Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine the institutional context of the entrepreneurial discovery of blockchain applications. Design/methodology/approach This paper draws on institutional and entrepreneurial theory to introduce the economic problem entrepreneurship in the early stages of new technologies, examines the diversity of self-governed hybrid solutions to coordinating entrepreneurial information and draws policy implications. Findings To perceive a valuable and actionable market opportunity, entrepreneurs must coordinate distributed non-price information under uncertainty with others. One potential class of transaction cost economising solution to this problem is private self-governance of information coordination within hybrids. This paper explores a diverse range of entrepreneurial hybrids coalescing around blockchain technology, with implications for innovation policy. Originality/value This paper points to the problem of how the defining of the innovation problem as either choice-theoretic or contract-theoretic changes the remit of innovation policy. Innovation policy and blockchain policy should extend beyond correcting sub-optimal investments or removing barriers to action, to incorporate how polices impact entrepreneurial choices over governance structures to coordinate information.
Sofia Terzi, Konstantinos Votis, Dimitrios Tzovaras, Ioannis Stamelos · 5 authors
The adoption of Information Communication Technologies (ICT) and Web 3.0 contributes to the e-government sector by transforming how public administrations provide advanced and innovative services to interact with citizens. Blockchain (BC) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) disruptive technologies will reshape how we live, work, and interact with government sectors and industries. This paper presents how Blockchain 3.0 and Artificial Intelligence enhance robust, secure, scalable, and authenticity provenance solutions. Two validation scenarios are analyzed to present how blockchain smart contracts and AI agents support energy and health-oriented e-government services.
Project Stella studies the possible use of distributed ledger technology (DLT) on financial market infrastructures (FMIs). DLT solutions have the potential to improve the safety and efficiency of existing systems, as shown by research undertaken by central banks and FMIs. Yet, balancing performance and network size with the distance between nodes, as in the case of Stella phase 1, or the flexibility of cross-ledger delivery-versus-payment (DVP) using hashed timelock contracts without connection between ledgers and liquidity efficiency, as in the case of phase 2, remains a challenge. Project Stella studies the possible use of DLT for FMIs, including large-value central bank RTGS systems. Phase 1 implemented the processing logic of the standard liquidity-saving mechanisms in a DLT environment, and the analysis found that an application could meet the performance needs of an RTGS system. There is a trade-off between DLT performance and network size or distance between nodes. DLT solutions have the potential to strengthen resiliency and reliability. In phase 2, the project team proved that cross-ledger DVP could function even without any connection between individual ledgers. Hashed timelock contracts and digital signatures would be used to achieve interoperability between ledgers, while liquidity efficiency and settlement speed may be negatively affected as a result. DLT solutions have the potential to improve safety and efficiency of existing systems adopted at FMIs, yet balancing diverse system requirements demands careful analysis and consideration. As shown by increasing research and proofs-of-concept on DLT undertaken by many central banks1 and securities exchanges in major jurisdictions, there are both opportunities and challenges for further exploration.
Creating fair, transparent and genuinely democratic modes of decentralized decision-making has been a key concern for many developers and users of blockchains. This article evaluates several popular methods of maintaining consensus and achieving decentralized decision-making on blockchain networks in order to assess the extent to which blockchains challenge the norms of the liberal-democratic order. In particular, it compares and contrasts Proof-of-Work, Proof-of-Stake and Practical Byzantine Fault Tolerance consensus mechanisms, assessing not just how they operate in a technical sense but also (and most important) the political, economic and social dimensions of these different blockchain governance strategies. This comparison highlights efforts by blockchain communities to redefine or push the bounds of democracy, as well as the challenges they have faced in their efforts to create digital democracies that do not reproduce the same economic and social inequalities present in traditional democratic systems.
