Ugur Halden, Ămit Cali, Marthe Fogstad Dynge, Joseph Stekli ¡ 5 authors
Advancements in material science and production technologies of solar photovoltaics (PV) system components, have obvious impacts in terms of Levelized Cost of Electricity (LCOE) reductions over time. Beside such technologies in physical sciences, digitalization technologies have increasingly positive impacts on the cost efficient operation and investment planning of the solar energy investments and keep the current cost decline trajectory for the PV industry. One option to achieve this may be through digital financial innovations such as Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) based crowdfunding for project finance. This option would enable multiple small investors to offer loans with lower interest rates and longer debt tenors than traditional financiers, such as banks, while increasing the acceptable debt fraction for a project due to the higher risk tolerance of individual investors coupled with the risk reduction that this innovation could allow. This new aspect of the digital partial ownership of the energy projects is demonstrated using a functional DLT-based crowdfunding mechanism. Furthermore, impacts of the proposed approach is demonstrated by calculating the LCOE values for the European countries by comparing with the traditional investment options. According to the findings of this study digitalization technologies especially DLT has positive impact in terms of reducing the financial costs and also LCOE values of solar energy projects. Additionally, these estimated cost values are used for analyzing the grid parity of PV systems in each assessed country. This article presents a digitization based methodology that has a high potential to accelerate the Digital Green Shift in future.
Smart contracts are programs that manage interactions between many users. Recently, Solidity smart contract have become a popular way to enforce financial agreements between untrusting users. However, such agreements do not eliminate trust, but rather redirects trust into the correctness of the smart contract. This means that each user must verify that a smart contract behaves correctly, regardless of how other users interact with it. Verifying a smart contract relative to all possible users is intractable due to state explosion. This thesis studies how local symmetry can be used to analyze smart contracts from a few representative users. \n \nThis thesis builds on the novel notion of participation, that gives explicit semantics to user interactions. From participation, a topology is obtained for how users interact during each transaction of a smart contract. Local symmetry analysis shows that most users are interchangeable within a topology, and therefore, most users are locally symmetric. This motivates local bundle abstractions that reduce contracts with arbitrarily many users to sequential programs with a few representative users. It is shown that local bundle abstractions can be used to ameliorate state explosion in smart contract verification, and to accelerate counterexample search in bounded analysis (e.g., fuzzing and bounded model checking). We implement local bundle abstraction in SmartACE, and show order-of-magnitude improvements in time when compared to a state-of-the-art smart contract verification tool.
With the rising demand for protection against new risks such as loss of digital assets, novel insurance services and products emerge. In particular, token-based insurance solutions on blockchain transform the insurance business by providing cover for new risks and streamlined, (semi-)automated underwriting and claim processes. In the chapter, we present a general framework of token-based insurance solutions, delegating their fundamental building blocks that include core roles, main tokens and assets, as well as key processes and operations. We describe three major token-based insurance solutions in the market and compare them in terms of native token functionality, tokenized cover types, claim assessment process and capital model. Based on the discussion on the general framework and concrete examples of token-based insurance solutions, we summarize their advantages and point out their drawbacks. We conclude that despite being at a nascent stage, the token-based insurance space bears the promise to unseat the incumbent players with increasingly more action taking place and more use cases being explored.
The use of smart contracts has grown exponentially over the last few years. This is a phenomenon associated with the development of other technologies, such as the blockchain and the Internet of Things (IoT). Smart contracts run in a decentralized way on the blockchain and are self- executing. This is a source of advantages in business operations, but there are also some limitations and drawbacks. Regulatory issues are also of key importance, as the legal frameworks differ across countries. Smart contracts are likely to have an impact on external auditing, as external auditors will have to adapt their capabilities and procedures to an environment where many companies use this technology. But smart contracts may also be used to define a framework which ensures continuous audit reports and direct access of authorized stakeholders to the results of audit procedures. Conversely, internal auditing will also experiment changes, both caused by a series of new risks that will have to be adequately addressed and new tools to monitor business operations. In addition, some promising research opportunities arise, both in the IT, the Legal and the Business field.
