This article considers the notion of shared guardianship in the context of digital museum objects and blockchain technology, arguing that this technology can contribute to the production of value in digital museum objects that goes beyond the monetary. Shared guardianship is understood to be a process of prioritizing the experience of others and forming a diverse set of stakeholders that transforms understandings around ownership; meanwhile, a blockchain is a type of distributed ledger technology which can be used to identify digital files and so make them feel ownable and authentic. As such, this paper argues that blockchain technology could create a new layer of materiality and value in digital museum objects which could support the formation of shared guardianship. This question will be analysed in relation to the theoretical underpinnings of digital materiality and a case study project at the National Museums Liverpool, UK, which investigated how to implement blockchain technology in the museum context in order to produce collective ownership and meaningful, connected digital objects.
Ghassen El Montasser, Lanouar Charfeddine, Adel Benhamed
This paper compares the degree of cryptocurrency market efficiency during the pre- and post COVID-19 pandemic with the bubble and non-bubble periods of cryptocurrency markets. Furthermore, it examines and clusters eighteen cryptocurrencies by exploring their market efficiency similarity. Comparing the cryptocurrency bubble periods with the COVID-19 pandemic, the results indicate that this pandemic has the highest impact on cryptocurrency market efficiency. Interestingly, using the dynamic time warping clustering approach, we found evidence on the presence of three clusters that essentially represent mining coins, non-mining coins and token categorizations .
Digital technology, which appeared in the '80s and consolidated itself in the following decade with what was called the âthird industrial revolutionâ, has transformed not only our daily environment, but also the way in which we produce and experience the artistic work. Digital art, a subcategory of the so-named art of the new media, presents multiple forms and is in continual evolution, parallel to the devices which make it possible; but its commercialisation in the contemporary art market becomes complex, so digital works present a series of characteristics such as the paperless ofice, obsolescence and reproducibility which may be considered to be not particularly profitable by collectors. Despite this, in recent months the sale of some digital artworks, to which numerous texts are referred to under the name of cryptoart, have increased notably, reaching figures in the millions for the first time in auction houses. The commercial success of these pieces is due to the fact that, together with the work's archive, they include a type of cryptographic certificate, the non- fungible-tokens or NFTs, which collect the the work's data and inscribe them in a blockchain; transforming a multiple and disseminated work into a digital item that is unique and traceable, whose property can be transmitted as one would do with any other object in the offline world. Although they favour in principle the creation and sale of digital art, NFTs present their own problems, especially related to their access, use and sustainability; are NFTs a permanent tool or only a method of fleeting speculation? How does this certification affect property and the author's rights? Is it possible and will it be sustainable to employ them as a strategy for the preservation of digital works? This article carries out an analysis of the principal characteristics and problems of digital art in a general sense, as well as the solutions and preoccupations which the cryptographic certificates offer in all aspects in the life of a work of art: production, dissemination and preservation.
David Sanz Bas, Carlos del Rosal, Sergio Luis Nåñez Alonso, Miguel Ăngel Echarte FernĂĄndez
Cryptocurrencies have been developing very rapidly in recent years, and their use is becoming more and more widespread in different areas. The use of digital currencies for legal uses is advancing along with technological development, but, at the same time, criminal activities are also emerging to take advantage of this boom. The aim of this paper has been, first, to analyze the various ways in which individuals and criminal organizations have taken advantage of the phenomenon of cryptocurrencies to carry out fraudulent activities such as laundering money of illicit origin and, second, to provide an overview of the legal tools that have been developed in this regard in Europe and, more specifically, in Spain to combat these activities. Undoubtedly, cryptocurrencies bring great benefits to the economy, but it is also necessary to know the risks and abuses that have been developed to prevent them.
NFT-based art is at the forefront of a new wave of digital ownership that enables creators to retain control of their work and create and sell ownership rights for their digital media. But digital art is just the tip of the iceberg: this same technology can unlock access to any unique physical or digital resource, including products, services, and event access. We call these NFTs - used to access and determine ownership of resources off the blockchain - âSmart Collectibles.â Smart Collectibles have applications that range from digital gaming and media to finance and property. They are also a key enabler of Web 3.0 and the Metaverse, an always-on shared digital universe where people can work, play, and hang out. By creating this document, we aim to inspire and encourage creators, communities, and businesses to continue to innovate in this space. With Smart Collectibles, businesses and artists can enable access to value in a way that is traceable and highly secure and even stack access to multiple forms of value onto the primary non-fungible tokens themselves.