With the interest and attention that the Blockchain and the Distributed Ledger Technologies (DLTs) have recently demanded, the technology is advancing at a very high rate. With investors and applications in a wide variety of fields, a lot of funding and efforts are being driven into bringing the technology to everyday use. The community and companies are coming up with new ways to collaborate, which makes the blockchain ecosystem evolve at full tilt. Consequently, this paper’s aim is to review the academic and grey literature and to provide readers with information about the evolution, benefits and challenges of the Public Distributed Ledger Technologies and to discuss the latest solutions, which are being developed for bringing decentralization closer to the mainstream. The paper reviews the Directed Acyclic Graph (DAG) structured distributed ledgers with focus on the Hedera Hashgraph, a novelty DLT bringing a unique consensus algorithm with new use-cases enabled by new cryptoeconomic mechanisms, as well as vital services, such as Solidity smart contracts and distributed file storage. Then, we are going to explore second-layer network protocols, a major topic for solving scalability issues and for decentralizing cryptocurrency exchanges. The article tries also to identify the particularities of these technologies and how they bring specific answers to the blockchain trilemma, consisting in three themes - scalability, interoperability and sustainability.
Henry Kim, Marek Laskowski, Michael Zargham, Hjalmar Turesson · 6 authors
The study of how to set up cryptocurrency incentive mechanisms and to operationalize governance is token economics. Given the $250 billion market cap for cryptocurrencies, there is compelling need to investigate this topic. In this paper, we present facets of the token engineering process for a real-life 80-person Swiss blockchain startup, Insolar. We show how Insolar used systems modeling and simulation combined with cryptocurrency expertise to design a mechanism to incentivize enterprises and individual users to use their new MainNet public blockchain network. The study showed subsidy pools that incentivize application developers to develop on the network does indeed have the desired positive effect on MainNet adoption. For a startup like Insolar whose success hinge upon how well their model incentivizes various stakeholders to participate on their MainNet network versus that of numerous alternatives, this token economics simulation analysis provides invaluable insights.
We design and implement Publication Chain (PubChain), a decentralized open-access publication platform built on decentralized and distributed technologies of blockchain and IPFS peer-to-peer file sharing systems. The existing publication platforms have some severe drawbacks. First, instead of promoting widespread knowledge sharing, access to publications on the platforms owned by publishers is often on a fee basis. This drawback of pay wall prevents researchers from "standing on the shoulders of giants". Moreover, the peer review process on most all existing publication platforms (including both open-access and publisher platforms) is prone to be ineffective, since there is no proper incentive to reviewers for performing high-qualified reviews. PubChain is an alternative platform to the existing publication venues aiming to address their drawbacks. No central third-party owns the contents (i.e., papers and reviews) of PubChain. Exploiting blockchain technology, we devise an elaborate incentive scheme on PubChain to incentivize key stakeholders (i.e., authors, readers and reviewers) to participate publication activities on PubChain in a substantive manner by earning credits and rewards through self-motivated interactions. We have performed simulations to investigate the robustness of our proposed incentive scheme against fraudulent publications and reviews. We also have implemented a prototype of PubChain to demonstrate its key concepts.
Erasmus Mundus Joint International Doctoral Fellow in Law, Science and Technology, European Union, O.I. Konashevych
The use of blockchain technology, in particular, data insertion (anchoring, hashing) in the blockchain as a way of signing documents or imparting legal properties to facts is researched. A comparative analysis of the known methods of using electronic digital signature with the method of inserting data into the blockchain is carried out. The following issues were addressed. What is the data insertion in the blockchain and what properties do the data acquire? What is the difference between insertion, anchoring, and hashing on the blockchain? What is the difference between blockchain hashing and a digital signature on a document? Will the document be legally binding if it is anchored in the blockchain? What conditions must be met to give legal force for the document? How can anchoring be used to sign contracts, certify evidence that has legal value, denote time stamps, confirm authorship and copyrights, as well as transfer them, issue, and transfer power of attorney and delegate other rights, issue and transfer bearer instruments?
