Abstract With the rapid development of blockchain technology and the increasing demand for partial decentralization of the Internet, the application of underlying technology based on blockchain has been widely concerned. Along with decentralized objects, the programmable financial system represented by Ethereum has been gotten more and more attention. However, smart contract sacrifices its security to improve decentralization. So Ethereum has the fatal problem with a large number of users, and negligence of users in coding contract threatens the entire Ethereum network. Therefore, this paper aims to research and expand applications of smart contract usage in Ethereum blockchain. We start from basic concepts to define structure of Ethereum, and then discuss security issues on smart contract. In the end, an optimized smart contract application of auction is implemented, which is useful for further consolidating and understanding of smart contract in practice.
Smart contracts are dependent on oracle systems for their adoption and usability. We perform an empirical study of oracle systems' usage trends and adoption metrics to provide better insight into the health of the smart contract ecosystem. We collect ChainLink usage data on the Ethereum network using a modified Ethereum client and running a full node. We analyze the collected data and present our findings and insights surrounding the usage trends, adoption metrics, oracle pricing and service quality associated with ChainLink on the Ethereum network.
The market for non-fungible tokens (NFTs), transferrable and unique digital assets on public blockchains, has received widespread attention and experienced strong growth since early 2021. This study provides an introduction to NFTs and explores the 14 largest submarkets using data from the Ethereum blockchain between June 2017 and May 2021. The analyses rely on (a) the number of NFT sales, (b) the dollar volume of NFT trades and (c) the number of unique blockchain wallets that traded NFTs. Based on the number of transactions and wallets, the Ethereum-based NFT market peaked at the end of 2017 due to the success of the CryptoKitties project. As of 2021, fewer transactions occur but the traded value is much higher. We find that NFT submarkets are cointegrated and feature various causal short-run connections between them. The success or adoption of younger NFT projects is influenced by that of more established markets. At the same time, the success of newer markets has an impact on the more established projects. The results contribute to the overall understanding of the NFT phenomenon as an emerging asset class and suggest that NFT markets are immature or even inefficient.
Muhammad Athar Nadeem, Zhiying Liu, Abdul Hameed Pitafi, Amna Younis · 5 authors
The share of electronic transactions in the global payments continues to increase all around the globe. In the recent years, cryptocurrencies (also known as a system of electronic transaction) have caught significant attention from governments, policymakers, and practitioners worldwide. Cryptocurrencies as an innovative method of exchanges without any physical form boast several potential benefits such as speedy transactions, cross-border usage, low transaction fee, transparency, high security, anonymity, and privacy, and thus are expected to bring huge revolution in the future economic system. This study aims to investigate the adoption factors of Bitcoin, a most known cryptocurrency in China. Based on Technology Acceptance Model, a research framework has been developed to test the proposed hypotheses. The data have been collected via a survey questionnaire from 385 Chinese respondents. The findings show that the perceived ease of use and the perceived usefulness have a positive relationship with the intention to use Bitcoin. The perceived usefulness mediates the relationship between the perceived ease of use and the intention to use Bitcoin. Furthermore, the results reveal that the transaction processing and the perceived ease of use have significant impacts on the perceived usefulness. However, the security and control shows an insignificant effect on the perceived usefulness. This study contributes to the growing literature of Bitcoin and offers valuable information to individual users (payees), fund managers (investors), and companies/businesses (receiving Bitcoin as a payment method). Research implications and limitations are also discussed.
Omar Ali, Ashraf Jaradat, Atık Kulakli, Ahmed Abuhalimeh
Blockchain technology enables users to verify, preserve, and synchronize the contents of a data sheet (a transaction ledger) replicated by multiple users. Blockchain technology has provided considerable advantages and incentives to industries in terms of enabling better services. This review aims to explore the benefits, challenges and functionalities that affect blockchain applications in different sectors. This article is constructed as a systematic literature review study. From 1976 articles, 168 final articles were selected and classified into three main dimensions, that is, benefits, challenges, and functionalities, in four different sectors: government, financial, manufacturing, and healthcare. The results were extracted and compared based on factors in three dimensions, which were categorized as benefits (informational, technological, economic, organizational, and strategic), challenges (technological, organizational, adoption, operational, and environmental and sustainability), and functionalities (point-to-point transmission, data ownership, data protection, and transaction processing). The results of this review study aim to support professionals, practitioners, and stakeholders who wish to implement and manage transformation projects related to blockchain in their sectors. Moreover, helping these possible blockchain users to understand the implied factors associated with blockchain would be beneficial for the decision-making processes of their organizations.