Bei der Kryptokunst handelt es sich nicht um klassische Kunstwerke zum Anfassen, sondern um digitale. Bisher standen diese nicht auf derselben Stufe wie analoge, die teils fĂŒr enorme BetrĂ€ge verkauft werden. Wer ein physisches Kunstwerk erworben hat, kann es beispielsweise sicher im Safe verstauen. Kryptokunst dagegen kann meist grenzen- und kostenlos heruntergeladen, vervielfĂ€ltigt oder geteilt werden. Wie kann also das Eigentum an einem digitalen Kunstwerk nachgewiesen werden? Beim Erwerb von Kryptokunst spielen NFTs (non-fungible tokens) eine groĂe Rolle. Das sind nicht ersetzbare Zeichen, die als digitale Besitzurkunde bzw. Echtheitszertifikat fungieren. Gearbeitet wird dabei mit der Blockchain-Technologie (vgl. stichwort der merz 2018/03), welche die Basis fĂŒr KryptowĂ€hrungen bildet. In dieser fĂ€lschungssicheren Datensatzliste wird eingeschrieben, wer das Objekt gekauft hat. Wer das NFT besitzt, besitzt damit das âOriginalâ der Datei. In der Regel bleibt das Werk dennoch fĂŒr alle verfĂŒgbar. Dieses Jahr wurde Kryptokunst erstmalig beim Aktionshaus Christieâs als NFT versteigert. Die digitale Bildcollage âEverydays: The First 5000 Daysâ aus 5.000 Einzelbildern des KĂŒnstlers Beeple erreichte 69 Millionen US-Dollar. Digitale Kunstwerke können auch auf Internetplattformen wie Nifty Gateway erworben werden. Bisher wurden NFTs in den verschiedensten Bereichen verkauft: Beispielsweise das bekannte Meme âDisaster Girlâ, das GIF âNyan Catâ, Musik sowie virtuelles Land in Games. Das besondere bei NFTs: Die KĂŒnstler*innen können bei jedem neuen Verkauf mitverdienen und ihre Werke weltweit direkt anbieten. Allerdings ist Kryptokunst stark an den Wert von KryptowĂ€hrungen gekoppelt und der CO2-Verbrauch beim Erstellen und durch den enormen Rechenaufwand beim Handeln der Werke ist hoch. Ob der Markt fĂŒr Kryptokunst zukunftsfĂ€hig ist, ist bisher nicht absehbar.
Matthieu Nadini, Laura Alessandretti, Flavio Di Giacinto, Mauro Martino · 6 authors
Non Fungible Tokens (NFTs) are digital assets that represent objects like art, collectible, and in-game items. They are traded online, often with cryptocurrency, and are generally encoded within smart contracts on a blockchain. Public attention towards NFTs has exploded in 2021, when their market has experienced record sales, but little is known about the overall structure and evolution of its market. Here, we analyse data concerning 6.1 million trades of 4.7 million NFTs between June 23, 2017 and April 27, 2021, obtained primarily from Ethereum and WAX blockchains. First, we characterize statistical properties of the market. Second, we build the network of interactions, show that traders typically specialize on NFTs associated with similar objects and form tight clusters with other traders that exchange the same kind of objects. Third, we cluster objects associated to NFTs according to their visual features and show that collections contain visually homogeneous objects. Finally, we investigate the predictability of NFT sales using simple machine learning algorithms and find that sale history and, secondarily, visual features are good predictors for price. We anticipate that these findings will stimulate further research on NFT production, adoption, and trading in different contexts.