Finance is the backbone of any Organization. Government is no different. The financial health of the Government is critically dependent on the efficiency with which its banking needs are managed. The Central Bank is generally the banker to the Governments. In India, Reserve Bank of India and Government have been in the forefront of implementing various reforms to strengthen and streamline the processes involved in tax collections and transfer payments. Despite these reforms, some issues still persist and are having detrimental effect on overall efficiency of Government banking. One important factor for existence of these issues is the fact that every government transaction has to pass through a long chain of stakeholders before it is accounted with finality. Blockchain technology is an emerging technology that promises to facilitate speedy and efficient collaboration among all the stakeholders and also facilitates disintermediation to the extent possible. Further, during the crisis like situations (floods, earthquakes or COVID 19 like pandemics), immediate relief is of utmost importance and government aid should reach the vulnerable/affected citizens at a very high speed. However, it is during these stress times that physical access to banking channel gets restricted. Blockchain can facilitate decentralization of last mile delivery channel, by enabling peer-to-peer and cashless transactions even among the unbanked population. This paper identifies the current issues in Government banking ecosystem, analyses the root causes behind such issues, introduces Blockchain based distributed ledger technology, examines the extent to which this emerging technology can address such issues and describes the way forward.
Abstract Nations worldwide have sought to capitalize on the benefits of distributed ledger technology (DLT) including Blockchain, but struggled to strike a balance between encouraging investment and innovation in the technology while addressing the challenges and uncertainties through regulation. Through its FinTech (Financial Technology) Strategy, Qatar has sought to embrace DLT, but its regulatory approach also remains cautious. Trade Finance is an ideal business process to be disrupted through the benefits of DLT and especially Blockchain technology, since its processes remain antiquated, inefficient and lack digitization. Blockchain as a form of DLT particularly offers the Trade Finance process not only more rapid, secure, cost-effective and efficient procedures, but importantly completely assures trust between importers and exporters and removes the requirement to place such trust in third-party intermediaries. Qatar can reap considerable economic benefits through the enhancement of its Trade Finance regulations enabling the adoption of such Blockchain technology. As such, the authors propose a roadmap and manual for the governance of the Trade Finance Blockchain ecosystem in Qatar. The authors propose multi-layered governance approach to the regulation of Blockchain in Qatar by (1) embracing international regulations and standards; (2) replicating foreign regional and national rules that are appropriate and innovative; and (3) applying sandbox regulations to Blockchain products and services.
Abstract Next to cryptocurrencies, tokens are a widespread application area of blockchains. Tokens are digital assets implemented as small programs on a blockchain. Being programmable makes them versatile and an innovative means for various purposes. Tokens can be used as investment, as a local currency in a decentralized application, or as a tool for building an ecosystem or a community. A high-level categorization of tokens differentiates between payment, security, and utility tokens. In most jurisdictions, security tokens are regulated, and hence, the distinction is of relevance. In this work, we discuss the identification of tokens on Ethereum, the most widely used token platform. The programs on Ethereum are called smart contracts, whichâfor the sake of interoperabilityâmay provide standardized interfaces. In our approach, we evaluate the publicly available transaction data by first reconstructing interfaces in the low-level code of the smart contracts. Then, we not only check the compliance of a smart contract with an established interface standard for tokens, but also aim at identifying tokens that are not fully compliant. Thus, we discuss various heuristics for token identification in combination with possible definitions of a token. More specifically, we propose indicators for tokens and evaluate them on a large set of token and non-token contracts. Finally, we present first steps toward an automated classification of tokens regarding their purpose.