Bitcoin has witnessed a prevailing transition that employing transaction fees paid by users rather than subsidy assigned by the system as the main incentive for mining.
"Cryptocurrencies have become the buzzword among society, especially after some prominent companies such as Wikipedia, Microsoft and Amazon accept the use of cryptocurrencies. Nonetheless, accounting treatment of cryptocurrencies appears to be a challenging area for standard setters, financial statement preparers, and also users. This is mainly because elements of cryptocurrency do not explicitly fall under any existing accounting standards. The fact that cryptocurrencies are held for different business models and intentions may affect how it should be treated under accounting standards. Hence, this research aimed to examine factors that affect the accounting treatment of cryptocurrencies in Malaysia. Different factors were examined including the function of cryptocurrencies, conceptual framework of financial reporting and the legal status of cryptocurrencies. Targeted respondents involved in this research were accountants in Malaysia. Data collected were analysed using SPSS and SmartPLS 3. SPSS was mainly used to analyse the demographics of respondents whereas SmartPLS 3 was used to carry out reflective measurement model and structural model evaluation. The results concluded that all the independent variables which are the functions of cryptocurrencies, conceptual framework of financial reporting, and the legal status of cryptocurrencies have a significant relationship with the accounting treatment of cryptocurrencies. The results of this study provide an insight about factors that standards setters and financial standards should consider when accounting for cryptocurrencies’ transactions in order to provide faithful representation and relevant information. Some limitations and suggestions are included in this research to provide ideas for future researchers to carry out further research. Keywords: Cryptocurrencies, Accounting Treatment"
2009년 처음 공개된 이래, 비트코인이 대안화폐로서 기능할 수 있을 것인가를 둘러싸고 많은 논쟁이 진행되었다. 본 연구는 비트코인의 화폐적 가능성 자체보다는 ‘비트코인 현상’을 사회적 사실로 인식한다. 즉, 비트코인 현상이 금융화를 배경으로 어떠한 사회적 힘들에 의해 전개되었는지 주목하면서, 지난 10년간의 비트코인의 역사를 재검토한다. 비트코인은 2008~2009년의 글로벌 금융위기에 대한 자유지상주의적 비판으로서, 국가와 자본으로부터 독립적인 대안적 화폐 구성을 목표로 등장했다. 그러나 오래지 않아 채굴기업이나 거래소와 같은 비트코인 생태계 내의 새로운 권력중심이 출현하고, 제도적 금융시장을 통해 막대한 투자자금이 유입되었다. 그 결과 비트코인은 가격변동성이 높은 금융자산의 성격이 강화됨으로써 화폐로서는 실패했다는 평가가 확산되었다. 그런데 최근 각국 정부와 중앙은행이 블록체인을 기반으로 중앙은행디지털화폐의 개발에 본격 착수하게 되면서, 비트코인에서 시작된 대안적 디지털암호화폐의 실현가능성은 그 어느 때보다 높아졌다. 이는 ‘비트코인 현상’의 중대한 역설을 보여준다. 기존 금융질서에 대한 자유지상주의적 비판이자 화폐적 유토피아 운동으로서의 비트코인이 10년의 역사를 거쳐 자신이 비판하고자 했던 바로 그 형상을 가지고 비로소 실현될 운명에 처해 있기 때문이다.