Xiao Fan Liu, Huanhuan Ren, Si-Hao Liu, Xian-Jian Jiang
Abstract The cryptocurrency economy provides a comprehensive digital trace of human economic behavior: almost all cryptocurrency usersâ activities are faithfully recorded in transactions on public blockchains. However, the user identifiers in the transaction records, i.e., blockchain addresses, are anonymous. That is, they cannot be associated with any real âoff-chainâ identify of actual users. Nonetheless, identifying the economic roles of the addresses from their past behaviors is still feasible. This paper analyzes Ethereum token transactions, characterizes key economic agentsâ behavior from their transaction patterns, and explores their identifiability through interpretable machine learning models. Specifically, six types of most active economic agents are considered, including centralized cryptocurrency exchanges, decentralized exchanges, cryptocurrency wallets, token issuers, airdrop services, and gaming services. Transaction patterns such as trading volume, transaction tempo, and structural properties of transaction networks are defined for individual blockchain addresses. The results showed that cryptocurrency exchanges and online wallets have signature behavior patterns and hence can be accurately distinguished from other agents. Token issuers, airdrop services, and gaming services can sometimes be confused. Moreover, transaction networksâ features provide the richest information in the economic agentâs identification.
The current popularity of non-fungible token (NFT) markets is one of the most notable public successes of blockchain technology. NFTs are blockchain-traded rights to any digital asset; including images, videos, music, even the parts of virtual worlds. As a first study of NFT pricing, we explore the pricing of parcels of virtual real estate in the largest blockchain virtual world, Decentraland; an NFT simply termed LAND. We show a LAND price series characterised by both inefficiency and a steady rise in value.
This paper has four chapters. The first chapter serves as an introduction. The second chapter studies the transaction fees in the bitcoin system. The transaction fees and transaction volume in the bitcoin system increase whenever the network is congested and results from a simple VAR show that it is indeed the case. To account for the empirical findings, we build a model where users and miners together determine the transaction fee and transaction volume endogenously. Even though the fluctuating transaction fee mechanism in bitcoin introduces the extra cost of uncertainty to users, a back-of-envelope calculation shows that the cost of using the bitcoin network for transactions is still smaller than the cost of using the current conventional payment system with a fix transaction fee rate. The second chapter studies the time-varying price dispersion among different bitcoin exchanges. We identify the sources of price dispersion using a standard time-varying vector autoregression model with stochastic volatility. The results show that shocks to transaction fees and bitcoin price growth explain on average 20%, and sometimes more than 60%, of the variation of price dispersion. The third chapter studies the relationship between connections and returns in the bitcoin investor network. Using transaction data from the bitcoin blockchain, we reach three conclusions. First, on average, the annualized returns of connected addresses in the network are 20.75% above those of their unconnected peers. Second, returns also differ among those connected addresses. By dividing the connected ad- dresses into ten deciles based on their centrality, we find that addresses in the two most-connected deciles earn higher returns than the other connected addresses. Third, eigenvector centrality is more related than degree centrality to higher returns, implying that quality of connections matters.
Markets for unique digital propertyâdigital equivalents of rare artworks, collectible trading cards, and other assets that gain value from scarcityâhave exploded in the past few years. At root is the next iteration of blockchain technology, unique digital assets called non-fungible tokens. Unlike bitcoin, where one coin is the same as another, NFTs are unique, each with different attributes. An NFT that represented ownership of Boardwalk would be quite different from one that represented Baltic Avenue.\nNFTs have grown from a few early breakout successes to a rapidly developing market for unique digital treasures. The attraction to buyers is that, unlike digital assets like e-books or licensed movies, NFTs can be bought, sold, displayed, gifted, or even destroyed just like personal property. Yet law has not kept pace with demand for unique digital property. In particular, the rules designed for the 2000s internet focused on expanding intellectual property licenses and online contracts to the point that consumers are mere users, not owners, of digital assets. This âend of ownershipâ legal structure stands in stark contrast to the expectations of those who create, buy, sell, and invest in NFTs.\nThis article proposes a clear path for the evolution of the legal underpinnings of NFTs. It argues that NFTs are personal property, not contracts (despite the âsmart contractsâ popular nomenclature) or pure intellectual property licenses (despite the currently governing law of digital assets like e-books). Because transactions in NFTs are in the form of a sale, the law of sales of personal property should apply. And finally, the article notes that NFTs will serve as a powerful, grounding example of digital personal property, a legal form of ownership that is both sorely needed and has not yet been clearly established online. That example will ground others, and permit law to again characterize those who buy scarce and valuable digital assets as true owners rather than mere users.
