Kripto para kavramıyla birlikte kullanım alanı bulan, dijital uygulamalarla iki taraflı şifreleme tekniklerini kullanan ve belli bir merkezin otoritesine bağlı olmadan dolanımda olan para Bitcoin olarak adlandırılmaktadır. Bu çalışmada Bitcoin olarak adlandırılan bu yeni şifrelenmiş paranın dolar ve avro ile olan ilişkisi araştırılmıştır. 28 Ağustos 2011 – 15 Mart 2020 tarihleri arasındaki dönemden oluşan haftalık verilerin kullanıldığı çalışmada ilk olarak Carrion‐i‐Silvestre (2009) birim kök testi ve sonra da Maki (2012) eşbütünleşme testi uygulanarak Bitcoin ve döviz kurları ilişkisi analiz edilmiştir. Elde edilen sonuçlara göre Bitcoin ile hem dolar hem de avro arasında uzun dönemli ve pozitif yönlü bir ilişki tespit edilmiştir. Bu doğrultuda elindeki mevduatını avro ya da dolarda tutan bir yatırımcının sanal piyasalarda Bitcoin’e yatırım yapması riskini minimize ederek portföy çeşitlendirmesi yapmak adına yararlı olmayacaktır.
Mohd Faizal Yusof, Lisasari Ab. Rasid, Ridzuan Masri
Bitcoin spearheaded the rise of cryptocurrencies since it was first launched in 2009. The concept of bitcoin as digital currency was first published publicly in the 2008 well-known whitepaper by pseudonymous Satoshi Nakamoto. The whitepaper outlined a self-serving peer-to-peer transaction network concept based on cryptographic proof instead of trust, allowing any two willing parties to transact directly with each other without the need for a trusted third party such as financial institutions. Since then, thousands of cryptocurrencies have been launched mostly through token offerings as an alternative approach of raising funds for blockchain, technology projects, and start-ups. People are holding cryptocurrencies mostly as digital asset investments. Some individuals made huge profits from buying cryptocurrencies at their initial offerings and sold later when the prices increased. Some crypto millionaires were born from such trades. However, many people lost their investment as well due to many factors. Some were due to bad investment decisions, and some fall into scams and investment programs run by dishonest peoplewith promises of highly lucrative returns. As trading and owning cryptocurrencies are becoming common, governments and policymakers around the world are coming up with proper and comprehensive regulations for cryptocurrencies. In the context of Malaysia, in which zakat collections and distributions are of state matters, this paper discusses the implementation of zakat payment platform for cryptocurrencies at zakat institutions. This paper seeks to contribute to the academic development, blockchain technology, and zakat management.
Our paper focuses on the economic perspective of the Blockchain technology in economics and business in general and in agricultural business in particular.The field of the study is the European agri-food supply chain and related government politics (CAP, F2F, Green Deal) focused on the Czech Republic.Analysis of the agribusiness is conducted on an evaluating the existing data from the FADN CZ database and Eurostat database.Blockchain technology is evaluated through fundamental analysis of the context.Findings from this investigation were used in enhanced SWOT-analysis in the context of technological foresight.This method examines both the existing situation, external factors and forces, as well as possible changes in the future.Our results confirmed that Blockchain technology has big opportunities in agricultural business and agri-food supply chain in the digital economy.The group of issues that could be solved with Blockchain includes food traceability, support of new business models and direct sales models, rebalance the power in the food chain, etc.The key problem of the Czech agricultural business is inefficiency and low innovative activities.However, existing state support and positive trends show perspectives in this area.Although the Blockchain could bring benefits, there is a research gap related to financing the Blockchain implementation and cooperation between businesses and the authorities.
