The European project LIVESEED (www.liveseed.eu) is based on the concept that cultivars adapted to organic systems are key for realizing the full potential of organic agriculture in Europe. LIVESEED will help to establish a level playing field in the organic seed market across Europe, improve the competitiveness of the organic seed and breeding sector, and encourage greater use of organic seeds by farmers. LIVESEED will improve guidelines for cultivar testing and strategies for ensuring seed health. It will develop innovative breeding approaches suited to organic farming. Finally, it will investigate socio-economic aspects relating to the use and production of organic seed and their interaction with relevant (EU) regulations. The LIVESEED project (2017 – 2021) is coordinated by IFOAM EU with FiBL for scientific coordination and consists of 35 partners and 14 third linked parties from 18 European countries. LIVESEED received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 727230 and by the Swiss State Secretariat for Education, Research and Innovation (SERI) under contract number 17.00090. \nBy connecting several networks LIVESEED will combine co construction and exchange of knowledge integrating biological, technical, legal, organisational, financial and political aspects as well as market development to facilitate fast upscaling and outreach of various tailor made socio-technical, evidence based, innovation tracks. LIVESEED will generate (i) a tool box of measures and interventions to match production and demand of organic seed, (ii) validated options for competent authorities to reduce the number of derogation for untreated conventional seed, (iii) develop technical solutions for national databases of organic seed including an interface to a European wide router database to increase the transparency on the availability of organic seed, (iv) analyse in depth formal and informal seed chains, (v) explore various business models including checklists for setting up new multiplication and breeding initiatives, (vi) produce technical factsheet on the best practice guidelines for seed production for major crops including vegetative plant propagation material, and (vii) an develop organic seed quality strategy including quality control of farm saved seeds and efficiency of seed exchange networks. \nWith respect to organic plant breeding LIVESEED will provide new concepts for designing and implementing decentralized breeding initiatives for organic and low-input agriculture through (i) establishing networks across Europe (e.g. for apple, brassica vegetables) and fostering public-private partnerships, (ii) combining farmer, value chain or community based system breeding with functional trait-based and molecular breeding approaches, (iii) identifying trade-offs between resilience traits and sensory and nutritional quality, (iv) developing breeding schemes for heterogeneous cultivars and species mixtures, and (v) elaborating different financing models. \nConsidering the plant as a mega organism, including the above and below ground associated microorganism, has the potential to evoke a paradigm shift in plant breeding, and will be elucidated in case studies.
Выпуск 3 Том -2018 Доллар, криптовалюты, золото -разные судьбы в одной связке Портной Михаил Анатольевич Институт США и Канады РАН Российская Федерация, Москва Аннотация Рассматривается роль криптовалют и традиционных денег в современном мировом денежном хозяйстве.Предложена трактовка криптовалют в качестве специфических жетонов, или токенов, пригодных для перевода денег и некоторых других операций.Даётся оценка технологии блокчейн как перспективному продукту ИТ-технологий, пригодному для конструктивного использования во многих отраслях экономики.Рассматриваются достоинства и недостатки нового метода привлечения инвестиций -первоначального размещения токенов (ICO -Initial coin offering).Отмечается образование в современной экономике и её финансовой сфере нового сектора с элементами самоорганизации на основе применения продуктов ИТтехнологий.Подчёркивается необходимость правового обеспечения эмиссии и оборота криптовалют.Даётся оценка перспектив сосуществования криптовалют и современных денег.Утверждается роль золота как товара и отмечаются пути его использования в экономике
The purpose of this thesis is to examine, scrutinize and deduce, The current issues \non accounting for cryptocurrency, to obtain views of accounting and finance \nprofessionals on current issues on accounting for cryptocurrencies. The title of the \nthesis was chosen to point out to a reader that there are logical and technical issues \nthat needs clarification regarding accounting for cryptocurrencies. The thesis also \nincludes a brief summary of blockchain, just to understand the basics and evaluate \nthe appropriateness of cryptocurrencies as they are derived from the process of \nblockchain. \nThis thesis advices managers to examine and better understand the key features of \ncryptocurrencies that are relevant to their business as so to be able to correctly \naccount for them as cryptocurrencies have a quasi-asset and quasi-currency feature \nand also can be an inventory to some business models. In addition, it states that the \npreparers of financial statements should evaluate the appropriateness of their \naccounting policies for cryptocurrencies and validate their disclosures about \ncryptocurrencies are material and sufficiently transparent to users of financial \nstatements. \nThis thesis warrants for standard- setters to undertake research of this area so as to \nprovide guidance and clarity in accounting for the cryptocurrencies in areas such as \nasset classification, revenue recognition, valuation and disclosures. They must also \nensure that the accounting guidance for cryptocurrencies is relevant and useful to \nthe preparers of financial statements and the users of financial statements. \nThe research of the thesis will focus on key accounting themes relevant to \ncryptocurrencies. Although the literature on the topic of the thesis available, is \nlimited and narrow. Accounting standards are studied in depth in order to deduct \ntheir appropriateness on cryptocurrencies for the literature review. Further seven \ninterviews were conducted with accounting professionals to obtain their views on the \naccounting themes for cryptocurrencies.