Stefano Loss, Nélio Cacho, João Marcos do Valle, Frederico Lopes
Currently, blockchain has been widely used to store decentralised and secure transactions involving cryptocurrency (for instance, Bitcoin solution). On the other hand, smart city applications are concerned about how data and services can be safely stored and shared. In this regard, this article investigates the use of blockchain and pinpoints a set of essential requirements to meet the needs of blockchain for the context of smart cities. Base on that, we propose a platform, named Orthus, to support the use of blockchain in smart city initiatives. We have demonstrated how to use the proposed platform in the context of the Natal Smart City Initiative, in Brazil, to handle land registration. Finally, we compare this platform with other implementations that use blockchain in different domains.
Οι υπηρεσίες ονοματοδοσίας παρέχουν τα απαραίτητα θεμέλια για την ανάπτυξη ποικίλων και σημαντικών εφαρμογών, όπως το ηλεκτρονικό εμπόριο και η ηλεκτρονική τραπεζική. Επί του παρόντος, αυτές οι υπηρεσίες ονοματοδοσίας βρίσκονται υπό τον έλεγχο κεντρικοποιημένων οντοτήτων, τις οποίες πρέπει να εμπιστευόμαστε ότι λειτουργούν σωστά. Δυστυχώς, η κεντρικοποίηση (εμπιστοσύνης) επιφέρει πολλά μειονεκτήματα όσον αφορά την ασφάλεια, τη διαθεσιμότητα και την ανοχή σφαλμάτων,όπως φαίνεται από μία πληθώρα περιστατικών ασφάλειας κατά τη διάρκεια των ετών όπου τέτοιες οντότητες έχουν παραβιαστεί. Η αποκέντρωση έχει προταθεί ως εναλλακτική λύση για την αντιμετώπιση αυτών των ζητημάτων. Παρ 'όλα αυτά,η αποκέντρωση εγείρει άλλα προβλήματα όπως, π.χ., η αντιμετώπιση της μη ανταποδοτικότητας και οι Σιβυλλικές επιθέσεις. Σε αυτή τη διατριβή, αξιοποιούμε την επεκτασιμότητα, την ασφάλεια, καθώς και τον ενσωματωμένο μηχανισμό παροχής κινήτρων των συστημάτων blockchain και προτείνουμε τον σχεδιασμό μιας αποκεντρωμένης υπηρεσίας ονοματοδοσίας βασισμένη σε έξυπνα συμβόλαια. Πιο συγκεκριμένα, είμαστε οι πρώτοι που παρουσιάζουμε τον πλήρη φορμαλισμό του προβλήματος σχεδιασμού υπηρεσιών ονοματοδοσίας στο πλαίσιο τoυ μοντέλου Γενικής Σύνθεσης και αποδεικνύουμε την ασφάλεια της κατασκευής μας υπό την ισχυρή υπόθεση RSA στο μοντέλο του Τυχαίου Μαντείου και την ύπαρξη μιας ιδεατής λειτουργικότητας έξυπνου συμβολαίου.Το κύριο εμπόδιο στην πραγματοποίηση μιας υπηρεσίας ονοματοδοσίας βασισμένη σε έξυπνα συμβόλαια είναι το μέγεθος της αποθηκευμένης πληροφορίας σε αυτά η οποία,όντας η πιο δαπανηρή πηγή πρόσβασης και τροποποίησης, θα πρέπει να ελαχιστοποιηθεί για να θεωρηθεί μια κατασκευή βιώσιμη. Επιλύουμε αυτό το ζήτημα ορίζοντας και χρησιμοποιώντας στην υπηρεσία ονοματοδοσίας μας έναν προσθετικό, παγκόσμιο κρυπτογραφικό συσσωρευτή δημόσιας κατάστασης σταθερού μεγέθους, ένα κρυπτογραφικό εργαλείο το οποίο μπορεί να είναι ανεξάρτητου ενδιαφέροντος στο πλαίσιο των πρωτοκόλλων blockchain. Αυτός ο συσσωρευτής προκαλεί αποθήκευση σταθερού μεγέθους πληροφορίας εις βάρος υπολογιστικής πολυπλοκότητας. Για να διερευνήσουμε το αντίκτυπο ανάμεσα σε αυτά τα δύο,προτείνουμε και υλοποιούμε μια δεύτερη κατασκευή, η οποία διατηρεί τις ιδιότητες ασφαλείας της πρώτης και, όπως απεικονίζεται μέσα από την αξιολόγησή μας, είναι η μόνη έκδοση με σταθερού μεγέθους αποθηκευμένη πληροφορία που μπορεί να αναπτυχθεί στη βασική αλυσίδα τουEthereum, της πιο αξιοσημείωτης δημόσιας πλατφόρμας έξυπνων συμβολαίων κατά τη στιγμή αυτής της γραφής. Συγκρίνουμε αυτές τις δύο κατασκευές με την απλή προσέγγιση των περισσότερων προηγούμενων υλοποιήσεων, π.