Resumo Este artigo apresenta uma nova tecnologia de informação chamada Smart Contract (SC) como proposta para automação da gestão de contratos no processo de comercialização do gás natural. O centro decisor, ao avaliar essa opção, deve estimar com antecedência seu impacto para o futuro. A proposta de utilização da SC encontra fundamentos para implementação no contexto atual do mercado de gás natural brasileiro, englobando os principais players desse comércio, isto é, governo, organização e consumidor. Este artigo propõe uma abordagem exploratória sobre a SC, pois busca-se um melhor entendimento sobre seus atributos, haja vista que não há estudos anteriores com aplicação do SC ao peculiar mercado de gás brasileiro. A metodologia é qualitativa porque trata-se de aspectos subjetivos na utilização da tecnologia de informação. Foi com auxílio de questionário satisfatoriamente respondido por dois especialistas que contribuíram para o processo de compreensão da viabilidade do uso do SC. Apresento dois possíveis cenários na utilização da SC para fomentar a discussão considerando o status quo do mercado de gás brasileiro. A técnica de coleta de dados sobre os construtos foi feita através da pesquisa documental da emergente literatura sobre Smart Contract, Blockchain e o atual mercado de gás natural no Brasil.
Developments in internet-based payment platforms employing the blockchain technology known as “cryptocurrencies” contributed their integration in the official payment systems. Because of the growing interest in cryptocurrencies, it is necessary to review existing cryptocurrency research literature and determine areas for future studies. This study gives an up to date summary of accessible literature on cryptocurrencies according to their subject of issues, theories, methods, and findings and provides direction for future research. A systematic literature review was carried out to examine accessible academic and reliable publications between 2010 and 2018. Based on results research limitations for individual, organizational, ecosystemic and discourse approaches are identified and the study concluded that there are still insufficient and uncovered issues related to the cryptocurrencies notably from a legal and regulatory point of view.
Abstract: Smart contracts provide a quandary for contract law remedies. The self-enforcing nature of smart contracts implies that there is little possibility for breach and thus, little need or opportunity to apply contract law remedies. This article explores if this is really the case. It concludes that contract law remains applicable to smart contracts relating to the enforceability of its terms based on legality, public policy, and contracts policing doctrines. In such cases, post hoc judicial or arbitral claims remain likely and the dispute resolution bodies would seek to apply contract remedies. In order to diminish instances of litigation or arbitration the smart contract should include self-remedying or internal measures (remedies). The article divides internal measures into proactive and reactive measures. These measures should be considered in the drafting of a smart contract in order to diminish resort to contract remedies. In the end, contract law and contract remedies will remain important as default law. In addition, like smart contracts, some of contract law rules are immutable and cannot be made obsolete by blockchain technology.
Abstract: This article investigates the legal dimension of smart contracts. In particular, it reviews their existing definitions in some of the main laws enacted and scholarly articles published to date, proposes its own version, to then move on to consider to what extent new legal categories are warranted to deal with this apparently totally new way of making legally binding agreements. It concludes by providing some final remarks with regard to relevant legal categories and attempts to advance a number of solutions to the legal questions raised by the application of smart contracts. Résume: Le présent article étudie la dimension juridique de contrats intelligents. En particulier, il passe en revue leurs définitions qui se trouvent dans certaines des lois essentielles promulguées et dans des articles académiques publiés jusqu’à présent, il propose sa version propre, et considère ensuite dans quelle mesure de nouvelles catégories juridiques sont justifiées pour traiter cette manière apparemment tout à fait nouvelle de passer des accords juridiquement obligatoires. Il conclut par quelques remarques finales concernant des catégories juridiques importantes et tente d’apporter certaines solutions aux questions juridiques soulevées par l’application de contrats intelligents.
Today's commercial model for edge computing services consists in lightweight devices at the network edge connected through the Internet to remote cloud data centers. Microclouds are an alternative vision of edge computing, where the cloud infrastructure runs at the network edge leveraging decentralized resource contributions of a community. But current attempts to build such microclouds lack a collaborative governance system to operate successfully. In this paper we discuss the opportunity to implement with blockchain technologies key services to enable the decentralized collaborative governance of microclouds. A multiagent approach could further contribute to improve the efficiency in the decision making in the collaborative governance service.
