated in Southeast Europe still in the early stages of distributed ledger technology (DLT) adoption. In this research note, we begin to investigate the cryptocurrency regulatory framework and propose a national blockchain roadmap for the country. Albania was one of the first European nations to elaborate a cryptocurrency regulatory framework aimed at safeguarding users from the dangers of fraud and imposing sanctions in situations of misuse. Our proposed national blockchain roadmap includes emerging priorities such as licensed entities, digital divide reduction, remittances digitisation, Ethereum 2.0, blockchain FDI, e-voting, and the quadruple helix system.
Selina Demi, Mary Sánchez‐Gordón, Monica Kristiansen
Abstract Blockchain technology has emerged as a “disruptive innovation” that has received significant attention in academic and organizational settings. However, most of the existing research is focused on technical issues of blockchain systems, overlooking the organizational perspective. This study adopted a grounded theory to unveil the blockchain implementation process in organizations from the lens of blockchain experts. The results revealed three main categories: key activities, success factors, and challenges related to blockchain implementation in organizations, the latter being identified as the core category, along with 17 other concepts. Findings suggested that the majority of blockchain projects stop at the pilot stage and outlined organizational resistance to change as the core challenge. According to the experts, the following factors contribute to the organizational resistance to change: innovation–production gap, conservative management, and centralized mentality. The study aims to contribute to the existing blockchain literature by providing a holistic and domain‐agnostic view of the blockchain implementation process in organizational settings. This can potentially encourage the development and implementation of blockchain solutions and guide practitioners who are interested in leveraging the inherent benefits of this technology. In addition, the results are used to improve a blockchain‐enabled requirements traceability framework proposed in our previous paper.
Abstract: Today’s OSNs are controlled by major companies such as Facebook, Instagram and Twitter who have complete control over user data. These companies store the user data in a centralized server which.This has several issues. For example, if their servers go down there no backup copies might be available and the chances of getting hacked are more in a centralized architecture. These companies can also censor the contents and post targeted ads in the user feeds. To overcome the drawbacks of the centralized OSNs, in this paper we are implementing a decentralized social media with the help of Ethereum smart contracts. Here, the data is not stored in a centralized server and the major disadvantages of centralized servers can be overcome by this approach.
Rowaid Ibrahim, Ahmed A. Harby, Mohamed Salem Nashwan, Ahmed Elhakeem
The blockchain that uses cryptocurrency is a paradigm shift in the way of data storage, retrieval, and verification due to the concept of decentralization. This paradigm is essential to ensure the security of crucial data in any project. Adding a smart contract to the blockchain would facilitate the automation of various processes. Thus, the cryptocurrency blockchain that uses the smart contract can be considered a suitable platform for an ecosystem of many industries. The construction industry needs a highly secure automated management system due to its complex contractual relationships and transactions between parties. Therefore, integrating the blockchain with the smart contract creates the most appropriate ecosystem to be developed. This study introduces an ecosystemic prototype using a programmable smart contract within a novel cryptocurrency blockchain for construction. The purpose of the prototype is to guarantee a decentralized system as an independent economic environment for the construction industry. The system guarantees the security of financial transactions and focuses on the payment clauses in the construction contract as well. The results depended on three well-known hypothetical case scenarios from the construction site and were displayed in the form of extracted access data tables. The prototype proved the efficiency of the decentralized system for the construction industry by minimizing human-factor interference in the transaction process and thus reducing time waste and cost.
A peer-to-peer (P2P) decentralized information-sharing network is used to share data and maintain security, privacy, and integrity standards called blockchain. In this case, information sharing and updating require regular simplification. The presented systematic review mainly focuses on the interoperability of electronic health records (EHRs) using blockchain. Correspondingly, 18 blockchain-based solutions were selected to address the interoperability challenges of EHRs. The limitation of solutions includes reliability, privacy, integrity, sharing, and standards. This systematic review contains six phase’s research question, research phase, article selection, abstract-based keyword, data extraction, and progress tracking. Various Web resources such as Google Scholar, Web of Science, and IEEE are used to extract the relevant manuscripts. Primarily, 18 articles were selected to present the interoperable requirements of EHRs using blockchain, standards of blockchain-based EHRs, and solutions for interoperability of EHRs using blockchain. The conducted study explains the best available interoperable blockchain-based EHR standards, implementations, applications, and challenges.
The aim of this paper is to analyze how the governance of an enterprise blockchain ecosystem changes as it matures and increases in size. A review of the literature serves to identify five behavioral drivers of governance, which appear to affect the long-term viability of a blockchain ecosystem: access rights, decision rights, incentives, accountability, and conflict resolution. We subsequently report the findings from a comparative case study of how three large blockchain ecosystems implemented various governance mechanisms to exploit and modify the five behavioral drivers over time. Based on twenty-six interviews and approximately 200 h of participant observations, we propose an analytical framework that consists of three distinctive stages in the life cycle of a blockchain ecosystem. Each stage is characterized by an intricate relationship between off-chain and on-chain governance mechanisms. Based on these findings, various recommendations are provided to increase the long-term viability of blockchain ecosystems.