The anonymity of blockchain identities brings security risks to transactions. To solve this problem, this paper proposes a trusted identity model based on smart contracts and introduces the CA certificate of the PKI system to endorse the authenticity of the user's identity. The model structure is designed, the blockchain digital certificate format is given, the cross-domain authentication scheme based on smart contracts is described, and the security and efficiency of the model are analyzed. In terms of security, the model meets the needs of entity verification; in terms of efficiency, the use of a hash algorithm to construct a complete certificate chain, compared with existing solutions, significantly improves the efficiency of cross-domain authentication.
Many implementation of blockchain technology are widely available today. This Project explains how blockchain technology improves efficiency and builds faith in funding process of startup process which affect todayâs business and industries. Designing Block chain based a decentralized, distributed ledger, which records transactions or events of funding process in Start-up is discussed.Start âups facing an issue of raising a required fund. Although there are many sources are available to entrepreneurs who wish to begin new businesses or expand existing ones, like family, friends, friends of friends, bank loan, use of internet, online crowd funding platform and many more. However, to look at the proper distribution and utilization of money and to keep track of it is main problem. This proposed system may provide the solution with blockchain technology for issues related to crowdfunding contract. Through the notion of smart contract automated interaction between and existing transaction system is discussed. A solution for the issues like security, abuse of investor and illegal transactions in crowdfunding process is prompted in this project.The idea behind model is to use ethereum based smart contract for securely and effectively handling connection between fundraisers,vendors and project manager/idea person. Blockchain enabled,distributed platforms is used to avoid fraud and to view proper utilization and distribution of money raised by different contributors.
The prosperity of the cryptocurrency ecosystem drives the needs for digital asset trading platforms. Beyond centralized exchanges (CEXs), decentralized exchanges (DEXs) are introduced to allow users to trade cryptocurrency without transferring the custody of their digital assets to the middlemen, thus eliminating the security and privacy issues of CEX. Uniswap, as the most prominent cryptocurrency DEX, is continuing to attract scammers, with fraudulent cryptocurrencies flooding in the ecosystem. In this paper, we take the first step to detect and characterize scam tokens on Uniswap. We first collect all the transactions related to Uniswap exchanges and investigate the landscape of cryptocurrency trading on Uniswap from different perspectives. Then, we propose an accurate approach for flagging scam tokens on Uniswap based on a guilt-by-association heuristic and a machine-learning powered technique. We have identified over 10K scam tokens listed on Uniswap, which suggests that roughly 50% of the tokens listed on Uniswap are scam tokens. All the scam tokens and liquidity pools are created specialized for the rug pull scams, and some scam tokens have embedded tricks and backdoors in the smart contracts. We further observe that thousands of collusion addresses help carry out the scams in league with the scam token/pool creators. The scammers have gained a profit of at least $16 million from 40,165 potential victims. Our observations in this paper suggest the urgency to identify and stop scams in the decentralized finance ecosystem.
Today, Data Driven Marketing is challenged by the supply of vague data, inconsistencies between them and fraud through advertising in the digital marketing ecosystem.Through three basic concepts like open ledger, distributed ledger, and miners, BlockChain (BC) is a perfectly positioned technology, restoring not only trust and transparency, but ensuring a greater uniformity of transactions within a largely fragmented sector.BC makes DDM more directly and reliable, validating and analyzing each customer's movement in advertising campaigns.In BlockChain the traditional principle that creates the positive correlation between fee and delivery time through the "Third Trust Party" becomes null because transparency is one of the basic properties of this technology, which on the other hand for DDM is the Achilles heel.
Smart grid is an innovation in a communication network, interconnected power framework, advanced control technology, and smart metering has been applied to work on the usage of renewable energy resources and alleviate the energy emergency somehow. Blockchain is basically a decentralized accounting ledger with the potential to enable, manage, track and verify thousands of energy transactions per second. The blockchain energy market is proposed to be utilized by networks that share a nanogrid. The application permits nanogrid participants that have an abundance of electrical energy, to offer that energy to different clients of the nanogrid. The application gives a decentralized marketplace for executing electrical energy. Since this blockchain energy market is implemented by Ethereum smart contract, it suffers from the high operating costs that result from the contract's high gas consumption. Ethereum smart contracts are implemented by reworking on acceptoffer function to verifies its validity and withdraw function which uses a single function call for multiple energy transfer contracts to decrease the operation cost.