Purpose Following the call for strengthening the third pillar of knowledge in entrepreneurship as well as work-applied management contexts constituted by pragmatic design principles, we present a case study on an insurtech for insurance firms specialized in smart contract insurance solutions such as flight delay or ski resort insurance. Design/methodology/approach Design science. Findings This not only serves as a pointer for how insurances may master their digital transformation while remaining competitive. But moreover, on the meta level, we find that the adoption of entrepreneurial design principles by the students, whose experiential project represents our case study, does not necessarily require continuous support or foundational knowledge to be delivered beforehand. However, for a deeper or more holistic assessment of the case sketched in their project, it makes sense to introduce them to newer developments such as the simple, practical framework of the Entrepreneur's Question Index. Originality/value Innovative teaching method on innovative topics.
Adeel Nasir, Kamran Shaukat, Kanwal Iqbal Khan, Ibrahim A. Hameed · 6 authors
A new era awaits the development of cryptocurrency and blockchain technologies. This study highlights the influential and conceptual aspects of blockchain and cryptocurrency literature with bibliometric analysis. There are 1965 related documents from 2015 and 2020, represent various structures and technologies, cryptocurrencies, and blockchain applications. We have deployed “bibliometrix 3.0”, the r-package, and VOS viewer to analyze key literature aspects. IEEE Access is the core journal for cryptocurrency and blockchain publications. The University of Cagliari, Notreported, and Peking University are key affiliations, and the USA, China, and India are core countries for literary research. H. Wang is the core author with the central theme of security of blockchain technologies. It is a set basis for conceptual aspects, core, and future research streams and themes. The study proposes three research streams: the structure of cryptocurrencies and implications of blockchain technologies, privacy, security management of data and information, and development of optimal information systems. The study further segregates themes into highly centralized and motor themes that are also core themes. Topics related to Consensus protocols, proof of work, distribution ledger technology, blockchain, and cryptocurrency procedures and structure comes under core themes. Highly developed and emerging themes are considered as a stepping stone for future directions. Underlying topics are related to fintech, Islamic finance, valuations, and dynamics of cryptocurrencies.
Digital transformation creates challenges in all industries and business sectors. The development of digital transformation has also clearly triggered the emergence of fintech (financial technology) initiatives, which are recognized as some of the most important innovations in the financial industry. These initiatives are developing rapidly, driven in part by the sharing economy, regulations, and information technology. However, research in the field of fintech remains in its infancy. Fintech offers several services, such as funding, payment (including electronic wallets), e-aggregators, e-trading, and e-insurance, and cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin. This provides an opportunity to more closely examine fintech’s research challenges and trends. This study aims to (1) determine the state of the art of financial technology research; (2) identify gaps in the financial technology research field; and (3) identify challenges and trends for future research potential. The novel proposal in this study includes theoretical contributions regarding financial technology. Using the systematic literature review approach of Kitchenham, in addition to thematic analysis, meta-analysis and observation to validate the quality of literature and analysis, the results of this study provide a theoretical basis fintech research from an information systems perspective, including the formulation of fintech technology concepts and their development.
This essay examines whether the smart contract innovation is capable of displacing the orthodox adherence to traditional contracts. This examination is underpinned by an analysis of the legality of smart contracts in which it is exemplified that smart contracts ought to be considered legally binding instruments. The essay proceeds to explore the superiority of smart contracting in a technical and theoretical basis. The advantages generated through smart contract automaticity and enforceability present a concrete basis for undermining reliance on traditional contracts. Blockchain Technology also enhances the benefits of smart contract by acting as a smart contract enabler through guaranteed performance and enforceability. Nevertheless, such novel technologies inevitably suffer from several shortcomings. This essay considers examples illustrating the inflexibility of smart contracting. Apart from being susceptible to hacking and code exploitation, smart contracting is unable to deal with ambiguities and potential modifications. Overall, this suggests that the advantages of smart contract practice are currently confined to some specified limited scenarios. Smart contracts perform a different function to traditional contracting by merely guaranteeing technical enforceability as opposed to legal enforceability. This essay thus concludes that, for the time being, it is prone to regard smart contracting as a supplement to traditional contract rather than an outright displacement.
