Jan 1, 2019·Proceedings of the ... Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences/Proceedings of the Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences
This paper explores the emergence of ecosystems in the context of Fintechs infusing digital technology into financial services. The rapid rise of Fintechs has changed the business landscape, challenging the established firms with novel solutions and services. As a result, the established firms are turning to new models of cooperation, replacing the hierarchically managed value chains with ecosystems that are modular and decentralized in their architecture. First, a bibliometric analysis was conducted to present the content and relationships in Fintech research in general. Then, a case study on two of the biggest retail banks in Finland and their innovation relationships in developing Distributed Ledger Technologies and related services was conducted. The results show how established players have established multiple innovation relationships, in different ecosystems as well as between them. These can be seen to demonstrate the emergence of Fintech ecosystems. The study contributes to previous literature by making the linkages explicit, particularly by examining the contextual elements that are crucial enablers or hindering factors in such relationships.
Currently the search for a decentralized data model in companies for its big advantage in removing the middleman has been increasing. For that reason, DLT (Distributed Ledger Technology) technologies have gained a lot of visibility in the business world, the most well-known being Blockchain and its emerging Smart Contracts. The identified problem is the lack of knowledge and skill of companies in the domain of the rising Smart Contracts. In this paper, we propose a generic model that could increase the competence of companies in this field by creating a step-by-step tutorial on how to set up the development environment of Smart Contracts.
Ahmad B. Alkhodre, Toqeer Ali, Salman Jan, Yazed Alsaawy · 6 authors
Businesses need trust to confidently perform trade among each other. Centralized business models are the only mature solutions available to perform trades over the Internet. However, they have many problems which includes but are not limited to the fact that these create bottleneck on the server as well as requires trusted third parties. Recently, decentralized solutions have gained significant popularity and acceptance for future businesses. The wide acceptance of such systems is indeed due to the trust management among various untrusted business stakeholders. Many solutions have been proposed in this regard to provide de-centralized infrastructure for various business models. A standard solution that is acceptable to the industry is still in demand. Hyperledger umbrella Blockchain projects, that are supported by IBM and many other industry big players are gaining popularity due to its efficient and pluggable design. In this study, the author present the idea of utilizing Blockchain to design a Value-Added Tax (VAT) system for Saudi Arabia’s newly introduced tax system. The reason to select this business model for VAT is twofold. First, it provides an untampered distributed ledger, which cannot be deceived by any party. Each transaction in the system cannot go unnoticed by the smart contract. Sec-ondly, it provides a transparent record, and updates all involved parties regarding each activity performed by stakeholders. The newly proposed system will provide a transparent database of VAT transactions according to our smart contract design and at each stage of supply chain, tax will be deducted and stored on peer-to-peer network via consensus process. The author believes that the proposed solution will have significant impact on VAT collection in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
The aim of this research is to bring the reader closer to several concepts that are becoming more common day by day, and which find themselves in unstoppable development, such as blockchain technology, tokens, ICO (Initial Coin Offerings) or DAO (Decentralized Autonomous Organizations). Thus, the process of «tokenization», based on abstractly representing a value through the blockchain, is a transcendental innovation in areas such as the financial or the corporate spheres, where ICO —introducing a new business financing channel through the online sale of cryptographic assets— or DAO —entities managed in a decentralized way through smart contracts by tokens holders— come onto the scene. Likewise, their undeniable utilities will be enhanced, but the practical problems faced by these technological developments will also be analyzed, being the main one the regulatory uncertainty.
Blockchain, Smart Contracts and Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) are being touted to revolutionise digital services - through decentralisation. Cryptocurrencies, self-sovereign identities, decentralised certificate registries, and transparent voting systems are but a few applications which promise to empower endusers and provide assurances that neither data nor the associated computational logic have been tampered with. Decentralisation, disintermediation, transparency, verifiability, auditability, openness, inclusion, tamper-proof, immutability are just some of the buzz words that continue to be swung around in the promotion of the benefits brought about by Blockchain-based systems to the users. The rhetoric used creates parallels between the features brought about through blockchains and values that many try to uphold, for example honesty, openness, transparency, teamwork and unchanging truth. In this paper a number of blockchain applications aimed at supporting initiatives for common good are highlighted. This is followed by a discussion on technology de/centralisation and a thought experiment used to raise questions regarding the use of decentralised technology in terms of social implications.
This paper presents an efficient solution for the booking and payments functionality of a car sharing system that allows individuals to share their personal, underused cars in a completely decentralized manner, annulling the need of an intermediary. Our solution, named SC2Share, leverages smart contracts and uses them to carry out secure and private car booking and payments. Our experiments on SC2Share on the Ethereum testnet guarantee high security and privacy to its users and confirm that our system is cost-efficient and ready for practical use.