Fatih Ceylan, Ramazan Eki̇nci̇, Osman Tüzün, Hakan Kahyaoğlu
Başta Bitcoin olmak üzere kripto paralar son dönemde çok sık kullanılmaya başlamıştır. “Para birimi” olarak ve “Değer birikim aracı” olarak kabul görmeye başlayan kripto paraların fiyat hareketlerinin analiz edilmesi ihtiyacı ortaya çıkmıştır. Bu piyasaların büyümesi ve küresel entegrasyonu ile birlikte fiyatlarda meydana gelen önemli değişimlerin temelinde spekülatif balonların olup olmadığı finansal istikrar konusunda açıklık ve güvence açısından önem arz etmektedir. Ayrıca kripto para piyasasında meydana gelen spekülatif hareketler piyasa katılımcılarının sürü psikolojisiyle hareket edip etmedikleri sorusunu ortaya çıkarmaktadır. Bu nedenle çalışmada Bitcoin ve Etherium para birimlerinde spekülatif balonların varlığı Philips vd. (2015) tarafından geliştirilen yöntem ile tespit edilmiş ve ne zaman oluştukları tahminlenmiştir. Piyasada balonların olması ve bu balonların süre olarak varlığı sürü psikolojisinin olduğu yönünde bilgi sağlarken, bu piyasada dengeleyici bir spekülasyonun olmadığı yönünde de bir bilgidir. Elde edilen bulgular doğrultusunda Bitcoin ve Etherium kripto para birimlerinde çok sayıda baloncuk olduğu tespit edilmiştir. Özellikle 2017-2018 yılları arasında büyük baloncukların ortaya çıkması bu para birimlerinin spekülatif hareketlere karşı eğilimli olduğunu gösterilmiştir.
Almost a decade on from the launch of Bitcoin, cryptocurrencies continue to generate headlines and intense debate. What started as an underground experiment by a rag tag group of programmers armed with a Libertarian manifesto has now resulted in a thriving $230 billion ecosystem, with constant on-going innovation. Scholars and researchers alike are realizing that cryptocurrencies are far more than mere technical innovation; they represent a distinct and revolutionary new economic paradigm tending towards decentralization. Unfortunately, this bold new universe is little explored from the perspective of Islamic economics and finance. Our work aims to address these deficiencies. Our paper makes the following distinct contributions We significantly expand the discussion on whether cryptocurrencies qualify as "money" from an Islamic perspective and we argue that this debate necessitates rethinking certain fundamental definitions. We conclude that the cryptocurrency phenomenon, with its radical new capabilities, may hold considerable opportunity which merits deeper investigation.
Liudmila Zavolokina, Florian Spychiger, Claudio J. Tessone, Gerhard Schwabe
Recent research reports the need for consistent incentives in blockchain-based systems. In this study, we investigate how incentives for a blockchain-based inter-organizational network should be designed to ensure a high quality of data, exchanged and stored within the network. For this, we use two complementary methodological approaches: an Action Design Research approach in combination with agent-based modelling, and demonstrate, through the example of a real-world blockchain project, how such an incentive system may be modelled. The proposed incentive system features a rating mechanism influenced by measures of data correction. We evaluate the incentive system in a simulation to show how effective the system is in terms of sustaining a high quality of data. Thus, the paper contributes to our understanding of incentives in inter- organizational settings and, more broadly, to our understanding of incentive mechanisms in blockchain economy.
The purpose of this study is to investigate the factors impacting the student satisfaction with the public and private universities of Malaysia and Pakistan, which are countries representing South/South-East Asia in cross-culture perspective.The study has applied a quantitative survey design guided by five hypotheses.A questionnaire was distributed among the students of private and public universities.A conceptual framework has been developed based on the modification of Student Satisfaction Index (SSI) model to measure the satisfaction of students from different aspects, such as university image, university location, quality of academic staff, university facilities, student expectation, overall student satisfaction.The research method used was a survey-based questionnaire that consisted of a total of 396 responses from the university students.The data were analyzed with SPSS and SmartPLS 3; the results indicate that when the comparison was made separately between private and public universities of Malaysia and Pakistan.The comparative statistical score was obtained using independent sample t-Test, the university facilities of Malaysian universities resulted higher than universities in Pakistan.Therefore, the independent sample ttest results conclude that the university facilities have a significant evidence (p=0.00) to support our research findings that university facilities do affect the student satisfaction more in Malaysia (mean=4.1788)than Pakistan (mean =3.7212) and the research hypothesis is significant that there is a significant difference in student satisfaction towards university facilities in Malaysia and Pakistan.Similarly, the quality of academic staff (p=0.035) has a significant effect on student satisfaction in Malaysia (mean=3.8283) and Pakistan (mean=3.6641).Furthermore, this leads the student expectation and overall student satisfaction level of Malaysia students are higher than students in Pakistan.However, student satisfaction level on university image and university location in Malaysia and Pakistan do not differ.The study is useful for university management to improve university students satisfaction.The future researchers are recommended further explore demographic and cultural variables impact on student satisfaction.