The advent of Bitcoin and other forms of cryptocurrency has left a permanent mark on the world as we know it, regardless of what percentage of the populace will ever touch or comprehend cryptocurrency in its lifetime. Thanks to the advent of blockchain technology, cryptocurrency has given rise to expedited international exchanges, increased protection of consumer identity, and secured methods for logging transactions. But cryptocurrency’s nebulous nature makes it inherently vulnerable to a slew of hacks, cyberattacks, and run-of-the-mill theft. Moreover, its indeterminate qualities make cryptocurrency incredibly difficult for federal law to wrangle. But, perhaps most chillingly, the rise of cryptocurrency has given organized crime a new look, swapping society’s Kuklinskis1 and Capones2 for pseudonymous sleuths and computer-clad criminals, and underground operations for “dark web” schemes that transcend international borders at the click of a button. This Recent Development will examine how organized crime leverages cryptocurrency, and how U.S. federal law can adapt to stop it.
The article analyzes the current state of digital economy and crypto currency. It also attempts to outline the main development directions of the Russian legislation on legal regulation of digital currency usage on the basis of current national legislation and foreign experience. Significant attention is given to digital economic concept, its main paths, development of legal framework for digitalization of economic processes. The article includes a review of modern scientific publications on questions under investigation and highlights the necessity of the complex approach both to the analysis of phenomena under study and to their legal regulation. It is also shown that crypto currency circulation is ambiguous and multifaceted and it has both financial advantages and criminological threat. Special consideration is given to the provisions of the draft law on “Digital Financial Assets”, the first project dedicated to the regulation of relations arising in the creation, release, storage and circulation of digital financial assets, which contains key definitions for the legal regulation of cryptocurrencies and transactions with them in the Russian Federation.
First it has to be stated that Cryptocurrencies are mostly used for legal transfers between legitimate partners and are becoming more and more popular in our society. Any heavy regime of new regulations would make all transactions costlier and less convenient. Such negative economic impact is opposing the need of monitoring the financing structures of organized criminal and terrorist organisations. With the increasing importance of cryptocurrencies, a completely new field of complex problems is arising through the implied anonymity and complexity or sheer impossibility to track transfers in the dark net. As regulations in this new financial market will be difficult to enforce, it is necessary to establish international cooperation and capacity building to implement some possibilities for law- enforcement and intelligence entities to monitor the illegal parts of the capital flowing in these systems. To solve this situation, the focus should lie on the attempts to make the risk of detection of such transfers higher for the parties involved. Without interfering too strongly with the new financing system developing, this process asks for improved compliance and cooperation on all levels and capacities.
This paper looks at two measure of the value of Bitcoin (the price and volume traded in the last month of Bitcoin) and sees if investor attention causes any changes in the values of Bitcoin. This paper also adds exchange rates, the S&P 500, and the price of gold as other possible explanations for the value of Bitcoin. This paper examines the variables at a worldwide level and at the countries with the top 10 GDP in the world. The results of this paper find that investor attention has a significant positive relationship with the value of Bitcoin. Specifically at the country level, Russia consistently has a significant relationship with the value of Bitcoin.
Sondre Bergløff, Markus Øverli, Jacob Emil Tønnesen
Liquidity is one of the most important characteristics of an asset. While it has been studied extensively in conventional markets, little research has been done on the liquidity of bitcoin markets. We investigate determinants of liquidity in the bitcoin markets, both on an hourly and a daily basis. As a measure of liquidity, we use the bid-ask spread, calculated from high-frequency data from four different exchanges located around the world. We find that contemporaneous traded volume and volatility are positively related with the bid-ask spread. We also find that high absolute returns predict high bid-ask spread in the next period. Our findings indicate that bitcoin market makers tend to increase the bid-ask spread in more uncertain times and that higher traded volume can be interpreted as new information arriving in the market.