Crowdfunding is a popular method for raising funds for various projects, where a large number of individuals contribute a small amount of money to finance a particular project. It provides an opportunity for entrepreneurs, startups, and artists to seek financial support from the general public, rather than relying on traditional funding sources such as venture capitalists, banks, and angel investors. This project aims to create a decentralized crowdfunding platform using Ethereum blockchain technology. The platform allows creators to post projects with funding goals and deadlines, and investors can contribute funds to these projects. Smart contracts are used to manage the crowdfunding process, ensuring that funds are released only when milestones are met, and that investors have a say in the progress of the project. The platform is designed to be transparent, secure, and accessible to anyone with an internet connection. By using blockchain technology, the platform eliminates the need for intermediaries, reduces transaction fees, and enables global participation. This project demonstrates the potential of blockchain technology in transforming traditional funding models and enabling decentralized innovation. The platform utilizes various features of Solidity, including structs, mappings, and events, to enable the creation, management, and tracking of projects, milestones, and investments. The web interface is developed using HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, with a Node.js backend that interacts with the smart contracts using the web3.js library.
While trade finance has been recognized as a key enabler in international trade, there is a persistent gap between supply and demand. This gap threatens to widen after the shocks suffered during the COVID-19 pandemic, which increased risks percep- tion and decreased credit appetite. As a parallel phenomenon, distributed ledger technology (DLT), aka blockchain, has given birth to the decentralised finance (DeFi) paradigm, promising to revolutionize banking and the whole financial sector. This paper enquires whether a DeFi-based business model could address the trade finance gap problematic under the context and challenges created by the COVID-19 pandemic, particularly in relation to SMEs located in developing and least developed countries. To this end, it designs and presents a DeFi trade finance business model, showing how it could address the reasons behind the trade finance gap, while developing at the same time a broader meaning of the DeFi concept itself
The increasingly widespread development of the digital era has led to changes in the payment system which then affects the economic behavior of the community in line with the increase in various services that facilitate economic activity. An example is the emergence of crypto currency or Cryptocurrency as a digital currency that has almost the same function as other currencies. The thing that distinguishes this digital currency from conventional currencies in general is that it does not have a physical form of money like currency currency but only a block of data bound by a hash as validation. Although it provides a number of advantages for its users, the existence of cryptocurrencies in Indonesia itself is still experiencing pros and cons in terms of regulation and legality, especially from the point of view of Islamic law for its use. Therefore, this study was conducted to review cryptocurrencies that are widely used in transactions, especially investments from the perspective of Islamic law. This research is a qualitative library research. The data analysis technique used is descriptive-analytical with a normative juridical approach to Islamic law. Based on a number of references used in this study, it is known that investing with cryptocurrencies has a very high risk because its value can go up or down drastically and unpredictable. Meanwhile, from the point of view of Islamic sharia law, the law of this cryptocurrency transaction is haram lighairihi.
Enterprise blockchain projects have great promise. They can cut costs and promote efficiency through disintermediation, increase transparency for tracking intercompany transactions, expand knowledge through consortia databases, and improve workflows through shared business processes. Despite its potential, blockchain technology has failed to produce promised benefits for enter-prise networks. While the underlying technology has advanced rapidly, managerial capabilities needed to form and manage blockchain consortia have lagged and as a result, few consortia have succeeded. This paper reviews the extant literature on blockchain consortia and provides a frame-work that identifies 1) foundational conditions that precede effective consortium formation, 2) capabilities required for effective consortium functioning and evolution, and 3) partner and ecosystem-level outcomes associated with successful blockchain projects.
