Blockchain Technology or known as the Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) is becoming the game changer in the business industry because of its disruptive and transformative ability. The study aimed to determine the factors that influence the professional accountants to accept to use blockchain technology. Data were from 30 professional accountants working in the Kingdom of Bahrain as respondents using descriptive method of research. They were chosen using a non-probabilistic sampling.
In summary, this study has applied TAM model to examine cryptocurrency payment adoption in Taiwanese hotels, examining the factors that are more likely to affect the behavioral intent. The empirical results suggest that intent to adopt cryptocurrency payments is affected by perceived usefulness, and perceived ease of use of these payments. In turn, perceived usefulness is affected by trust towards these payments. Interestingly, perceived usefulness was not shown to be significantly affected by different types of risks associated with cryptocurrency payments, including financial risk, technological risk, and social risk. Perceived ease of use, in turn, is affected by convenience of cryptocurrency payments; and is not shown to be significantly affected by trust.
The "buzz" surrounding cryptocurrencies in online media last year has led to an increased interest in the topic as a possible source for investments. This paper aims to identify the key success factors for an m-learning cryptocurrency application that explains blockchain technology and cryptocurrencies for non-tech savvy people. The research methodology used for this paper applies the experimental method and probative logic. A survey was conducted among 128 participants, the target population being composed of people who have an interest in cryptocurrencies and who are involved in online crypto communities. The results of the study show that the people who invest in cryptocurrencies are usually those who have a high income and who possess other investment methods as well. When it comes to analyzing the mobile applications success factors, the study revealed that there are no significant differences between people who have cryptocurrency investments and those who do not in ranking mobile apps success factors. Also, besides cryptocurrency training the news and prices are among the most important features of an m-learning cryptocurrency application and on that account such an app must include them. The originality of this study comes from addressing an innovative topic as the research in this field is scarce. Furthermore, this paper raises awareness towards the necessity of educating people on this topic, on the need to research before investing in a specific project.
Blockchain technology integrates mathematical encryption, open source software, computer networks and incentive mechanisms. It created a crypto call hiding in a token. However, tokens should be used to purchase goods or services from offline retailers, but current tokens are used primarily for investment. Therefore, the most important thing at this point is how to get the royalty-based tokens integrated into the offline store. For this purpose, it is not realistic to install a new payment terminal in an offline store. Based on these perceptions, this study measures the application of investigated components to understand the impact of blockchain technology on customer loyalty programs. The main purpose of this study is to propose an integrated customer loyalty program model for blockchain technology using credit cards. This study shows how to implement an integrated customer loyalty program process in credit card-based blockchain technology and how to identify the importance of block-chain technology to improve customer loyalty programs.
Blockchain technology, popularized by Bitcoin cryptocurrency, is characterized as an open-source, decentralized, distributed database for storing transaction information. Rather than relying on centralized intermediaries (e.g., banks) this technology allows two parties to transact directly using duplicate, linked ledgers called blockchains. This makes transactions considerably more transparent than those provided by centralized systems. As a result, transactions are executed without relying on explicit trust [of a third party], but on the distributed trust based on the consensus of the network (i.e., other blockchain users). Applying this technology to improve supply chain transparency has many possibilities. Every product has a long and storied history. However, much of this history is presently obscured. Often, when negative practices are exposed, they quickly escalate to scandalous, and financially crippling proportions. There are many recent examples, such as the exposure of child labor upstream in the manufacturing process and the unethical use of rainforest resources. Blockchain may bring supply chain transparency to a new level, but presently academic and managerial adoption of blockchain technologies is limited by our understanding. To address this issue, this research uses the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT) and the concept of technology innovation adoption as a foundational framework for supply chain traceability. A conceptual model is developed and the research culminates with supply chain implications of blockchain that are inspired by theory and literature review.
Jan 1, 2018·Proceedings of the ... Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences/Proceedings of the Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences
Friedrich Holotiuk, Francesco Pisani, Jürgen Moormann
The emergence of blockchain technology has led to an animated discussion among both researchers and practitioners about its future prospects. Similar to other upcoming technologies, in the foreground of the analysis are often the potential benefits of blockchain. Much less discussed are the challenges the technology must overcome before achieving breakthrough in traditional areas, such as the financial services sector. To close this gap, and to identify the challenges blockchain needs to overcome, we explore its impact in the payments industry, which represents a major pillar of banking and the cradle of blockchain. For this purpose, we performed a Delphi study and subsequently conducted a number of dedicated interviews. The findings enable us to delineate six key challenges that have to be tackled. Our study contributes to the literature on blockchain and has important practical implications as it indicates issues that should be addressed in order to foster its dissemination.