Ferdinand Thies, Sören Wallbach, Michael Wessel, Markus Besler · 5 authors
Abstract Initial coin offerings (ICOs) have recently emerged as a new financing instrument for entrepreneurial ventures, spurring economic and academic interest. Nevertheless, the impact of exogenous and endogenous signals on the performance of ICOs as well as the effects of the cryptocurrency hype and subsequent downfall of Bitcoin between 2016 and 2019 remain underexplored. We applied ordinary least squares (OLS) regressions based on a dataset containing 1597 ICOs that covers almost 2.5 years. The results show that exogenous and endogenous signals have a significant effect on the funds raised in ICOs. We also find that the Bitcoin price heavily drives the performance of ICOs. However, this hype effect is moderated, as high-quality ICOs are not pegged to these price developments. Revealing the interplay between hypes and signals in the ICOâs asset class should broaden the discussion of this emerging digital phenomenon.
In addition to the exhibition, collection, research, and educational functions of the museum, the development of a future museum includes the trend of leisure and sightseeing. Although the museum is a non-profit organization, if it can provide digital exhibits and collections under the premises of âintellectual property rightsâ and âcultural assets protectionâ, and licensing and adding value in various fields, it can generate revenue from digital licensing and handle the expenses of museum operations. This will be a new trend in the sustainable development of museum operations. Especially since the outbreak of COVID-19 at the beginning of this year (2020), the American Alliance of Museums (AAM) recently stated that nearly a third of the museums in the United States may be permanently closed since museum operations are facing âextreme financial difficulties.â This research is aimed at museums using the business model of âdigital authorizationâ. It proposes an authorization mechanism based on blockchain technology protecting the museumsâ digital rights in the business model and the application of cryptography. The signature and time stamp mechanism achieve non-repudiation and timeless mechanism, which combines blockchain and smart contracts to achieve verifiability, un-forgery, decentralization, and traceability, as well as the non-repudiation of the issue of cash flow with signatures and digital certificates, for the digital rights of museums in business. The business model proposes achievable sustainable development. Museums not only achieve the goal of promoting social education, but also solve their financial problems.
Open access
Blockchain Technology Applications and Security
Advanced Steganography and Watermarking Techniques
Cryptocurrencies claim to be the future of money and payments, the lifelines of any business. An informed evaluation requires understanding both the economics and the computer science behind the technology. Designed for an MBA elective on money and banking, this technical note guides students through the building blocks of cryptocurrencies using the one that launched them all: Bitcoin. To provide a logically consistent framework for interpreting future innovations, the technical note digs deeper into the technological ingredients of Bitcoin than is typical in economics, while also connecting the technology back to a core set of economic principles, all in an accessible way. Excerpt UVA-GEM-0190 Rev. Jan. 26, 2022 The Economics of Cryptocurrency May 2021 was a rough month for cryptocurrencies. In a matter of weeks, Bitcoinâthe oldest and largest cryptocurrency by market capitalizationâlost over one-third of its value relative to the US dollar. The next-largest cryptocurrency, Ether, fell nearly 40%, while Litecoin, colloquially known as the silver to Bitcoin's gold, lost over half of its value. The optimist may point out that Bitcoin was still worth more than it had been at the beginning of the year (Exhibit 1), but that would be small comfort to anyone who had traded USdollars for Bitcoins just prior to the crash. Volatility has long been a hallmark of the cryptocurrency market. Exhibit 2 compares volatility in the USdollar price of Bitcoin to volatility in the US dollar prices of gold, the euro, and the Brazilian real, and volatility in the S&P 500 Index. Gold is a commodity, the euro and the real are currencies, and the S&P 500 is a common target for index investing. Bitcoin is far and away the most volatile. Billionaire investor Warren Buffett has vowed never to own any cryptocurrencies and Bank of England Governor Andrew Bailey recently quipped, âBuy them only if you're prepared to lose all your money.â Perhaps the surprise isn't that Bitcoin dropped so precipitously in May 2021, but rather that it still has a market capitalization above USD500 billion. To make sense of where we've been, where we are, and where we might be going, we need to take a deep dive into the economics of cryptocurrencies. . . .
This paper contributes to the literature on cryptocurrencies by examining performance of nave (1/N) and individual cryptocurrency portfolio of ten largest cryptocurrencies. We employ daily data and two time durations for each type of portfolio. For the investing in individual cryptocurrency portfolio, the first time duration is the full time duration from the earliest day in our data sample. The second time duration is after Covid-19. (after 1st of January 2020). For the nave portfolio, the first time duration is the same as individual cryptocurrency portfolio. However, the second time duration is when all ten cryptocurrencies are available. (after November 10th 2018) Our result shows that investing in single cryptocurrency portfolio outperforms than nave portfolio in both time duration. Further research could add the better performing cryptocurrency portfolio to the traditional assets portfolio and examine the performance of the combining portfolio in different time duration.