A DAO does not fit well within the current landscape of recognized organizational structures and, rather than shoehorning it into one, states should recognize a new hybrid entity. This Note’s proposed Cryptocorporation form, with rules and protections better suited to the unique qualities of a DAO, could allow for the most appropriate tax treatment of shared profits, limit personal liability, and allow for an appropriate voting structure as articulated in the White Paper. The proposed Cryptocorporation would also protect investors and give the SEC more presumptive jurisdiction over the token-based-stock that is issued and represented exclusively through blockchain tokens. Cryptocorporations can actively attempt to preserve the pseudonymity which exists on a relevant blockchain network, because of the capabilities of electronic communication and the security of blockchain-based recordkeeping. In sum, by borrowing from and building upon the attributes of partnerships, LLCs, and corporations, the concept of the Cryptocorporation has the potential to foster the productive use and development of smart contract technology for decentralized organizations, while mitigating the risks to investors and facilitating a more frictionless secondary market.
Decentralized finance has evolved as a major contender for traditional banking systems over the last few years. Evolution in blockchain and cryptography technologies are the driving forces for decentralized finance’s growth. The emergence of Bitcoin in the finance system was a major driving force toward the tremendous growth of decentralized finance. However, with various platforms merging every day, the decentralized finance sector is still in its early, unorganized stages. The current decentralized finance market is chaotic. With a new “coin” being introduced almost every month, standardization is highly lacking in the system. DeFi already has several different applications available. For instance, one can purchase stable coins, or assets pegged to a national currency, on decentralized exchanges, move the assets to a lending platform that is also decentralized to earn interest, and then add the interest-earning instruments to a decentralized liquidity pool or an on-chain investment fund. DeFi enterprises frequently aim at decentralized decision-making, or governance, in everything from the user fees to the products they provide. A decentralized program may be started by one person or a small number of individuals, but as the project gathers traction, its leaders frequently try to step down and cede control to the user base. A decentralized autonomous organization that has its rules and regulations written into computer code and that may issue governance tokens, which allow its holders a voice in decisions rather than allowing the decision-making to a centralized government authority as in case of traditional finance, could represent this transition. While on one side, world governments are still trying to grasp and regulate the sector, on the other side, the technology’s reach has been very limited. Undoubtedly, the emergence of blockchain-based decentralized finance is massively influencing our current finance technology industry. In this chapter, we discuss the current growth in the FinTech industry and the blockchain-based decentralized finance sector. Furthermore, we discuss how decentralized finance can be used in the current FinTech industry.
This study highlights the potential impacts of blockchain technology on the collaborative economy (CE), colloquially known as the sharing economy. This conceptual review first analyzes how the CE intersects with the blockchain technology. Collaborative consumption involves an intensification of peer-to-peer trade, underpinned by robust digital infrastructures and processes, hence an increased use of new technologies and a redefinition of business activities. As an inherently connected economy, the CE is, therefore, prone to integrating the most recent technological advances including artificial intelligence, big data analysis, augmented reality, the smart grid, and blockchain technology. This review then furthers the examination of the organizational and managerial implications related to the use of blockchain technology in terms of governance, transaction costs, and user confidence. A closing case finally examines the role of a prominent social networking site (i.e., Facebook ) in the CE-blockchain nexus.
Niclas Kannengießer, Sebastian Lins, Tobias Dehling, Ali Sunyaev
Distributed ledger technology (DLT), including blockchain, enables secure processing of transactions between untrustworthy parties in a decentralized system. However, DLT is available in different designs that exhibit diverse characteristics. Moreover, DLT characteristics have complementary and conflicting interdependencies. Hence, there will never be an ideal DLT design for all DLT use cases; instead, DLT implementations need to be configured to contextual requirements. Successful DLT configuration requires, however, a sound understanding of DLT characteristics and their interdependencies. In this manuscript, we review DLT characteristics and organize them into six groups. Furthermore, we condense interdependencies of DLT characteristics into trade-offs that should be considered for successful deployment of DLT. Finally, we consolidate our findings into DLT archetypes for common design objectives, such as security, usability, or performance. Our work makes extant DLT research more transparent and fosters understanding of interdependencies and trade-offs between DLT characteristics.