Digital finance encompasses digital information feedback on credit credibility and electronic transactions based on digital currencies.In recent years, driven by blockchain technology and cloud computing, digital finance has boomed in developed countries, giving rise to new issues and potential risks.With the transformation of digital finance from 'crypto' to 'cloud', a new trend is emerging.Digital finance driven by cloud computing, whether on public clouds or on-chain clouds, offers a plethora of opportunities, but the migration to native digital finance systems based on cloud infrastructure would be fraught with risk.Cloud computing, with its convenience, flexibility, security and scalability, continues to become a mainstream technology in retail finance.Multi-modal federated machine learning and federated cloud transactions can potentially construct a decentralized market with permissioned access while achieving snapshot privacy.Blockchain will continue its widespread adoption in developer-centric financial backends as technology matures, with larger public chains evolving to handle benchmark trading volumes.On miniambilest, native public and enterprise banks, decentralized exchanges, NFT-backed loans and on-chain credit scores will rise, creating liquidity for illiquid assets and granting borrowing access to previously excluded participants.The rising popularity of cryptocurrencies may, on the contrary, accelerate KYC, AML and the adoption of CBDCs.Security issues in cloud computing may cause significant financial losses, as there have been cases in the past where public cloud services have suffered data breaches.In some cases, thousands of GB of customer financial and transaction data have leaked online and caused significant reputational damage, emphasizing the importance of choosing a reliable cloud service vendor [2].Observations made during web scraping consisting of an analysis of exchange user cases showed that data breaches have exposed customer account information, previous transactions, and even 3D model photos of the vault and keys used to hide hardware wallets in a bank deposit facility.Furthermore, the archive and backup of large-scale retail finance databases in the public cloud may incur long data retrieval delay of over 100ms.The lost backup can also put the entire institution at risk if the vendor service becomes bankrupt, or if a natural disaster damages their facilities.Despite the rapid year-on-year growth of this new financial market, currently, only limited assets, such as the Bitcoin reward for blockchain mining, can be traded on-chain.
Abstract Postcapitalist commons are a growing area of interest in the efforts to generate alternatives to capitalism in the present. Commons are understood as self‐organised collectives based around shared resources; yet postcapitalist commons have an additional element, in operating within while projecting an “after” capitalism. This can give rise to tensions since commons striving for postcapitalism also require a certain amount of capital to survive and function within capitalism. FairCoop is a radical postcapitalist commons that adopted the cryptocurrency FairCoin in 2014. FairCoop, through FairCoin, was able to generate some trans‐local connections through its use of peer2peer technologies and was thus able to scale‐up. Its design, however, was ultimately unsustainable due to insufficiently clear boundaries from capital. After highlighting the lack of commons boundaries around FairCoop, we identify some additional commons‐capital boundary design principles which could contribute to the sustainability of future postcapitalist commons experiments that are seeking to scale.
The technology of smart contracts, which is an essential component of blockchain-based systems, has the potential to improve the efficiency, transparency, and safety of these systems. However, there are a number of challenges that need to be conquered in order to develop and implement smart contracts, particularly in regard to security, adaptability, interoperability, and meeting the standards imposed by legal and regulatory authorities. This paper examines ideas for designing and implementing smart contracts, as well as providing an outline of the challenges that have been encountered. In this article, we take a look back at 25 essential works that were published in the field between 2010 and 2019, and we discuss the impact that these works have had. According to the findings of our research, continual collaboration between the necessary stakeholders is required in order to fully realize the benefits given by smart contract technology while also limiting the risks associated with it.
Edson Corrêa Tavares, Edson Corrêa Tavares, Fernando de Souza Meirelles, Eduardo Corrêa Tavares · 7 authors
Blockchain is a recent certification technology that has strong potential to transform many business models and to have a social impact by providing solutions, including governance and sustainability. This paper presents a case study on a pioneering blockchain application on an online platform to negotiate forest credits issued for environmental services. The context is the management of the Green Treasure Program in the State of Amapá in the Amazon region of Brazil, a complex and interesting case for research. The purpose of this study is to identify how blockchain can contribute to the negotiation of environmental investments between the public and private sectors. For this purpose, we conducted qualitative research, a case study, using the lens of the theory of public value and an interpretative perspective. We seek to understand the connections between public value theory and the blockchain application.