The âfinancialisationâ of art has transformed art from an object of aesthetic expression to an instrument of increasing wealth, in turn increasing the likelihood of forgery. Art fraud harms artists, purchasers, museums, and society at large. Ultimately, the integrity of the art industry is at stake. The culture of secrecy and questionable auction practices widen the information asymmetry contributing to market failure in the art market. Multiple approaches are needed to address these challenges. The criminalisation of art fraud faces evidential difficulties of proof beyond reasonable doubt. The more accessible threshold of proving misleading conduct under s 18 of the Australian Consumer Law has been successfully invoked by artists against the forger, a purchaser against an auction house, and the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission obtaining pecuniary penalties and restraint orders against art offenders. Besides imposing presumptive liability on auction houses, authentication boards and a Code of Conduct for Art Merchants will promote transparency in the art market.
Victor von Wachter, Johannes Rude Jensen, Ferdinand Regner, Omri Ross
The smart contract-based markets for non-fungible tokens (NFTs) on the Ethereum blockchain have seen tremendous growth in 2021, with trading volumes peaking at 3.5b in September 2021. This dramatic surge has led to industry observers questioning the authenticity of on-chain volumes, given the absence of identity requirements and the ease with which agents can control multiple addresses. We examine potentially illicit trading patterns in the NFT markets from January 2018 to mid-November 2021, gathering data from the 52 largest collections by volume. Our findings indicate that within our sample 3.93% of addresses, processing a total of 2.04% of sale transactions, trigger suspicions of market abuse. Flagged transactions contaminate nearly all collections and may have inflated the authentic trading volumes by as much as 149,5m for the period. Most flagged transaction patterns alternate between a few addresses, indicating a predisposition for manual trading. We submit that the results presented here may serve as a viable lower bound estimate for NFT wash trading on Ethereum. Even so, we argue that wash trading may be less common than what industry observers have previously estimated. We contribute to the emerging discourse on the identification and deterrence of market abuse in the cryptocurrency markets.
In April 2020, the US government sent economic impact payments (EIPs) directly to households, as part of its measures to address the COVID-19 pandemic. We characterize these stimulus checks as a wealth shock for households and examine their effect on retail trading in Bitcoin. We find a significant increase in Bitcoin buy trades for the modal EIP amount of $1,200. The rise in Bitcoin trading is highest among individuals without families and at exchanges catering to nonprofessional investors. We estimate that the EIP program has a significant but modest effect on the US dollarâBitcoin trading pair, increasing trade volume by about 3.8 percent. Trades associated with the EIPs result in a slight rise in the price of Bitcoin of 7 basis points. Nonetheless, the increase in trading is small compared to the size of the stimulus check program, representing only 0.02 percent of all EIP dollars. We repeat our analysis for other countries with similar stimulus programs and find an increase in Bitcoin buy trades in these currencies. Our findings highlight how wealth shocks affect retail trading.
Fueled in part by the wealth recently created from digital currencies, major art dealers such as Christieâs and Sothebyâs have embraced the sale of non-fungible tokens attached to unique digital works of art. What are non-fungible tokens, how is this related to the blockchain and what do we know about this ancient market for digital art? It now appears that digital art can be added to the growing list of uses for blockchain technology now becoming a part of modern life. This article proceeds in seven parts. First, is a discussion about the new and explosive market for digital art. Second, I explore the evolution of the digital world and virtual property. Third, is an explanation and historical account of the blockchain and virtual currencies. Fourth, non-fungible tokens are discussed. Fifth, is a brief look at unresolved issues impacting the law of NFTs and potential solutions are provided. Sixth, a few thoughts about the future of digital property are presented. And last, I conclude. This dramatic extension of blockchain and other digital technology to the world of art and music represents a new and exciting platform for creative expression. This paper is a valuable addition to the literature by providing a readable introduction and overview of what is now known about the likely impact of blockchain technology and non-fungible tokens to music and art. This important development should have a significant impact on the future of innovation and property law.