Blockchain technology (BCT) has been gaining popularity due to its benefits for almost every industry. However, despite its benefits, the organizational adoption of BCT is rather limited. This lack of uptake motivated us to identify the factors that influence the adoption of BCT from an organizational perspective. In doing this, we reviewed the BCT literature, interviewed BCT experts, and proposed a research model based on the TOE framework. Specifically, we theorized the role of technological (perceived benefits, compatibility, information transparency, and disintermediation), organizational (organization innovativeness, organizational learning capability, and top management support), and environmental (competition intensity, government support, trading partners readiness, and standards uncertainty) factors in the organizational adoption of BCT in Australia. We confirmed the model with a sample of adopters and potential adopter organizations in Australia. The results show a significant role of the proposed factors in the organizational adoption of BCT in Australia. Additionally, we found that the relationship between the influential factors and BCT adoption is moderated by âperceived risksâ. The study extends the TOE framework by adding factors that were ignored in previous studies on BCT adoption, such as perceived information transparency, perceived disintermediation, organizational innovativeness, organizational learning capability, and standards uncertainty.
One of the most modern inventions of financial technology (FinTech) since after the global financial crisis of 2008 is the crypto or virtual currency/asset. Since the creation of the first cryptocurrency, the Bitcoin, in 2009, it is estimated that over five thousand variants of the Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies have emerged. Virtual currencies have become widespread across the globe but their legal status and uses in various countries have remained uncertain. They have been variously classified as currencies, securities, properties, assets, commodities and tokens, and used as means of exchange but are not legally recognised as legal tender. In many jurisdictions their emergence was greeted with scepticism and express or tacit rejection by financial and securities markets regulators, but over time, owing to their increasing popularity, characteristics, positive and negative potentials, there has been a gradual shift towards their formal recognition and regulation. Regulatory authorities in many countries are now grappling with designing appropriate policy and regulatory framework for the crypto phenomenon. This paper interrogates the current legal status and efforts to regulate cryptocurrencies in two leading African nations, Nigeria and South Africa, and highlights the challenges of designing an appropriate regulatory framework for this enigmatic technology. The paper adopts the doctrinal legal research methodology, employing the descriptive, analytical, and comparative approaches. It follows a structured review and analysis of relevant extant legislation on currencies and securities in the countries to ascertain whether they cover cryptocurrencies. It then compares the current position of the law on the subject in the two countries. Bearing in mind that it may not be possible to totally ban dealing in cryptocurrencies, the paper concludes that regulation has become imperative. Drawing from the position on the subject in more developed nations, the United States of America (US) and the European Union (EU), this paper proposes a model of regulation of virtual currency not only for Nigeria and South Africa but also for other African countries.
Samer Ali Alâshami, Abdullah Al Mamun, Nurulizwa Rashid, Mohammed Al-shami
Microcredit financing is extensively considered as an effective development method for poverty mitigation and women empowerment. Nevertheless, relevant studies reflected opposing outcomes on microfinance effects consisting of positive, zero, and negative impacts. Thus, this research investigated Al-Amal Bankâs microcredit impacts on women empowerment in Yemen, one of the poorest Middle Eastern nations. A panel dataset and primary and secondary data were gathered through household surveys and propensity score matching to restrict intangible variablesâ possible effects. The empirical results revealed that microcredit had a significant positive effect on monthly household incomes and accumulated asset values. Although microcredit facilitated female entrepreneurship and income generation for improved household incomes and expenditure, no influence was found on female household decisions and mobility following the patriarchal system practised in many Arabian nations, including Yemen. Hence, the study finding has theoretically and practically contributed to the body of knowledge in three ways. First, a novel proof of how microcredit interactions affected several Yemeni women empowerment elements was identified. This study also provides new insight into the empowerment theory by explaining how access to microcredit influences numerous features of womenâs economic and social empowerment. Lastly, social and family traditions significantly influenced female attributes and lifestyles by reflecting how communal and family rituals affected microcredit impacts on women empowerment and vice versa. Conversely, this study guides Yemeni policymakers and those from other nations on extending financial services for self-development to reduce poverty and drive women empowerment rather than relying on government and international agencies.