Rapid technological advancements in the last few decades have given rise to various new products and fields, such as cryptocurrencies, social media and sentiment analysis. The massive surge in internet usage has caused organizations and investors to increasingly base their decisions on content placed on social media platforms which are flooded with data from its users. One of those platforms is twitter, a micro-blogging platform which allows people to share their opinions in a limited number of characters. Certain users on these platforms have the ability to influence other users' decision making, including investing. Although stock market prediction through sentiment analysis has been researched often, the amount of research done on prediction Bitcoin prices is relatively low. Furthermore, there is a gap in existing research in which samples are not limited to users that have more knowledge than individual investors. This paper uses sentiment analysis on tweets made be cryptocurrency influencers to see whether they can be used to predict Bitcoin price fluctuations. This paper, additionally researches differences in predictive capabilities between regions and differences in predictive capabilities between a bear and a bull market. The results in indicate that tweets made by cryptocurrency influencers contain statistically significant information about the future value of bitcoin. Thus, analyzing those tweets to exploit profitable opportunities can be worthwhile.
Purpose This paper aims to retrieve key components of blockchain applications in supply chain areas. It applies natural language processing methods to generate useful insights from academic literature. Design/methodology/approach It first applies a text mining method to retrieve information from scientific journal papers on the related topics. The text information is then analyzed through machine learning (ML) models to identify the important implications from the existing literature. Findings The research findings are three-fold. While challenges are of concern, the focus should be given to the design and implementation of blockchain in the supply chain field. Integration with internet of things is considered to be of higher importance. Blockchain plays a crucial role in food sustainability. Research limitations/implications The research findings offer insights for both policymakers and business managers on blockchain implementation in the supply chain. Practical implications This paper exemplifies the model as situated in the interface of human-based and machine-learned analysis, potentially offering an interesting and relevant avenue for blockchain and supply chain management researchers. Originality/value To the best of the knowledge, the research is the very first attempt to apply ML algorithms to analyzing the full contents of blockchain-related research, in the supply chain sector, thereby providing new insights and complementing existing literature.
Iftikhar Ahmad, Mohammed A. Alqarni, Abdulwahab Ali Almazroi, Laiba Alam
Blockchain technology is one of the key technological breakthroughs of the last decade. It has the ability to revolutionize numerous aspects of society, including financial systems, healthcare, e-government and many others. One such area that is able to reap the benefits of blockchain technology is the real estate industry. Like many other industries, real estate faces major administrative problems such as high transaction fees, a lack of transparency, fraud and the effects of a middleman including undue influence and commissions. Blockchain enables supporting technologies to overcome the obstacles inherent within the real estate investment market. These technologies include smart contracts, immutable record management and time-stamped storage. We utilize these key properties of blockchain technology in our work by proposing a system that has the ability to record real estate transactions in a private blockchain, using smart contracts. The immutability of the blockchain ledger and transactions can provide a safe space for the real estate business. Blockchain technology can also assist the authentication process by hastening background checks. Personal digital keys are provided to parties that are involved in a contract, thus minimizing the risk of fraud. We also discuss the rationale behind the advantages of using a blockchain in this manner, and how we selected the consensus mechanism for our proposed system.
Alan Veloso, Leonardo da Costa, Billy Pinheiro, Antônio Abelém · 5 authors
As Organizações Autônomas Descentralizadas Baseadas em Blockchain (Blockchain-Based Decentralized Autonomous Organizations - BCDAO) são sistemas que realizam tomadas de decisões visando a segurança. A estrutura organizacional é um aspecto que pode contribuir para a eficiência (e.g., reduzindo gastos redundantes de recursos, esforços e tempo), no entanto, este aspecto não é explicito no desenvolvimento de BCDAO. Neste estudo é apresentado um levantamento das estruturas organizacionais baseadas na literatura de Sistema Multiagente (Multiagent System - MAS) BCDAO, que incluem hierarquia, holarquia, sociedade e mercados. O estudo descreve cada uma das estruturas organizacionais e como elas são empregadas em BCDAO, com o intuito de facilitar a avaliação comparativa de estilos organizacionais. Com isso, objetiva-se permitir a projetistas conhecer o espectro de possibilidades atual e, então, guiar a seleção de uma estrutura organizacional apropriada para um domínio de aplicação particular.