The blockchain is one of the main mechanisms enabling Bitcoin to be a decentralized electronicpayment system. It provides the system with a shared transaction history, which can be verified byevery participant. With increased use, it has become apparent that there is limited possibility forscaling this to handle more transactions. Payment channel networks are one proposed solution tothis problem. They allow for more transactions to be done by moving some transactions to a sepa-rate network. The Lightning Network is one such network, which uses Bitcoin and the blockchain tooperate. While the transactions in this network will not be included in the blockchain, there will bedata there related to the network. This is because it needs the blockchain to manage the paymentchannels which the network consists of.In this project we have explored the blockchain with the goal of identifying transactions relatedto the Lightning Network, and by doing so, determine what information about it is available in theblockchain. We have created different methods for identifying these transactions. The methods usedifferent transaction characteristics differing in uniqueness, making some methods more precise,but having fewer results, and vice versa. We created software implementing the methods, whichwere used to parse the blockchain. The effectiveness of these methods have been quantified bycomparing the data we found when parsing the blockchain, to data we collected directly fromthe Lightning Network. The results shows that the methods are viable for identifying a subset oftransactions, and that precision can be sacrificed for finding more. By identifying these transactionswe were able to determine what information about the Lightning Network we can see from theblockchain perspective, and also some aspects where we are limited.We have also adapted heuristics from previous work doing blockchain analysis to our scenario.These were used to link related information we had found when parsing the blockchain, whichenabled us to create network graphs showing the relations between the Lightning Network channelsidentified on the blockchain. While the relations in this network graph were limited, comparedto the actual relations found within the lightning network, they show how the blockchain canbe used to infer non-explicit information about the lightning network. We have also identifiedseveral methods for potentially inferring or locating more information using what is available inthe blockchain.
Jan 1, 2018·Proceedings of the ... Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences/Proceedings of the Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences
Manuel Schlegel, Liudmila Zavolokina, Gerhard Schwabe
The blockchain, the ledger that underlies the famous cryptocurrency Bitcoin, has huge implications for many industries. There have been various papers dedicated to research how blockchain technology will transform businesses and industries. However, current research lacks an overview of what the blockchain implies for the biggest stakeholder of these businesses and industries: consumers. This paper aims to provide an overview of how the blockchain affects consumers. We conduct a systematic literature review and enrich it with interview-based knowledge from blockchain experts to show how blockchain technology changes business sectors, name affected consumers in these sectors, derive implications for these consumers and list existing as well as currently emerging blockchain-based products and services. Finally, we warn of the technical, institutional and human challenges and manifold pitfalls blockchain technology must overcome to gain widespread adaptation among consumers.
Identifying and quantifying the drivers for adopting blockchain technologies are important for developing effective launch plan. Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) and its derivatives have been used for this purpose. However, some of these models only use a few standardized, predetermined independent variables to collectively represent the drivers. Low predictive power of TAM leads to questions on whether this restriction may detrimentally constrain the exploration of other driving factors. Some other extended models with higher R2 are considered impractical and lack of theoretical foundations. This paper demonstrates that reasonable predictive power can be achieved even with simple, practically implementable model when research targets are sampled and segmented properly. By employing a more fundamental theory, this study has also included additional variable that would normally not be considered in TAM.