Selina Demi, Ricardo Colomo‐Palacios, Mary Sánchez‐Gordón
The novel, yet disruptive blockchain technology has witnessed growing attention, due to its intrinsic potential. Besides the conventional domains that benefit from such potential, such as finance, supply chain and healthcare, blockchain use cases in software engineering have emerged recently. In this study, we aim to contribute to the body of knowledge of blockchain-oriented software engineering by providing an adequate overview of the software engineering applications enabled by blockchain technology. To do so, we carried out a systematic mapping study and identified 22 primary studies. Then, we extracted data within the research type, research topic and contribution type facets. Findings suggest an increasing trend of studies since 2018. Additionally, findings reveal the potential of using blockchain technologies as an alternative to centralized systems, such as GitHub, Travis CI, and cloud-based package managers, and also to establish trust between parties in collaborative software development. We also found out that smart contracts can enable the automation of a variety of software engineering activities that usually require human reasoning, such as the acceptance phase, payments to software engineers, and compliance adherence. In spite of the fact that the field is not yet mature, we believe that this systematic mapping study provides a holistic overview that may benefit researchers interested in bringing blockchain to the software industry, and practitioners willing to understand how blockchain can transform the software development industry.
Cryptocurrencies are revolutionary digital currencies used by people on a peer to peer network. Cryptocurrencies are predominantly used as a payment method in business transactions. However, challenges arise with cryptocurrency borne transactions due to the lack of universal accepted classification of cryptocurrencies, the result of which leads to unintended tax consequences for cryptocurrency users. This article examines the recent amendment to the Value-Added Tax (VAT) 89 of 1991 pertaining specifically to the VAT treatment of cryptocurrencies in South Africa. Currently, transactions in cryptocurrencies are deemed to be financial services in South Africa. This means that a supply of any cryptocurrency in South Africa is exempt from VAT. This article makes a comparison with the Australian legislative framework to determine how cryptocurrencies are treated for VAT/GST purposes in that country. Although the move to regulate cryptocurrencies is welcomed, this article argues that cryptocurrency activities are incorrectly legislated as financial services in the VAT Act.
As the most popular blockchain that supports smart contracts, there are already more than 296 thousand kinds of cryptocurrencies built on Ethereum. However, not all cryptocurrencies can be controlled by users. For example, some money is permanently locked in wallets' accounts due to attacks. In this paper, we conduct the first systematic investigation on locked cryptocurrencies in Ethereum. In particular, we define three categories of accounts with locked cryptocurrencies and develop a novel tool named Clue to discover them. Results show that there are more than 216 million dollars value of cryptocurrencies locked in Ethereum. We also analyze the reasons (i.e., attacks/behaviors) why cryptocurrencies are locked. Because the locked cryptocurrencies can never be controlled by users, avoid interacting with the accounts discovered by Clue and repeating the same mistakes again can help users to save money.
Cryptocurrency is a new economy of transacting value whose use case is undeniable. Its only requirement is to be human, and it is borderless. In Morocco, cryptocurrency is erasing borders and gaining popularity. However, the general public opinion on this new innovation is unclear. This study aims to elucidate the popularity of this technology in the Kingdom by means of a small survey. The present study also investigates areas related to cryptocurrency, such as people's trust in banks. The results from the survey are contrasted with other countries to obtain a global perspective regarding Morocco's placement in the cryptocurrency adoption spectrum. The results also suggest that Morocco has the potential to adopt this technology. Notably, 9% of the sample population claim that they have owned, or still own, some sort of cryptocurrency. However, the country faces legal obstructions and financial restrictions that impede the progress of cryptocurrency adoption.