Aiming at improving the enterprise performance and venture capital management, the edge computing is combined with blockchain technology in the construction of the supply chains so as to improve the stability and security of raw material supply chains of venture capital enterprises. Firstly, the relationships among venture capital, enterprise performance, and supply chain integration are analyzed, and the positive impacts of optimization and innovation of supply chain technology and venture capital on enterprise performance improvement are discussed. Secondly, the edge computing and blockchain technology are adopted to optimize the supply chain, and a protocol model is established to improve the security of supply chain information transmission. In addition, the supply chain Internet of Things (IoT) system is designed in layers based on blockchain and edge computing technology. Finally, the designed protocol model is applied to the supply chain and the supplier performance is evaluated by using the fuzzy analytic hierarchy process (FAHP). The results show that the gas value of the designed protocol model is stable at 104,000∼116,000 in blockchain transactions, and the execution time of a single blockchain transaction fluctuates between 4,300 and 6,100 ms. Therefore, the designed protocol model can effectively ensure the security of supply chain data during the transmission. The evaluation results of supplier performance suggest that the cooperative relationship between venture capital enterprises and suppliers is affected by many factors. Optimizing the supply chain structure and production activities can improve the performance of suppliers and venture capital enterprises. This work provides a reference for analyzing the performance of blockchain technology on venture capital enterprises and suppliers.
Perkembangan dunia modern terus berkembang pesat, salah satunya terhadap dunia fintech. Sehingga terus bermunculan ide baru untuk menciptakan sistem pembayaran yang lebih efektif dan lebih canggih dari sebelumnya. Dari situlah tercipta bitcoin sebagai salah satu bentuk dari sistem cryptocurrency. Semakin kesini, perkembangan dan peminat bitcoin sangat pesat karena keuntungan yang digarap sangat besar. Dalam rentang waktu yang singkat harga bitcoin terus menjulang tinggi. Kendati demikian, permasalah perbedaan pandangan dan pendapat tentang sah nya bitcoin masih terus diperdebatkan. Hal ini didasari peraturan undang-undang yang menyebutkan bahwa mata uang yang sah dan diterima di Indonesia adalah Rupiah. Dan sampai saat ini belumm ada perubahan ataupun penambahan. Oleh karenanya, peneliti bertujuan untuk memaparkan tentang “Bitcoin dan Keabsahannya Sebagai Mata Uang Virtual dari Perspektif Hukum Positif di Indonesia”. Apakah benar Indonesia telah memberikan legal formal terhadap bitcoin sebagai mata uang virtual yang dapat digunakan untuk alat pembayaran dan sebagai alat tukar ?. Banyak kemungkinan yang akan terus berubah sejalan dengan perubahan yang terus ada terutama dalam bidang ekonomi oleh karenanya, pada penelitian ini,peneliti akan menjelaskan tentang kedudukan keabsahan hukum bitcoin sebagai mata uang virtual di Indonesia saat ini.
Farming and food production sustainability increasingly depends on the availability of a clean energy model for irrigated agriculture. This can be achieved by massively introducing photovoltaic irrigation systems (PVI) with sufficient quality and reliability. Nevertheless, such PVI projects require high upfront investment and long payback times, so access to long-term, low-cost capital is essential to ensure their competitiveness. In this regard, decentralized financial (DeFi) solutions based on blockchain (BC) technology present a number of features that can be applied to produce financial instruments (FI) well suited to attract investors to PVI projects and to reduce the cost of clean energy for irrigators. In order to assess such a possibility, a DeFi FI tailored for PVI has been produced and implemented in BC. We demonstrate that a single smart contract executed in a distributed ledger can execute the different tasks related to the securitization of PVI assets. The impact on the cost of capital for PVI projects is significant, leading to an estimated reduction in the cost of clean energy for irrigators of 22%. Nevertheless, decentralization also introduces a number of specific risks that must be considered and mitigated.
Amrutanshu Panigrahi, Ajit Kumar Nayak, Rourab Paul
The proposed smart contract can prevent seven cyber attacks, such as Denial of Service (DoS), Man in the Middle Attack (MITM), Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS), 51\%, Injection attacks, Routing Attack, and Eclipse attack. The Delegated Proof of Stake (DPoS) consensus algorithm used in this model reduces the number of validators for each transaction which makes it suitable for lightweight applications. The timing complexity of key/certificate validation and signature/certificate revocation processes do not depend on the number of transactions. The comparisons of various timing parameters with existing solutions show that the proposed PKI is competitively better.