The information age has dawned upon us through the comprehensive and boundless adoption of the internet; E-banking and smart-phones thus, causing a reliance on online transaction sys-tems reducing the need to handle tangible cash notes. The current monetary system is arguably on the cusp of an evolutionary moment through the adoption of virtualised currencies, this phe-nomenon potentially possesses the next metamorphic step in contemporary global economic money. Cryptocurrency is a radical new innovation, and has become a widely debated topic over the past few years despite this, the topic of the diffusion of innovation and the procedures which the phenomenon needs to overcome have had relatively small amounts of academic attention in comparison to other fields of research. Therefore, this study aims to identify how cryptocurrency is diffusing through the diffusion of innovation model with the intention of identifying the current location of diffusion; this in turn will create a more universalised understanding of the phenomenon in regards to other radical innovations. Due to the nature of the study, the conducted research utilised a qualitative method. Additional-ly, the focus on collecting data which will positively reflect an academic study with the purpose of uncovering information in alignment with the research questions of the study at hand lead to an ‘interpretivist’ methodology. Hence, 10 interviews were conducted of which the interviewees came from a range of different countries allowing the researcher to identify information rich da-ta. This approach allowed for two pathways of research to occur. Firstly, the non/potential in-vestors of which had basic cryptocurrency knowledge and secondly, current users/investors of which had an overall understanding of the cryptocurrency phenomenon. Furthermore, the pri-mary data alongside the utilisation of secondary survey questions and the literature allowed for a wider understanding of the phenomenon. The results of the study unveiled a range of trends and developments in the diffusion process. Accordingly, these findings advance the understanding of the micro, macro and psychological factors which are present in the diffusion of the cryptocurrency innovation. Thereby, the re-search draws attention to how a range of barriers synergistically working together requires a synergistic strategic approach from governments and individuals to surpass the current diffu-sion position and progress further, in turn increasing the chances of mainstream adoption.
Decentralised issued crypto "currencies", like bitcoin, have the potential to drastically change the existing retail payment system and even the monetary system. Insights into the factors that influence their adoption are therefore crucial. Using a large representative sample of retailers that sell their products online, we find that acceptance of crypto payments is currently modest (2%), but there is substantial interest among retailers to adopt crypto payments in the near future. Consumer demand, net transactional benefits and perceived adoption effort influence adoption intention and actual acceptance by retailers. Regarding non-financial factors, our findings suggest that service providers who act as intermediaries between retailers, their customers, and providers of payment instruments play a crucial role as facilitators of competition and innovation in the online retail payments market by lowering such barriers. The most serious barrier for crypto acceptance seems to be a lack of consumer demand. Information from consumers indicate that those who possess cryptos, don't use it for online payments. It seems therefore unlikely that the adoption of cryptos by retailers will increase substantially, making it highly unlikely that cryptos like bitcoin will drastically change the existing retail payment system.
Julio C. Mendoza-Tello, Higinio Mora, Francisco A. Pujol, Miltiadis D. Lytras
The deployment of cryptocurrencies in e-commerce has reached a significant number of transactions and continuous increases in monetary circulation; nevertheless, they face two impediments: a lack of awareness of the technological utility, and a lack of trust among consumers. E-commerce carried out through social networks expands its application to a new paradigm called social commerce. Social commerce uses the content generated within social networks to attract new consumers and influence their behavior. The objective of this paper is to analyze the role played by social media in increasing trust and intention to use cryptocurrencies in making electronic payments. It develops a model that combines constructs from social support theory, social commerce, and the technology acceptance model. This model is evaluated using the partial least square analysis. The obtained results show that social commerce increases the trust and intention to use cryptocurrencies. However, mutual support among participants does not generate sufficient trust to adequately promote the perceived usefulness of cryptocurrencies. This research provides a practical tool for analyzing how collaborative relationships that emerge in social media can influence or enhance the adoption of a new technology in terms of perceived trust and usefulness. Furthermore, it provides a significant contribution to consumer behavior research by applying the social support theory to the adoption of new information technologies. These theoretical and practical contributions are detailed in the final section of the paper.
This research intended to understand the factors affecting the acceptance of Bitcoin technology in Indonesia. It adopted the model of Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT), which took into account four influencing factors. Those were performance expectancy, effort expectancy, social influence, and facilitating conditions. The factors of gender and age were assumed to moderate the relations between those four factors and use and behavioral intention. The empirical data for those factors were collected by questionnaires from 49 respondents. The statistical significance of the relationships was evaluated by multivariate regression analysis. The result is a model that matches the data with R2 = 0,678. It demonstrates a high level of fitness. The analysis suggests that the performance expectancy factor and the social influence factor greatly affect the behavioral intention to use Bitcoin with the values of t-statistic of 3,835 (p-value = 0,000) for the former factor and 1,948 (0,059) for the latter factor. However, the social influence factor has less profound effect on the behavioral intention.