Recently, Blockchain technology adoption has expanded to many application\nareas due to the evolution of smart contracts. However, developing smart\ncontracts is non-trivial and challenging due to the lack of tools and expertise\nin this field. A promising solution to overcome this issue is to use\nModel-Driven Engineering (MDE), however, using models still involves a learning\ncurve and might not be suitable for non-technical users. To tackle this\nchallenge, chatbot or conversational interfaces can be used to assess the\nnon-technical users to specify a smart contract in gradual and interactive\nmanner.\n In this paper, we propose iContractBot, a chatbot for modeling and developing\nsmart contracts. Moreover, we investigate how to integrate iContractBot with\niContractML, a domain-specific modeling language for developing smart\ncontracts, and instantiate intention models from the chatbot. The iContractBot\nframework provides a domain-specific language (DSL) based on the user intention\nand performs model-to-text transformation to generate the smart contract code.\nA smart contract use case is presented to demonstrate how iContractBot can be\nutilized for creating models and generating the deployment artifacts for smart\ncontracts based on a simple conversation.\n
Rapid technological advances have made blockchain technology applicable not only to digital money, but in various fields. One of the areas that can be implemented by blockchain is digital tourism, specifically in the online review system of tourism products. The current online review system has several problems due to its centralized nature. The problem faced is the manipulation of review data which can be in the form of review deletion by a centralized party. This research proposes a decentralized online review system using the Ethereum blockchain technology, Smart Contracts, and IPFS to provide a secure, transparent, and trustworthy online review system platform. The purpose of this research is to implement a permission-less blockchain as a storage for reviews (review forms and log notes) and develop a web application as a user interface. The data used is data from travel sites which contain details about hotels and restaurants in Bukhara. The results displayed are the development of a web application that implements a permission-less blockchain using Ethereum and the system performance is displayed based on system testing, which comprised of unit testing and Black-Box testing.
Purpose: The study sought to establish the effects of blockchain technology on the performance of financial markets in Kenya. Methodology: The study adopted an explanatory research design. The study target population was drawn from the commercial banks located in Nairobi County, Kenya. The study targeted 84 bank managers in the IT and finance department of the 42 commercial banks in Kenya. Thus the target population of the study was 84 financial market managers selected. The study population was grouped into simple identifiable group called strata and adopted a stratified simple random sampling technique with inclusion of commercial banks. A sample size of a sample size of 50 respondents was arrived at. Data was collected using a structured questionnaire. The data collected was cleaned and coded, quantified and analyzed quantitatively. Quantitative data were analyzed using SPSS 24 where descriptive and inferential statistics were used to capture the data in order to understand the pattern and nature of relationships. Results were presented using tables. Findings: The study findings showed that the correlation analysis showed that the adoption of blockchain technology had a positive and significant correlation to government policy R = 0.240. Adoption of blockchain technology had a positive and significant correlation to internet infrastructure by R = 0.293. Adoption of blockchain technology had a positive and significant correlation to transaction cost at R = 0.583. Lastly, adoption of blockchain technology had a positive and significant correlation to risk analysis at R = 0.507. Unique contribution to theory, practice and policy: The study recommended that there should be policy review on issues relating to risk analysis so as to curb illegal money transfers and enhance performance of financial markets in Kenya. The study recommends for a thorough scrutiny by the government and ensures such issues are keenly analyzed to help bring peace and stability in the world. The aspect of having good internet connectivity is beneficial to the nation in that access to proper information will be available and it enables many users to have wide access to services as well as creation of employment. There is need to conduct a study on stability of blockchain technologies use and their impact to the economic growth. The study incorporated Technology Acceptance Model and Innovation Diffusion Theory to link the study topic to the concepts
In recent years, with the rapid levels of economic development, there have been more and more problems in property inheritance and distribution. In today’s society, people still have many taboos when writing a will. Writing a will not only involves various laws and regulations but also costs a lot of money and time, which can be daunting. However, with the development of the Internet, blockchain technology has gradually been applied to many applications. Blockchain technology uses consensus algorithms to ensure consistency and records transaction information in blocks to ensure the effectiveness of transactions. In this paper, we use the cryptography mechanism to propose an online will system based on blockchain and smart contract technology. The architecture considers effectiveness and cost reduction. By combining this with blockchain technology, will assets are saved in blocks, which provides comprehensive will security and non-tamperable security protection. In addition, combined with a smart contract, it realizes the method of automatic property distribution. At the same time, this mechanism also proposes an arbitration solution when there are disputes over wills, and ensures the integrity of data, public verifiability, unforgeability, nonrepudiation, irreversibility of information, and the ability to resist counterfeiting attacks.