Peer-to-peer energy trading and next generation local energy market mechanisms are expected to provide new use cases and opportunities within the future sharing economy landscape. To this anticipation, we propose alternative incentive mechanisms as energy policy instruments that can be used by policy makers for directly supporting local energy producers, and hence indirectly the consumers, at current local energy markets using capabilities provided by contemporary distributed ledger technology. Under such peer-to-peer local market setting, we first detail market pricing and relevant market parameters thoroughly, and then we discuss fair incentive distribution to local producers in detail, by means of two distinct incentive systems what we call as the fixed stipend and the decaying stipend incentive mechanisms, respectively. We provide an analysis of market pricing and market parameters under German power market conditions, and an illustration of proposed support instruments with resorting to three scenarios experimented on a local energy market test bed that is equipped with realistic energy generation and consumption profiles for its participants.
In this paper, we propose a Blockchain-based infrastructure to support security- and privacy-oriented spatio-temporal smart contract services for the sustainable Internet of Things (IoT)-enabled sharing economy in mega smart cities. The infrastructure leverages cognitive fog nodes at the edge to host and process off loaded geo-tagged multimedia payload and transactions from a mobile edge and IoT nodes, uses AI for processing and extracting significant event information, produces semantic digital analytics, and saves results in Blockchain and decentralized cloud repositories to facilitate sharing economy services. The framework offers a sustainable incentive mechanism, which can potentially support secure smart city services, such as sharing economy, smart contracts, and cyber-physical interaction with Blockchain and IoT. Our unique contribution is justified by detailed system design and implementation of the framework.
We live in a world that has historically been dominated by centralized, hierarchical organizations. Such organizations are characterized by (i) a centralized source of authority; (ii) a formal hierarchy with clearly defined “roles”; and, (iii) standardized operational systems and procedures dictated by that centralized authority/hierarchy. This type of organization has exerted an enormous influence on modern political, economic and social life, particularly in a business context. Regulatory models have been designed to support and sustain businesses organized in this way. Today, however, new digital technologies are disrupting this “old world” and introducing a shift in the practices and mindset of our society. New technologies are driving the emergence of “flatter”, more decentralized forms of organization. In this paper, we offer an analysis of how blockchain and related distributed ledger technologies are disrupting corporate organizations as an illustration of this broader “digital transformation.” The paper briefly introduces the digital transformation and main argument (Section 1); then considers how the digital transformation has led to the emergence of “platform” companies (Section 2). Since blockchain technology can be viewed as a next step in the “digital development” of a corporate organization, the paper then discusses the main features of blockchain technologies and smart contracts (Sections 3 & 4) and examines the often-made claim that these technologies are all just hype / a fad (Section 5). Section 6 explores why these technologies are so potentially disruptive in a business context and then introduces several examples of such blockchain-based business organizations, as well as possible future developments (Sections 7 and 8). Section 9 concludes.
У статті розглянуті особливості інновацій, що лежать в основі технології розподілених реєстрів, її різновиди, потенційні і фактично реалізовані напрями застосування, організаційні форми відповідних проектів. Показано, як ця технологія трансформується в напрямку наближення до централізованих реєстрів, але водночас стимулює удосконалення і модернізацію останніх. Виявлено, що для максимального використання потенціалу ТРР необхідна інтеграція децентралізованих систем з правовим полем і зміна технології не лише у проблемних ланках, що найбільше виграють від її застосування, а й в середовищах, з якими ці ланки взаємодіють. Як свідчить досвід реально запроваджених ТРР-проектів, найбільш успішними з технічних та інституційних причин виявляються платформи, що перебувають десь посередині спектру централізованих і децентралізованих реєстрів, тож втілення радикальної лібертаріанської місії ТРР ще не знайдено – системам потрібний централізований арбітр, координатор, суб’єкт відповідальності і гнучкість, якої можна досягти за допомогою авторитетного втручання в протокол. Зроблено висновок, що навіть максимальне поширення ТРР не означатиме перемогу мереж над ієрархіями і демократизацію: по-перше, тому, що будь-яким мережам властиві процеси подальшої ієрархієзації, а по-друге, відновлення ієрархічного порядку може виявитися необхідним для запобігання сповзанню в анархію.
The gaming industry has evolved into a multi-functional smart city that combines integrated casinos and entertainment (ICE). ICE logistics involve supply chains with various stages in geographically-distributed locations and with limited and complex storage and warehouses. Challenges are to leverage demands, traffic, and storage allocation in ICE logistics. The decentralized structure of blockchain technology allows all parties to participate in ICE logistics. Its cryptography-based, immutable nature gives the assurance of security. This research deals with the design and application of blockchains in ICE logistics. We first adopt a Concentric Value Circles (CVC) model to identify the requirements and business opportunities that use blockchain technology in ICE logistics. We develop an open, automated, and transparent platform, TransICE, which utilizes the feature of smart contracts in blockchain technology and adopts a decentralized model, Hawk, where no financial transactions are stored on the blockchain to hold privacy of transactions publicly. Two cases, (1) the Shipment Pricing and Scheduling process and (2) the Pickup, Shipping and Delivery process in TransICE, are studied to illustrate the applications and feasibility of the proposed TransICE platform and the developed smart contracts of the Hawk model.