χ., του EthereumName Service, όπου όλα τα αρχεία ταυτότητας αποθηκεύονται πάνω στο έξυπνο συμβόλαιο, για να καταδείξουμε αρκετές ελλείψεις του Ethereumκαι του μοντέλου κοστολόγησής του. Για την αντιμετώπιση αυτών των ζητημάτων, καθώς και άλλων,εισαγάγουμε ένα εναλλακτικό παράδειγμα για την ανάπτυξη εφαρμογών βασισμένες σε έξυπνα συμβόλαια στις οποίες το μέθεγος της αποθηκευμένης πληροφορίας σε αυτά είναι σταθερή και διευκολύνει την επαλήθευση των δεδομένων των εφαρμογών, τα οποία αποθηκεύονται σε και αναζητούνται από ένα εξωτερικό, δυνητικά αναξιόπιστο, δίκτυο αποθήκευσης. Αυτή η προσέγγιση είναι σχετική για ένα ευρύ φάσμα εφαρμογών, όπως κάθε σύστημα αποθήκευσης κλειδιών και τιμών.Δείχνουμε την αποτελεσματικότητα της προσέγγιση μας με την παρουσίαση μιας μελέτης όπου προσαρμόζουμε το πιο ευρέως αναπτυγμένο πρότυπο για ανταλλάξιμα νομίσματα, δηλ., το πρότυπο νομισμάτων ERC20.Αντιμετωπίζουμε τη μονοτονικά αυξανόμενη αποθηκευμένη πληροφορία του Ethereum η οποία, αν δεν ελεγχθεί, θα έχει άμεσο αντίκτυπο στην ασφάλεια του Ethereum και, τελικά, στη μακροζωία του. Εισαγάγουμε επαναλαμβανόμενα τέλη που είναι ανάλογα με την αποθηκευμένη πληροφορία στα έξυπνα συμβόλαια και ρυθμιζόμενα από τους κόμβους που διατηρούν το δίκτυο. Προτείνουμε ένα μοντέλο όπου το κόστος των λειτουργιών αποθήκευσης αντικατοπτρίζει την προσπάθεια που πρέπει να καταβάλουν οι κόμβοι για να τις εκτελέσουν. Δείχνουμε ότι κάτω από ένα τέτοιο σύστημα τιμολόγησης που ενθαρρύνει οικονομία στην αποθηκευμένη πληροφορία στα έξυπνα συμβόλαια, οι κατασκευές που παρουσιάζονται σε αυτή τη διατριβή μειώνουν τα τέλη συναλλαγών κατά μία τάξη μεγέθους. Υποστηρίζουμε ότι αυτές οι βελτιώσεις είναι λογικές για κάθε πλατφόρμα έξυπνων συμβολαίων που επιθυμεί να υποστηρίζει την ανάπτυξη αυθαίρετων κατανεμημένων εφαρμογών από τους χρήστες της.
This article traces the debates occurring in the music industry where blockchain technology surged as an ideal solution for long-standing disagreements over distribution, publishing, licensing, sales, streaming, and listening. The projections (in conferences, media, opinion pieces, and academic reports) started as techno-utopian, but over time the discourse shifted from “radical” to “incorporative” goals. The technological dreams were scaled back as the scope of social challenges to technological solutions became clearer. Borrowing from Clive Barnett’s theory of convening publics, we argue that the role of the blockchain in this environment was not necessarily as a technological solution, but rather as a “convening” force that brought disparate actors together. Nonetheless, we still have to ask, who is invited to convene, and who is left out?