Blockchain is an emerging technology that depends on distribution, decentralization, and encryption. Recently, it has gained wide interest in various fields of studies. Several considerable research on blockchain adoption has appeared in international journals across different disciplines, however, a review of literature on the adoption of blockchain remains rare. This study aimed to provide a comprehensive literature review of the current blockchain adoption studies that use individual adoption models or theories. This paper included the papers that are published in the 7 Scopus database from 2017-2021. Studies were analyzed to determine the adoption models or theories that are used, industry, country, methodology, and identify the most important influencing factors that drive the user to accept the adoption of blockchain technology. The results showed that there are still limitations in adoption studies in various fields such as health and education however, the field of supply chain management is one of the areas that received the most attention in the studies. Common studies relied on the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) model as well as the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT). Moreover, perceived ease of use (PEOU), perceived usefulness (PU) are considered the most important factors affecting the intention of users in adopting blockchain technology in different fields. The research findings have implications on blockchain adoption research. In terms of theory, the findings provide a guideline for the other researchers to put their own research in a better context and thus contribute to understanding the relevant blockchain adoption issues that require further investigation.
Blockchain technology can achieve decentralization, multi-party verification, anti-tampering, anonymity, traceability of transactions, and the application of distributed ledger. Countries around the world continue to seek the blockchain business models, technologies and applications, and have different visions and policies for the development of blockchain. This study conducts a comparative policy framework of theoretical analysis of the blockchain technology between the USA and China. Using the innovative policy tools proposed by Rothwell and Zegveld, the above mentioned governments are analyzed from the viewpoint of twelve policy tools. The results show that the USA and China all prefer to use “Environmental-side” policy. The USA has paid more attention to “Legal and regulatory”, “Public services” and “Procurement”. China has the highest proportion of policies in “Political tools”, followed by “Legal & regulatory”, while “Scientific and technical”, “Education” and “Overseas agent” come in third . The blockchain technology has developed vigorously among industries and its applications have gradually diversified. The results are provided to various stakeholders as a reference for policy planning.
As the world is striving to recover from the shockwaves triggered by the COVID-19 crisis, all hands are needed on deck to transition towards green recovery and make peace with nature as prerequisites of a global sustainable development pathway. In this paper, we examine the blockchain hype, the gaps in the knowledge, and the tools needed to build promising use cases for blockchain technology to accelerate global efforts in this decade of action towards achieving the SDGs. We attempt to break the “hype cycle” portraying blockchain’s superiority by navigating a rational blockchain use case development approach. By prototyping an SDG Acceleration Scorecard to use blockchain-enabled solutions as SDG accelerators, we aim to provide useful insights towards developing an integrated approach that is fit-for-purpose to guide organizations and practitioners in their quest to make informed decisions to design and implement blockchain-backed solutions as SDG accelerators. Acknowledging the limitations in prototyping such tools, we believe these are minimally viable products and should be considered as living tools that can further evolve as the blockchain technology matures, its pace of adoption increases, lessons are learned, and good practices and standards are widely shared and internalized by teams and organizations working on innovation for development.
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 ICO’s asset class should broaden the discussion of this emerging digital phenomenon.
The volatile nature of day-ahead electricity markets means that participants often resort to some form of derivative hedging instrument. One such derivative instrument is a Contract-for-Difference (CfD), specifically available to renewable generators in some jurisdictions to enable them to hedge against their price risk. CfD is a bilateral arrangement between a generator selling into, and an offtaker buying out of, a centrally cleared pool market for electricity. In this arrangement, the generator subsidizes the offtaker when the spot price is high; whereas, the offtaker subsidizes the generator when the spot price is low. This establishes a synthetic bilateral electricity transaction, operating in parallel to the pool market. Embracing CfD to hedge against price risk presents new risks such as counterparty credit, margining, third-party, and legal risks. They also incur high costs and possess underlying process risks. Decentralized Finance - an overarching term representing financial services built on top of a public blockchain - seems to present particularly compelling opportunities in electricity derivatives for these reasons. Therefore, we propose a novel Decentralized Finance instrument: a blockchain-based marketplace governed by a smart contract to act as a mediator between stakeholders mutually enrolled in bilateral CfD arrangements. The employed smart contract structure autonomously and irrefutably enforces the terms of the CfD, underpinned by a novel collateralization and settlement mechanism. This novel approach mitigates the hedging-related and underlying process risks of traditional CfD instruments.