The modern era of world order is dramatically changed with the growth of innovative and revolutionised instruments for finance and payments.Since the decade of 2000 and especially after the inception of Bitcoin, traditional finance is increasingly being replaced and substituted with decentralized voluntary transactions based upon anonymous cryptocurrencies.In recent years, the concept of a nation-state digital currency has been proposed by several central banks worldwide.Digital currencies that are issued, regulated and controlled by governments are called Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs), which are regarded as an evolution of State controlled monetary and financial instruments, but in a digital fashion.Commonly, CBDCs are expected to be widely adopted as a risk-free alternative payment instrument to instantly settle trades and transactions over interoperable mediums.As the size of capital flows increase through digital means, the actors of government instruments have to make sure that potential pernicious behaviours are deferred.Filtering and checking CBDC base transactions for any suspicious activities are needed to comply with regulatory requirements.Risk profiling and scoring models are required for all parties in international trades and transactions to ascertain if the payment is clear followed by investigating suspicious transactions.Financial resources such as liquidity sources, banking instruments, tax systems and other payment infrastructures are needed to allow endangered flows to contact authorities to prevent or harm unwarranted flows.All actors need therefore adequate financial and technical capacities to ensure that the checking on potential pernicious activities is conducted expeditiously without obstructing the delivery of the cleared transactions.For the country context, there lacks payment and fintech infrastructures to instantaneously read CBDC base transactions and make risk profiles.Risk inventory and analysis models are needed alongside messaging formats to extract, aggregate, burden and track suspicious transactions alike all weapons and fittings.Quite fewer regulators possess this surveillance capacity in comparison to the trade and transaction volume.The number of retail banks may fall below fifty as premature acts risk monitoring at systemically important institutions.With low capacities, the risk checking on CBDC base transactions will become prohibitively off-the-books, time-consuming and regretted.
Banking is the backbone of the financial sector of our times. Financial sector is one of the main facilitators in the progress of our society. The world we see today would not have been possible without the banking system. But the banking system currently has a centre dependency. CORE (Centralized Online Real-Time Exchange) banking has major disadvantages like single point of failure, power and authority for planning and decision making rest with top management organized around a hierarchical structure, dictatorial & inflexible. Decentralized/Distributed banking is the need of the hour as it gives anonymity, low/no interest rates, no single point of failure, power to the masses. It is resilient, inherently democratic and efficient. Crypto Banks are decentralized banking platforms that provide the usual services similar to centralized banks, primarily lending services and credit scoring. But it essentially cuts out all of the middlemen that a centralized bank uses. There is no centralization whatsoever. The employees needed in a centralized bank to structure financial data and approve loans are replaced in a crypto banking ecosystem by smart contracts and p2p, peer-to-peer, services. Since all issues can be solved online, most of the network will be online. The bank is moulded in the form of a computer interface, whether on a desktop or a phone, and the currencies dealt with are mostly cryptocurrencies. In this project, I have created a smart contract on Ethereum blockchain that functions as a bank. It covers basic banking operations - creating new accounts, adding/withdrawing money, giving interest to the account holders, showing balances. I used Solidity programming language to write the smart contract and wrote a few tests in Javascript. To test the smart contract, I used Remix IDE. The project gives an idea of how crypto banks work in a real-time environment.
Blockchain is an open distributed database that carries out transactions on an open decentralized ledger. It is a technology that will probably be the source of a huge digital change especially in the financial sector. The application of this technology has started to take its first steps recently and its importance is undeniable in an emerging and expanding field such as Islamic finance. In this context, the purpose of this article is to study the integration of the blockchain and one of its important components, namely the smart contract in the management of the compulsory Islamic charity the zakat. To do this, we have developed a funding model linking all the stakeholders in question and the diversities of blockchain technology. We were thus able to conclude huge benefits and technical contributions in this context which encourages Islamic financial institutions to develop more models likely to support this technology without ignoring the compliance with the Islamic jurisprudence rules.