This paper studies the efficiency of the cryptocurrency market by looking at the distribution of bitcoin prices over time and across exchange-currency pairs. We document persistent differences in relative bitcoin prices (or discounts), with a half-life of 1 day, and a distribution which is leptokurtic, skewed to the right, with a standard deviation of 3.9%. The variability of discounts is larger in countries with tighter capital controls due to the combined effect of market segmentation and local supply and demand shocks, which we relate to location-specific mining activities and investor attention.
This research examines existence of Bitcoin bubble in the year of 2017 by studying time series data within four main paradigms of the modern bubble theory. All four models suggest that Bitcoin closing price was overstated during the period. The analysis also detects Bitcoin features that could lead to the behavioral bias on the cryptocurrency market. The study suggests that investors’ behavior on the crypto market should be investigated more within behavioral finance.
This report describes two projects created by the author which are based on ideas which originate from the Bitcoin community. The first, bmd, is a re-implementation of the Bitmessage protocol in go. Bitmessage is an anonymous and secure messaging system invented by Jonathan Warren, who was inspired by the design of Bitcoin's p2p network. [WARR1] The second is Shufflepuff, an implementation of a protocol called CoinShuffle[RUFF1] which allows several people to construct a Bitcoin transaction with an input and an output for each participant without any participant knowing who owns which output. CoinShuffle was invented by Tim Ruffing et al, and it is an upgrade of a protocol called CoinJoin, invented by Gregory Maxwell. This paper discusses the background, properties, applications, and design of bmd and Shufflepuff. There is also a report of a performance analysis on bmd.
In In recent years, new virtual currency which is born on the Internet, has attracted more and more attention. Especially represented by the bitcoin, which is decentralized and has limited amount, has become active in the global market. Digital storage, decentralization, limited amount, complete anonymity and confidentiality, all make the strong monetary attribute. However, whether bitcoin, whose nickname is gold 2.0, could complete monetary attribute, and whether it could perfect the monetary functions, need to be researched and demonstrated. In addition, the public awareness of bitcoin isn't much. They don't realize the superiority and the shortcomings of bitcoin. In this paper, we start from the introduction of bitcoin, discuss the monetary attribute in detail, and analyze the problems and challenges which bitcoin faces. At last, make a summary, and discuss the meaning and the future.
Blockchains have been embraced by many industries where transactions, either financial\nor non-financial, are involved. Furthermore, blockchains have been proven to\nsupport transactions, without the need for a third-party or other middlemen. Given\nthe distributed properties of blockchains, they are very suitable as the underlying\nfoundation of peer-to-peer applications. Among the peer-to-peer applications that\ncould be improved with the support of blockchains, is the microgrid. Microgrids\nare finite energy systems where peers may purchase energy among themselves.\n\nThis thesis investigates the blockchains ability to work as the underlying technology\nto support settlement in a microgrid. The blockchain is essentially a distributed,\nimmutable ledger. However, there exists many versions of this ledger based on implementation\nfeatures such as governance and consensus etc. A thorough background\nstudy of blockchains, and the differences in the blockchain features are presented.\nFurthermore, existing systems using blockchains for settlement in peer-to-peer\nenergy systems are presented. Based on the findings in the background study and\nrelated work, a new blockchain as the technology for supporting these transactions\nis proposed and implemented. Results from the tests show that the proof-of-concept\nblockchain developed in this thesis works well as the underlying technology for\nsettling energy flow in a microgrid. However, further development and testing is\nrequired for a real system.
As one of the most cutting-edge technologies in Fintech, the application of blockchain has been prevailing across a series of industries. By adopting literature research, this paper analyzes the origin, characteristics and working principle of blockchain. According to the features and requirements of traditional auditing, this paper finds the superiority of blockchain technology, for example, distributed ledger, consensus mechanism and timestamp could facilitate auditing in three ways: (1)improve timeliness of auditing and reduce auditing cost; (2)ensure data integrity and realize automatic auditing; and (3)realize pre-warning and real-time supervision to reduce auditing risk. However, although blockchain has brought unprecedented opportunities to the development and reform of audit industry, the blockchain technology still faces a number of challenges, such as data security, talent and technology support, industry and recognition promotion, and practical application and execution. Concerning these limitations, this paper looks forward to further research field which could contribute to the upcoming improvement of blockchain auditing.
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, David Andolfatto
All record-keeping systems (which include monetary systems) must contend with trust issues and methods of organizing historical information. Conventional systems rely on the reputation of central authorities and record-keepers to achieve consensus.