Sina Rafati Niya, Sebastian Allemann, Arik Gabay, Burkhard Stiller
Data leaks and privacy scandals have been a growing concern of the last decade. While most traditional, i.e., centralized, online platforms require users to register with their personal data, they potentially expose the user's identity and data to be used for unintended purposes. This work proposes TradeMap as an integrated architecture, designing and enabling an online end-to-end (e2e) trading market place, while supporting anonymous management features. TradeMap addresses the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority (FINMA) regulations by designing a FINMA-complaint Know Your Customer (KYC) platform. Additionally, TradeMap is based on blockchains and employs Ethereum Smart Contracts (SC). Thus, trust and anonymity between the market place and the KYC system relies on zero knowledge proof-based SCs used for user identification processes. With this management approach proposed, the user authentication is only verified within the KYC platform, providing a legally valid and fully anonymous online trading platform.
The spread of distributed ledger technology (DLT) in finance could help to improve the efficiency and quality of supervision. This paper makes the case for embedded supervision, i.e., a regulatory framework that provides for compliance in tokenised markets to be automatically monitored by reading the market's ledger, thus reducing the need for firms to actively collect, verify and deliver data. After sketching out a design for such schemes, the paper explores the conditions under which distributed ledger data might be used to monitor compliance. To this end, a decentralised market is modelled that replaces today's intermediary-based verification of legal data with blockchain-enabled data credibility based on economic consensus. The key results set out the conditions under which the market's economic consensus would be strong enough to guarantee that transactions are economically final, so that supervisors can trust the distributed ledger's data. The paper concludes with a discussion of the legislative and operational requirements that would promote low-cost supervision and a level playing field for small and large firms.
Blockchain is one of the most splendid technologies in today's industrial sector which is going to disrupt various sectors and the way the process, product and services have been done today. Both government, corporate and institutions started exploring the opportunities in blockchain technology which paves a fresh route for beneficial growth and development in this industry. The strategy taken by Indian Government on the development and application of Blockchain started with the ‘Indiachain’ – colossal blockchain pilot project of NITI Aayog through which government is going to use blockchain for land records, identity management, supply chain management, benefit distribution, power distribution, educational certificates, and cross border finance. It will help all stakeholders enormously in terms of enforcing contracts quickly and prevent fraud and efficient disbursement of subsidies. Further through regulatory sandbox it will test the work possibilities and facilities in blockchain through pilot project. New kind of business model and process will be implemented with the use of blockchain technology. This paper reviews the concept of Blockchain and analyse the available and prospective Blockchain technology use cases and its application at global level, technology providers and stakeholders. This paper covers the adoption policy framework of India, current development and application of Blockchain technology in various sectors of business in India and highlights the changing business model for its adoption.
Crowdfunding has revolutionized the way of raising funds for not only start-ups but for all traditional or existing businesses. Crowdfunding made it easy for fundraisers to raise funds as they don’t have to knock on doors of banks and financers and get the desired amount in return of interest or offering equity or even through donation, or reward. Blockchain, on the hand, is decentralizing the system of records and control which makes crowdfunding more transparent and secure. Though a number of blockchain-based crowdfunding platforms are already doing good business and they vary in crypto, model and type of crowdfunding. The study is conducted on a very new blockchain-based crowdfunding platform, WHIRL. The unique and different in this model is the model, “pay-it-forward” itself. The model assures that members will get their legit project funded after they help other projects succeed. The study also highlights some thoughts from the Executive Board of Directors and co-founders after doing a brief discussion with them.
A protocol for enabling smart, social currency for publishers and content businesses across the internet 1 Delegated Proof of Stake Position Paper.Grigg, 2017.https://steemit
Challenges presented as a result of emerging technologies and the developments revolving around the financial environment, as well as the need to design tools and techniques which can accommodate and realize potential and intended benefits of Distributed Ledger Technologies, are considered in this section of the volume.