Blockchain is highly secure in design and can hand huge data efficiently. A smart contract, based on a blockchain, can automate the entire process and make the contract self-executing in nature. Since the first introduction of these technologies in the 1990s, they have been at the center interest for academia and industry. Numerous researchers and practitioners have investigated the principles and usage of blockchain and smart contracts. However, little is coincidental regarding estimating the consumer’s additional willingness to pay (WTP) and analyzing the relationship with socio-economic characteristics of the consumer for blockchain and smart contracts in the insurance sector. This study conducted the survey on 1000 heads of the household or homemakers who represent population well in South Korea and estimated additional WTP using one-and-one-half-bounded dichotomous choice contingent valuation (OOHB DC CV) method. About 65% of sample respondents answered they are willing to pay some additional premium for blockchain and smart contracts. The mean WTP has the value of KRW 28,425.43 (USD 25.38) and the median WTP is KRW 16,111.71 (USD 14.39). Those with high incomes, high education and more insurance contracts are more likely to pay extra for insurance policies using blockchain and smart contracts. Considering the total number of households in South Korea, the aggregated additional WTP is about 8 percent of the net income of the insurance industry in fiscal year of 2017. Consequently, strategic development of insurance products using block chains and smart contracts targeting educated consumers with high-income will increase the number of policyholders, which can in turn increase premium revenues.
Mark C. Ballandies, Marcus M. Dapp, Evangelos Pournaras
More than 1000 distributed ledger technology (DLT) systems raising $600 billion in investment in 2016 feature the unprecedented and disruptive potential of blockchain technology. A systematic and data-driven analysis, comparison and rigorous evaluation of the different design choices of distributed ledgers and their implications is a challenge. The rapidly evolving nature of the blockchain landscape hinders reaching a common understanding of the techno-socio-economic design space of distributed ledgers and the cryptoeconomies they support. To fill this gap, this paper makes the following contributions: (i) A conceptual architecture of DLT systems with which (ii) a taxonomy is designed and (iii) a rigorous classification of DLT systems is made using real-world data and wisdom of the crowd. (iv) A DLT design guideline is the end result of applying machine learning methodologies on the classification data. Compared to related work and as defined in earlier taxonomy theory, the proposed taxonomy is highly comprehensive, robust, explanatory and extensible. The findings of this paper can provide new insights and better understanding of the key design choices evolving the modeling complexity of DLT systems, while identifying opportunities for new research contributions and business innovation. Supplementary Information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s10586-021-03256-w.
Italian Abstract: Blockchain puo significare anche riorganizzazione dei sistemi di sicurezza sociale. Di qui l'idea di approfondire l'applicazione possibile della blockchain a alcuni istituti previdenziali, tra cui il distacco europeo, l'invalidita e il REI, per definire il quadro delle potenzialita e delle criticita. Nel saggio si studia anche il concetto di smart contract.
English Abstract: Blockchain technologies and smart contracts can be applied to social security systems. The paper is aimed at investigating the possible social fields of such application, the legal consequences, the critical points. Posting and invalidity benefits regimes are examined in light of the possible application of blockchain.
Fadhlan Hafizhelmi Kamaruzaman, Ahmad Ihsan Mohd Yassin, Azlee Zabidi, Fadhlan Hafizhelmi Kamaru Zaman · 7 authors
In recent years, an individual under the pseudonym of Satoshi Nakamoto devised a revolutionary technology called blockchain as the engine behind the first decentralized virtual currency called Bitcoin. A radical concept departing from government-centric controlled currencies, Bitcoin has emerged as a disruptive technology with the power to revolutionize business and its processes. Advantages of the blockchain include decentralized control, immutability, elimination of central authority and solution of concurrency problems in traditional databases. Leveraging on the advantages of blockchain technology defined above, this paper discusses the potential application of blockchain technology for storage of Islamic marriage certificates. Marriage certificates are documents issued to couples to legally recognize their marriage. Due to its paper-based nature, there is significant risk for them to be forged or frauded. These issues can be addressed effective using blockchain. The proposed application was implemented using smart contracts on a simulated Ethereum platform. A smart contract is designed to execute automatically under certain predefined conditions. The use of smart contracts eliminate manipulation by a single party. In addition, the immutable concept of blockchain ensures that data integrity is always preserved, greatly reducing the risk of fraud. Â