Nabil Rifi, Nazim Agoulmine, Nada Chendeb Taher, Elie Rachkidi
In the past few years, the number of wireless devices connected to the Internet has increased to a number that could reach billions in the next few years. While cloud computing is being seen as the solution to process this data, security challenges could not be addressed solely with this technology. Security problems will continue to increase with such a model, especially for private and sensitive data such as personal data and medical data collected with more and more smarter connected devices constituting the so called Internet of Things. As a consequence, there is an urgent need for a fully decentralized peer‐to‐peer and secure technology solution to overcome these problems. The blockchain technology is a promising just‐in‐time solution that brings the required properties to the field. However, there are still challenges to address before using it in the context of IoT. This paper discusses these challenges and proposes a secure IoT architecture for medical data based on blockchain technology. The solution introduces a protocol for data access, smart contracts and a publisher‐subscriber mechanism for notification. A simple analytical model is also presented to highlight the performance of the system. An implementation of the solution as a proof of concept is also presented.
Decentralization of the power authorities inUkrainewill greatly bring science closer to the needs of production in its primary links, and will improve the use of agricultural potential in each region (Sabluk, 2017). Under these conditions, it is possible to practically implement the proposed improved model of management of agricultural projects, which is based on the coordination of efforts of agrarian producers with specialists of the relevant departments of regional state administrations (Prysiazhniuk and Plotnikova, 2017). Creation of innovative centers for the development of agricultural production and rural areas in the regions will contribute the activation of the development and implementation of innovative projects. It actualizes the problem of formation of sources of financing of agricultural projects. Material and methods. The purpose of the work is a scientific substantiation of the possibility of capitalization of agricultural lands as a potential source of project financing on the example of the regional level of management of agricultural production. The methodological and theoretical basis of the study is the modern works of Ukrainian and foreign scientists, as well as the results of own research. In the process of research the following methods were used: monographic, abstract-logical, statistical-economic, analysis and synthesis. Results and discussion. The possibility of capitalization of agricultural lands as a potential source of project financing on the example of the regional level of management of agricultural production inUkraine is substantiated. The evaluation of potential volumes of crediting of projects of the agricultural enterprises of regions ofUkraine depending on size of the collateral value of the land and the rights of rent is executed. The investment potential of agricultural enterprises of the regions of Ukraine in the context of project financing, taking into account the collateral value of the land resource and investment profit (the sum of net profit and amortization of fixed assets) is calculated. Conclusion. Estimation of the potential volume of credit support for projects of agrarian enterprises in the regions ofUkraine, depending on size of the collateral value of the land and the rights of rent, indicates the important role of this potential source of financing. So, for example, the potential volume of credit financing for projects of agricultural enterprises inUkraine subject to 50 % of the value of land mortgage is about 267.6 billion UAH. Involvement of these funds to finance innovative agricultural projects will contribute to the expansion of opportunities for the practical implementation of these projects and to ensure sustainable development.
The implementation of smart contract technology with their plausible applications in a business to business are explored. The thesis work shows how Blockchain technology works on the concept of decentralized system which is beneficial to eliminate the need for central authority. The thesis focuses on elimination of challenges pertaining to the selected departments in an organization. The thesis resolves challenges pertaining to lack of transparency, traceability and significant time-delays while in the process of decision making. The influence of blockchain technology and smart contract technology to eliminate these challenges are discussed. Logic of the smart contract and working of the blockchain pertaining to a specific industrial case study are demonstrated. Methodology to set up a smart contract interface in a business to business setting is investigated in this thesis. An observation study has been done in order to show how transparency, traceability and time delay in decision making is achieved by using smart contract interface. This thesis also shows how the blockchain and smart contract technology tries to implement coordination theory.
Blockchain is deeply affecting finance procedures and investors behaviour. This technology is gaining momentum also in other disciplinary fields, since it allows to ensure reliability and trust in transaction operations. This paper aims at presenting how blockchain procedure could be applied to maintenance operations, ensuring a lean process and disintermediation between the agreements clauses and the implementation of the Operations Maintenance and Repair (OM&R) interventions. This can be done thanks to the application of the smart contracts to the use phase of the buildings. The research opens to a new scenario in OM&R, disintermediating OM&R contracts from the need for a contracts’ supervisor, which typically ensure the compliance with the terms of the contracts when OM&R contracts are defined. This could lead to a fairer and transparent asset management, despite some drawbacks are presented in the conclusion of the paper.
This paper intends to follow the evolution of the processing power needed to mine cryptocurrencies. Because by this year, 2018, they evolved to being over 1500 cryptos, we shell consider reviewing the first 5: Bitcoin, Ethereum, Ripple, Bitcoin Cash and Litecoin (a hierarchy given by coinmarketcap.com. We shall closely overview the first 2: Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH – Ether).