Even though it might be expected that internal controls and corporate governance related matters would influence and dominate main concerns relating to implementation of emerging technologies, it appears from recent surveys and statistics that employing staff and employees with adequate skills and expertise, as well as concerns relating to those risks emanating from cyber risks constitute and generate the greatest levels of concerns for industry experts and professionals.
Designing tool and techniques which can accommodate and adapt to – as well as ensure that enterprise programs and systems are able to align with the demands presented by emerging technologies, back up plans, namely internal control measures should constitute or rather, also embody part of the fore of concerns in a changing business and financial environment.
The Future of Forensic Accounting – particularly Computer Forensics, in becoming more engaged in Distributed Ledger Technology Designs – particularly in matters relating to internal control systems and designs – as a means of more effectively addressing associated risks attributed to crypto currencies and other emerging technologies is also considered in this section of the volume.
Rongen Zhang, Amrita George, Jongwoo Kim, Veneetia Johnson · 5 authors
BACKGROUND: The potential of blockchain technology to achieve strategic goals, such as value-based care, is increasingly being recognized by both researchers and practitioners. However, current research and practices lack comprehensive approaches for evaluating the benefits of blockchain applications. OBJECTIVE: The goal of this study was to develop a framework for holistically assessing the performance of blockchain initiatives in providing value-based care by extending the existing balanced scorecard (BSC) evaluation framework. METHODS: Based on a review of the literature on value-based health care, blockchain technology, and methods for evaluating initiatives in disruptive technologies, we propose an extended BSC method for holistically evaluating blockchain applications in the provision of value-based health care. The proposed method extends the BSC framework, which has been extensively used to measure both financial and nonfinancial performance of organizations. The usefulness of our proposed framework is further demonstrated via a case study. RESULTS: We describe the extended BSC framework, which includes five perspectives (both financial and nonfinancial) from which to assess the appropriateness and performance of blockchain initiatives in the health care domain. CONCLUSIONS: The proposed framework moves us toward a holistic evaluation of both the financial and nonfinancial benefits of blockchain initiatives in the context of value-based care and its provision.
Daniel Cerecedo Hernández, Carlos Armando Franco Ruiz, Mario Iván Contreras-Valdez, Jovan Axel Franco Ruiz
El objetivo de esta investigación es analizar la presencia de burbujas financieras o un comportamiento explosivo en cuatro criptomonedas: Ethereum, Ripple, Bitcoin Cash y EOS. La selección de los activos se basó en la capitalización de mercado. La metodología implementada fue una prueba simple y generalizada (SADF y GSADF) de una variación de la prueba aumentada de Dickey-Fuller propuesta por Phillips et al. (2011, 2015). Encontramos diez, siete, seis y siete comportamientos exuberantes en los activos mencionados, respectivamente. Esta metodología ha sido en gran parte inexplorada y podría emplearse de manera estándar en el sector financiero para cualquier otro activo. Esta es la primera investigación que detecta este tipo de comportamiento para un grupo de criptomonedas con frecuencia diaria. Con el presente trabajo y el artículo de Li et al. (2018), el 68,47% del mercado ha sido analizado bajo la metodología. En consecuencia, este comportamiento podría estar disperso en todo el sector.
A.K.M. Najmul Islam, Matti Mäntymäki, Marja Turunen
This paper investigates the focal actors in a blockchain network and their heterogeneity in splits. Disagreements in blockchain communities often lead to splits in both the blockchain and the community. We use three key elements of the actor-network theory — punctualization, translation, and actor heterogeneity—and employ case study methodology to examine Bitcoin splits. We identify several human actors, such as miners, developers, merchants, and investors, as well as non-human actors, including blockchain, exchanges, hardware manufacturers, and wallets, involved in Bitcoin splits. Our results show that the consolidation of actors in homogeneous groups plays a key role in blockchain splits. We further describe how the human and non-human actors' fluid moves into micro and macro actor positions in the network affect the development of the split. In addition, we discuss the roles of these actors and their engagement in forming micro and macro agencies in blockchain splits.