In recent years, the number of IoT devices has increased substantially. One of the main concerns is the interaction with high availability. While peer-to-peer (P2P) technology has been used to achieve high availability by software running in P2P hardware, a single software still acts as the center for the interaction. If the software has bugs or is out of service, all devices are affected. Aiming at this issue, this paper proposes a fully decentralized model as a high-availability solution, in which P2P software runs on a P2P hardware environment. P2P software is a set of independent software from respective participants (IoT devices) that can work cooperatively without centralized software. We use blockchain as a P2P platform because it has P2P nodes and a trustless environment, so the P2P software in this paper is P2P smart contracts. To pair cooperative smart contracts, each P2P smart contract has requirements on other smart contracts. If several smart contracts matches the requirements mutually, they are treated as a work group (a topic), and then they process each other's requests within that group. When a single smart contract fails, the paired P2P software can be re-selected, resulting in high availability. Simulation results show that the proposed model can effectively eliminate the impact of the failure of any single smart contract.
Abstract The Covid-19 emergency is demonstrating the need to follow new solutions that can support the important role played by non-profit organizations around the world. Contrary to what should have happened to further combat the effect of pandemic, the majority of philanthropic organisations had a negative impact on fundraising, suffering a substantial decrease. Today, the Blockchain can play a pivotal role to re-establish pre-pandemic standards and enhance the development of global philanthropy. However, it is still too little considered due to the criticalities encountered during the launch and development of the initiatives as well as for a general incomprehension of its technology. Therefore, this work aims to demonstrate the Blockchain impact on the development of charity 4.0, especially in an extremely dramatic historical moment marked by the Covid-19 pandemic. The objective is achieved through the case study of Charity Wall, an emerging Italian social marketplace appreciated by important business associations for its innovative solutions in the charity 4.0 sector and for the important support provided to NPOs during their traditional function as well as against Covid-19 in Italy. Through a benchmark analysis, this work succeeds in highlighting the innovative solutions proposed by Charity Wall compared to the charity 4.0 systems on the market. More specifically, through the Charity Wall case study it is possible to demonstrate which aspects of Blockchain technology can be used to strengthen the philanthropic system by avoiding cases of fraud to the detriment of beneficiaries, receivers and donors as well as to create a closer network between the various philanthropic players to support charitable initiatives against the Covid-19.
Liyi Zhou, Kaihua Qin, Antoine Cully, Benjamin Livshits · 5 authors
Decentralized Finance (DeFi) is a blockchain-asset-enabled finance ecosystem with millions of daily USD transaction volume, billions of locked up USD, as well as a plethora of newly emerging protocols (for lending, staking, and exchanges). Because all transactions, user balances, and total value locked in DeFi are publicly readable, a natural question that arises is: how can we automatically craft profitable transactions across the intertwined DeFi platforms?In this paper, we investigate two methods that allow us to automatically create profitable DeFi trades, one well-suited to arbitrage and the other applicable to more complicated settings. We first adopt the Bellman-Ford-Moore algorithm with DeFiPoser-ARB and then create logical DeFi protocol models for a theorem prover in DeFiPoser-SMT. While DeFiPoser-ARB focuses on DeFi transactions that form a cycle and performs very well for arbitrage, DeFiPoser-SMT can detect more complicated profitable transactions. We estimate that DeFiPoser-ARB and DeFiPoser-SMT can generate an average weekly revenue of 191.48 ETH (76,592 USD) and 72.44 ETH (28,976 USD) respectively, with the highest transaction revenue being 81.31 ETH (32,524 USD) and 22.40 ETH (8,960 USD) respectively. We further show that DeFiPoser-SMT finds the known economic bZx attack from February 2020, which yields 0.48M USD. Our forensic investigations show that this opportunity existed for 69 days and could have yielded more revenue if exploited one day earlier. Our evaluation spans 150 days, given 96 DeFi protocol actions, and 25 assets.Looking beyond the financial gains mentioned above, forks deteriorate the blockchain consensus security, as they increase the risks of double-spending and selfish mining. We explore the implications of DeFiPoser-ARB and DeFiPoser-SMT on blockchain consensus. Specifically, we show that the trades identified by our tools exceed the Ethereum block reward by up to 874×. Given optimal adversarial strategies provided by a Markov Decision Process (MDP), we quantify the value threshold at which a profitable transaction qualifies as Miner Extractable Value (MEV) and would incentivize MEV-aware miners to fork the blockchain. For instance, we find that on Ethereum, a miner with a hash rate of 10% would fork the blockchain if an MEV opportunity exceeds 4× the block reward.