Recently, the concept of smart contract has come to existence as an alternative for a more technologically sophisticated digital contract. Smart contract operates based on the blockchain technology, does not involve a third party and has self-executing ability; allowing an implementation of a contract with zero risk of failure. In regards to this, HARA, an agriculture start-up company, created a self-titled platform that focuses on data exchange in the decentralized agriculture sector in order to provide consumers with the access to data. Some of the data provided by HARA include farmer identifications; cultivation data; specific location data; ecology data; market information and transaction data which are collected from various sources. However, an in-depth study is required to better understand smart contract and its contract law application. This study is normative legal research and used the conceptual and statutory approaches. Smart contract and its self-executing or self-enforcing ability does not render a revision or renewal of the contract by the contracting parties impossible. In this case, the responsibility of the platform provider to meet the terms of the contract can still be requested. The concept of smart contract, which is also categorized as an electronic agent, has met the Indonesian requirements for contract validity. The distinct feature of a smart contract is its self-executing/self-enforcing ability. Furthermore, there are five legal relationships that exist among the users of the HARA application.
Cryptocurrencies have been gaining attention in the financial world in recent years, with the model reportedly being able to digitally transfer, store and record information, and has the potential to transform traditional financial services. Financial digitization is very much needed in today's conditions, where all life uses digital systems to support life. Financial modification is certainly needed in realizing sustainable finance, especially in the field of Islamic finance globally. In this study to explore the potential of cryptocurrencies in the inclusion of sustainable Islamic finance. This research was conducted using a library research model, with data collection in the form of books, journals, websites and other objects that are considered relevant and then carried out an in-depth study through descriptive qualitative analysis methods. The results of the study indicate that cryptocurrency is a financial digitization that has the potential to support and ensure that the Islamic financial transaction process can be accessed by millions of consumers so that the goal of financial inclusion can be achieved and supports the development of the financial industry that has transaction efficiency values so that it can realize sustainable Islamic finance.
Infrastructure is critical for enabling society to function and the economy to thrive, but there is an increasing mismatch between the need for infrastructure investments and available capital, which is in consequence of constraints on public resources and limited capacity to leverage the private sector co-financing under the current system. With the emergence of distributed ledger technology, such as blockchain-enabled tokenization, there is a significant potential to improve investment liquidity, transparency, efficiency and create new economic models to integrate non-financial values to promote sustainability and inclusiveness. This research analyzed 21 projects to investigate how tokenization is implemented in energy infrastructure projects. Exploratory case study analyses were conducted, which shows the diversity of tokenization arrangements. The state of the art, potential benefits, implications, and obstacles associated with the application of tokenization in infrastructure investment and development are discussed. The purpose of this research is to understand tokenization within the context of the energy sector but also to forecast its application in a broad spectrum of infrastructure projects (e.g., transportation, telecommunication, healthcare, education).
Srinidhi Rai, Shamantha Rai B, Permanki Guthu Rithesh Pakkala, Prakhyath Rai
Abstract A blockchain is a continuously expanding list of documents known as blocks that are connected together via cryptography. A smart contract is a computer program that executes itself in accordance with the terms of a contract. In Traditional vaccine delivery systems, vaccine delivery information is not visible to all the supply chain entities, thereby prone to data tampering. Thus, transparency is the biggest concern in this system. In the case of the COVID-19 pandemic, the rapid launch of a vaccine and the implementation of a worldwide vaccination campaign is crucial, but their success depends on the availability of an operable and transparent distribution chain that all necessary stakeholders can assess. In the proposed work, we show how blockchain technology may be used to enable transparent tracing of COVID-19 vaccination registration, storage, and distribution and self-reporting of side effects by constructing a prototype using smart contracts.
Arjan Frederiks, Sílvia Fernandes Costa, Boudewijn Hulst, Arend J. Groen
Regulatory uncertainty about a technology confronts new technology-based firms (NTBFs) with questions of whether or not to adopt this technology. Following institutional theory, NTBFs are expected not to adopt a technology until regulatory uncertainty has been reduced. However, following the resource-based view, NTBFs are expected to adopt the technology under regulatory uncertainty due to limited or no regulation, as this provides them with an opportunity to secure competitive resources. We investigate whether regulatory uncertainty enabled or inhibited 108 fintech ventures in adopting blockchain’s core application, cryptocurrency, in a time when governments were still considering potential regulation. Our findings indicate that regulatory uncertainty has a positive effect on NTBFs’ adoption of technology. We extend our knowledge on the role of regulatory uncertainty in technology adoption and we shed light on the boundary conditions of both the resource-based view and institutional theory. Further, we reflect on regulating the “winds of change.”
In this article, we consider the roles of tokens and distributed ledgers in digital payment systems. We present a brief taxonomy of digital payment systems that use tokens, and we address the different models for how distributed ledger technology can support digital payment systems in general. We offer guidance on the salient features of digital payment systems, which we comprehend in terms of consumer privacy, token issuance, and accountability for system operators.