Abstract Currency is the fundamental economic technology that makes promises credible among actors within and across societies. From shells, to metals, to paper, the technology of money has continually evolved to meet the changing needs of human society. The twenty-first century is witnessing yet another evolution in the technology of money: digital currencies. Although political economy scholarship has begun to focus on digital currencies, this research has largely focused on single early examples like Bitcoin. I argue that this generally narrow focus has obscured important degrees of variation among digital currencies and, by extension, has omitted important lines of research on digital currencies as a familiar evolution in the technology of money. In this article, I revisit the history of digital currencies with explicit attention to not only economic inefficiencies but also political power structures and offer a new typology for theoretically organizing digital currencies along dimensions relevant to practitioners of political economy. I illustrate that variation along these typological dimensions produces important differences among different digital currencies and, relatedly, I explore the implications this has for digital currenciesâ externalities and governance demands. Drawing on this typology, I conclude with a proposed research agenda for the political economy of digital currencies.
Blockchain is one of the most disruptive innovations in the field of technology in 21st century. Blockchain, a distributed ledger technology (DLT) and smart contracts, has emerged as a ground-breaking application in the financial sector. The three key properties of Blockchain technology, Decentralization, Transparency and Immutability have created a huge impact on the banking and finance industries. As technology is the main driving force in Blockchain and its various applications, it will also act as an enabler to sustainable finance which will ultimately lead towards achieving sustainable economy and also sustainable development. This study is an attempt to understand the far-reaching potential of Blockchain technology and its applications such as Bitcoin in the banking and financial services sector. This study has also highlighted the benefits and disadvantages of using Blockchain technology on the banking and finance industries. This study is entirely a theoretical overview based on the available research in the area of Blockchain technology and its application in financial sector. This study will help to understand the future of financial sector in the advent of incorporation of Blockchain technology.
Abstract Blockchain technology is a distributed data recording system developed to monitor and secure all encrypted transactions with the shortest identification. Blockchain technology made a name for itself in 2008. However, the real development of this technology has been realized with use of smart contracts in Blockchain technology. In the cryptocurrency world, a smart contract can be defined as an application or program running on the Blockchain. They operate as digital deals that have to comply with certain rules. These rules are predetermined by computer codes and then copied and implemented by the servers in the entire network. The use of the word âsmartâ as a term in smart contracts comes from the fact that it is not made manually and is realized digitally. In this study, it is aimed to contribute to future studies in the transformation of smart contracts into real âsmartâ contract structures by applying artificial intelligence algorithms.
Silvana Secinaro, Francesca Dal Mas, Valerio Brescia, Davide Calandra
Purpose This study aims to offer a bibliometric and coding analysis of blockchain articles published in the accounting, auditing and accountability fields. Design/methodology/approach The data were collected using the Scopus database and a bibliometric and qualitative coding analysis with the keywords âblockchainâ and âaccountingâ or âauditingâ or âaccountability.â Of the 514 initial sources, 93 peer-reviewed papers, book chapters and conference proceedings in the areas of business, management and accounting were finally selected. Nonscientific sources such as nonpeer-reviewed books and white papers were excluded. Findings This study reveals a promising and multidisciplinary field of research dominated by scholars and less by practitioners. Qualitative research, especially discourse analysis, is the most used method among authors. This study gives some useful insights about blockchain's definition and characteristics, business models, processes involved, connection with other technologies and relationships with accounting theories. Among the most interesting insights, the results confirm that technology as an external force can create an intersection among several research areas: accounting, auditing, accountability, business, management, computer science and engineering fields. Finally, in terms of research themes, although blockchain has a clear effect on auditing accounting, the links with the area of accountability are less clear and validated. Originality/value This study highlights the current state of the field, combining methodological approaches and providing valuable future research insights. Additionally, it is also a starting point for professionals to fully understand blockchain's characteristics and potential with a constructive and systemic approach.