There is no single approach in the world regarding the legal regulation of cryptocurrency. Most countries are wary of legalizing this payment instrument, fearing problems associated with tax evasion, terrorist financing, fraud and other illegal transactions. Nevertheless, the issue of legalization of cryptocurrencies has recently moved to a different level as the market capitalization of cryptocurrencies grew to over USD 237 billion 2020, with several leading cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin skyrocketing in value in 2021. The explosive growth has been lead in no small part by China, the world’s largest and most important market for cryptocurrency in terms of mining, investing and research. This article reviews the current trends in cryptocurrency regulation with a particular focus on China, including an analysis of current cryptocurrency laws in China, as well as the new Chinese Cryptography Law. Also, it explains recent developments in Chinese regulation and policy will continue to shape the development of the global cryptocurrency markets.
Land acquisition in Ghana is fraught with challenges of multiple sales, numerous unofficial charges, unnecessary bureaucracies, intrusion of unqualified middlemen, and lack of transparency among others. Studies have suggested digitization as a way forward to improve Ghana’s land management system and to address these acquisition challenges. However, none of these studies have specifically provided a clear conceptual digital framework for land acquisition. Most contemporary land literature globally appraise blockchain technology as a potential solution to these challenges in Ghana’s land acquisition process. This article applies an integrative review, mixed with strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT) analysis, and deductive lessons from a digital land registry concept to develop a blockchain-based smart land acquisition framework solution in view of Ghana’s land acquisition challenges. However, it is identified that threats of sabotage of this framework exist among some customary land owners, land officials, and private blockchain-based land experts for various reasons. Among others, a legal basis for a public–private partnership is recommended particularly to discourage sabotage from private blockchain-based land experts. We recommend future research works to delve into establishing a framework that can be used as a guide to assess the readiness of land management and land administration systems for blockchain consideration in sub-Sahara Africa, particularly Ghana.
Andrea Peláez-Repiso, Pablo Sánchez-Núñez, Yolanda García Calvente
Blockchain is a technology that will change the relationships between the different actors in society, individuals, companies and administration, in aspects as important as taxation, by implementing concepts such as Self-sovereign identity (SSI) and Smart Contracts; which support, for example, virtual currencies, that are not controlled by any state, financial institution or centralized company. Hence, the growing interest of researchers, investors, traders, marketers, enterprises, and administrations to know the scope of this new technology and its tax implications. The main objective of this work is to clarify the status of these studies, explore issues, methods, findings, and trends as well as to define their meaning within the current research scenario. To achieve these objectives, bibliometric analysis was carried out, retrieving 349 research papers, and analyzing 343 papers published between 2015–2019 based on the results of the Web of Science (WoS).
Babak Mafakheri, Andreas Heider-Aviet, Roberto Riggio, Leonardo Goratti
The rollout of fifth generation (5G) cellular network technology has generated a new surge of interest in the potential of blockchain to automate various use cases involving cellular networks. 5G is indeed expected to offer new market opportunities for small and large enterprises alike. In this article, we introduce a new roaming network architecture for 5G based on a permissioned blockchain platform with smart contracts. The proposed solution improves the visibility for mobile network operators of their subscribers' activities in the visited network, as well as enabling quick payment reconciliation and reducing fraudulent transactions. The article further reports on the methodology and architecture of the proposed blockchain-based roaming solution using the Hyperledger platform.