Blockchain Technology is the advance information technology in medical sector that need secure data sharing among related parties in the network. The investigating factors have impacts on electronic medical record Blockchain technology adoption. Online questionnaire was developed from literature with performance expectation, trust, and risk concepts. Online survey sent to patients and medical personnel. The feedback respondents were 149. The research results showed that the most influential factor affecting the acceptance is performance expectation which includes the recognition of technological benefits and relative advantages. Trust factor has impact on acceptance and low risk has positive impact of the Blockchain technology
Objectives: From the area of the research conducted, Malaysian acceptance towards the idea of online payment methods and understanding the concept of cryptocurrency has been studied. Our main area of focus was in the area of Klang Valley, which has been found that they are one of the most technological savvy people in Malaysia. Methods: One of the main areas of our research is the level of acceptance of the Malaysian market towards the idea of the cryptocurrency, which in our area of interest was Bitcoin. Findings: This research can be further used to identify the mitigating factors that influence peoples’ interest towards online payments such as debit/credit card payments and other channel such as PayPal. Technology acceptance among the Malaysian market can be the main factor that affects the use of the online payment method. Besides, it was also been found several factors that affects the consumers choice on the acceptance of the online payment, which was used as the main variable used to measurement on the level on acceptance. Application: Acceptance of Bitcoin by the Malaysian market. Keywords: Bitcoin, Malaysian Market, Online Payment, Technology Acceptance
Healthcare complexity and costs can be decreased through the application of blockchain technology to medical records and insurance companies. Estonia has taken a leadership role in blockchain based services both in the commercial sector and in government. The Estonian government’s innovation strategy was to create GovTech partnerships to implement blockchain based technologies throughout the country, and become a global leader in the technology. Starting in 2011, just 3 years after Satoshi Nakamoto published the first description of distributed ledgers and blockchain technology, the Estonian Government started partnering with the private technology startup company Guardtime to use blockchains to secure public and internal records. Then in 2016, Estonia once again reinforced its global leadership in blockchain technology when it announced it would use blockchain technology to secure the health records of over a million citizens. Estonia’s systematic method of applying blockchain technologies through GovTech partnerships demnostrates how innovation is a process. Estonia also identified early the value of the blockchain as a disruptive platform innovation. The application of blockchain technology to healthcare is a radical innovation given that nearly all previous applications have been in the financial and legal sectors.
This paper analyses the effect of adding Bitcoin, to the portfolio (stocks, bonds, Baltic index, MXEF, gold, real estate and crude oil) of an international investor by using daily data available from 2<sup>nd</sup> of July, 2010 to 2<sup>nd of</sup> August, 2016. We conclude that adding Bitcoin to portfolio, over the course of the considered period, always yielded a higher Sharpe ratio. This means that Bitcoin’s returns offset its high volatility. This paper, recognizing the fact that Bitcoin is a relatively new asset class, gives the readers a basic idea about the working of the virtual currency, the increasing number developments in the financial industry revolving around it, its unique features and the detailed look into its continuously growing acceptance across different fronts (Banks, Merchants and Countries) globally. We also construct optimal portfolios to reflect the highly lucrative and largely unexplored opportunities associated with investment in Bitcoin.
Friedrich Holotiuk, Francesco Pisani, Jürgen Moormann
Because of its potentially disruptive influence on business models (BMs), blockchain technology has sparked a lively debate among researchers. Our Delphi study sets out to explore the impact of blockchain in payments, which represents a major cornerstone of banking and the cradle of this technology. The results, grouped around four areas of thoughts, indicate that blockchain allows the offering of new services and renders some of the current ones obsolete. This consequently impacts the financial structure of firms in the payments industry and further generates great potential for new BMs while making some existing ones obsolete. Eventually, new players, which are better able to leverage the po-tential of blockchain, will give a strong impulse to this development. Our findings contribute to the literature by providing new insights about the impact of innova-tive technologies on BMs and have further practical implications by presenting a better understanding of future BMs in payments.