Objective: to identify characteristics of modern financial technologies, which have become a catalyst for rapid and irreversible changes in the financial sector; to classify the problems of regulation of finance technologies and their products; to search for a compromise between the promotion of financial innovations and financial risks to ensure financial stability. Methods: systematic approach to the cognition of economic phenomena, enabling to study them in dynamic development, taking into account the influence of various environmental factors. The systematic approach determined the choice of specific research methods: empirical, historical, logical, comparative, and statistical. Results: it is shown that the modern financial system is evolving towards its decentralization based on the distributed registers and blockchain technologies. The evolution of decentralized platforms and their impact on the development of crypto networks are considered. The basic principles and working mechanisms of decentralized crypto networks, the advantages and disadvantages of decentralized protocols are reviewed. It is shown that the development of a decentralized financial market is inextricably linked with centralized technologies - artificial intelligence technologies and the use of software interfaces, big data analytics and machine learning. The use of modern financial technologies reduces barriers and costs of entry to the markets for financial intermediaries, but also generates new risks in the system, requiring codification and updating of regulation forms. Regulatory actions of the authorities aimed at minimizing the risks generated by innovative technologies are also described.Scientific novelty: the article shows for the first time that the basis of the modern financial system is decentralized technologies of distributed registers and blockchain, which allow maintaining databases, reaching consensus, generating new transactions and controlling them from more than one center of the distributed network. In order to maximize the impact of the third era of the Internet, decentralized platforms must be synchronized with centralized technologies, the development of which contributes to further decentralization of the financial system. In order to maintain financial stability, prudential regulators and supervisors will have to find an effective compromise between encouraging further financial innovations and the financial risks posed by them.Practical significance: the main provisions and conclusions of the article can be used to clarify the target mandates, tools, channels and mechanisms of monetary policy of the Bank of Russia, directly related to technological innovations, acting, under the growing uncertainty in the economy, as a built-in stabilizer of financial stability, elastic regulation of trading and financial imbalances within the country and between countries.
Blockchain technology is argued to be the next “big” digital technology trend that will challenge a number of organizations, including higher education institutions. In contrast, higher education institutions have a history of being slow to adopt new digital technologies in the organizational apparatus. The question that remains discussing is whether universities will approach blockchain technologies in ways that are different from traditional research and education. This paper intends to discuss three particular ways in which blockchain may challenge higher education institution. The paper questions whether blockchain technologies can democratize and automate learning process, reduce costly bureaucracy and be adopted in higher education institutions. In sum, the intent is to invite to a discussion on blockchain and address whether or in what ways higher education institutions should adopt blockchain technologies as a digital technology.
Yoon-Chow Yeong, Khairul Shafee Kalid, Savita K. Sugathan
Since the inception of the first cryptocurrency in 2008, cryptocurrency has been receiving global attention from the public, media, merchants and regulators. Although the general sentiment suggested cryptocurrencies which leverage on blockchain technology might eventually replace the paper currency as the mainstream currency, the Malaysian regulators are still unsure that a well-established cryptocurrency ecosystem can come into place anytime soon. Unfortunately, there is a lack of cryptocurrency acceptance study, particularly in Malaysia (developing country context). Hence, this paper aims to propose a research model that integrates cryptocurrency dimension antecedents with Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology2 (UTAUT2) constructs to examine the factors that influence cryptocurrency acceptance. This study employs a quantitative approach by collecting online survey questionnaire data through the means of cryptocurrency community group on social media. The survey instrument was reviewed by four experts from the field of blockchain and 36 responses have been gathered from individuals who have cryptocurrency knowledge for pilot study. To further evaluate the reliability and validity of the proposed measures, the measurement model was assessed using structural equation modeling (SEM) technique with partial least square approach (PLS). SmartPLS software was used for PLS-SEM analyses. In this paper, the proposed research model contributes a high-level overview of and valuable insights into the potential cryptocurrency acceptance factors to regulatory bodies, practitioners as well as prospective cryptocurrency users. The findings of pilot study confirm that the measurement items and constructs in the proposed model are reliable and valid.