Cryptocurrency, most notably Bitcoin, has continued to attract attention and consequently substantial investment from businesses, consumers, and the media. Understanding what drives consumer adoption of the technology, however, is not understood. This study uses the UTAUT2 technology adoption theory in order to fill this research gap. A conceptual model is built through a review of the technical aspects of cryptocurrency, an analysis of the technology as currency, and finally a review of technology adoption theory to date. UTAUT2 is found to be the most appropriate adoption theory directly dealing with consumer context. The model conceptualised is tested using multiple linear regression analyses on primary survey data. The findings indicate that facilitating conditions have the highest explanatory effect on actual usage ahead of behavioural intention to use cryptocurrency. Behavioural intention was predicted most strongly by hedonic motivation, followed by perceived trust, and social influence. Interestingly, effort expectancy and performance expectancy were found to be non-significant, contrary to much of the studies in related fields. The study also aimed to identify the primary use-case finding that investment was the primary consumer use. Due to characteristics of the sample collected, the studyÕs findings are limited to the South African context.
Joseph M. Woodside, Fred K. Augustine, Will Giberson
Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to review the acceptance and future use of blockchain technology. Given the rapid technological changes, this paper focuses on a managerial overview and framework of how the blockchain, including its implementations such as Bitcoin have advanced and how blockchain can be utilized in large-scale, enterprise environments. The paper begins with a technological overview that covers the history of the technology, as well as describing the computational, cryptographic theory that serves as the basis for its notable security features. This paper also covers several key application areas such as finance, accounting, and marketplaces where blockchain technology is seeing major investments from some of the world’s largest organizations. Analysis Methods: Triangulation is utilized for this paper, which combines multiple methodologies, such as qualitative and quantitative methods, as complementary components for improving research study accuracy. The triangulation methods chosen for this paper include a secondary data environment analysis, a text analysis, and financial analysis in order to successfully manage and review the adoption diffusion of innovative technologies like blockchain. The blockchain stands to disrupt many areas of society with the proper application and thus it is important to examine its use with as many viewpoints as possible. Contributions and Conclusion: The contribution this paper describes the potential drivers and drawbacks of blockchain technology in real world applications and highlights the managerial implications of its use. This paper also expands the theoretical contributions for identifying blockchain technology progress on the diffusion of innovation curve. As it stands, the blockchain is within the innovation stage in terms of its application in multi-national enterprises, but with major firms making investments, the blockchain could see growing normalization and acceptance, and at an inflection point akin to the Internet of the 1990s.
Problem Explaining: Nowadays the financial system has been affected dramatically by the development in the era of information and communication technology. One of these phenomena, is Crypto Currency Bitcoin is the most famous among them. In the reviews of Crypto Currency and Bitcoin, we can pay special attention to the public opinion, because it can have a significant impact on the future of money. Purpose: The aim of this study is to identify the preferences of people using Bitcoin as a novel product introduced by human into the financial system. For this purpose, the important factors in choosing Bitcoin have been checked. In terms of practical purpose and collecting descriptive information, this research is survey - correlation. Design/methodology/approach: In this study the important factors in the selection of Bitcoin through the investigation of the opinions of experts and consumers, offering model by patterning the technology acceptance and innovation publication models, interviewing with experts using a questionnaire and the analysis of the model through PLS partial least square method using Version 2 SMARTPLS software. Findings: The results show that the variables of infrastructure, structural, individualistic and cultural factors through perceived value have a significant and positive impact on the intention of using people. Meanwhile cultural factor has had the largest share, but innovative, political and environmental factors haven’t had any significant effect. The results of this research indicate the effective factors in the users’ tendency to use Bitcoin. Originality/value: The main question in this research is that: Is there any significant relationship between the values perceived by the consumer from Bitcoin and the intention of using it?
<p style='text-indent:20px;'>In Bitcoin system, transactions are prioritized according to transaction fees. Transactions without fees are given low priority and likely to wait for confirmation. Because the demand of micro payment in Bitcoin is expected to increase due to low remittance cost, it is important to quantitatively investigate how transactions with small fees of Bitcoin affect the transaction-confirmation time. In this paper, we analyze the transaction-confirmation time by queueing theory. We model the transaction-confirmation process of Bitcoin as a priority queueing system with batch service, deriving the mean transaction-confirmation time. Numerical examples show how the demand of transactions with low fees affects the transaction-confirmation time. We also consider the effect of the maximum block size on the transaction-confirmation time.