Luís Picciochi Oliveira, Liudmila Zavolokina, Ingrid Bauer, Gerhard Schwabe
The growing usage of tokens in real-world blockchain projects – mostly visible in ICOs – has unveiled the need to understand what blockchain tokens in fact represent and how they relate to their underlying business model. Previous research has contributed to this gap but often lacks a comprehensive understanding of tokens and their design as well as of the growing and rapidly-changing complexity in token landscape. This has crucial implications for assessing tokens' value and utility. Applying a structured, scientific approach towards blockchain tokens, we provide a comprehensive token classification and a decision-aid on token design. This is based on a literature review and an empirical study to cover this research gap. Our work offers a novel contribution in an emerging field within the Blockchain research domain and proposes structured analytical tools which can be used by both practitioners and researchers.
Andrey A. Gusev, 49 Leningradsky Prospect, Moscow, 125993, Russia
Many fintech start-ups participant companies and cryptocurrencies have experienced phenomenal growth in value during the past several years.Many specialists would like to know the reasons for such success.In this article we investigate the predictive power of public opinions.This is one of the few works that using quantitative analysis connects social media and internet users' activities with cryptocurrency valuations.
The blockchain technology has potential applications in various areas such as smart-contracts, Internet of Things (IoT), land registry, supply chain management, storing medical data, and identity management. Although the Github currently hosts more than six thousand active Blockchain software (BCS) projects, few software engineering research has investigated these projects and its' contributors. Although the number of BCS projects is growing rapidly, the motivations, challenges, and needs of BCS developers remain a puzzle. Therefore, the primary objective of this study is to understand the motivations, challenges, and needs of BCS developers and analyze the differences between BCS and non-BCS development. On this goal, we sent an online survey to 1,604 active BCS developers identified via mining the Github repositories of 145 popular BCS projects. The survey received 156 responses that met our criteria for analysis. The results suggest that the majority of the BCS developers are experienced in non-BCS development and are primarily motivated by the ideology of creating a decentralized financial system. Although most of the BCS projects are Open Source Software (OSS) projects by nature, more than 93% of our respondents found BCS development somewhat different from a non-BCS development as BCS projects have higher emphasis on security and reliability than most of the non-BCS projects. Other differences include: higher costs of defects, decentralized and hostile environment, technological complexity, and difficulty in upgrading the software after release. Software development tools that are tuned for non-BCS development are inadequate for BCS and the ecosystem needs an array of new or improved tools, such as: customized IDE for BCS development tasks, debuggers for smart-contracts, testing support, easily deployable simulators, and BCS domain specific design notations.
Since its introduction in 2008, the value and popularity of Bitcoin have risen exponentially. Despite being 10 years old, the concept of crypto currency is fairly new in South Africa. The increase in the value of Bitcoin, together with extensive media coverage, has led to the creation of a Bitcoin economic system with many South Africans jumping on the Bitcoin bandwagon. This study aims to identify the determinants affecting end-user adoption of Bitcoin in South Africa and to determine the main use of the crypto currency by South Africans. A research model was developed utilising constructs from the technology acceptance model and theory of planned behaviour. The model was then tested empirically by utilising two survey-based questionnaires, one for current users of Bitcoin and one for non-users. For users, perceived usefulness and access to facilitating conditions were the primary determinants influencing their decision to adopt the crypto currency while lack of trust and social influences were the primary reasons non-users chose not to adopt Bitcoin.
The rise of blockchain technologies has given a boost to social good projects, which are trying to exploit various characteristic features of blockchains: the quick and inexpensive transfer of cryptocurrency, the transparency of transactions, the ability to tokenize any kind of assets, and the increase in trustworthiness due to decentralization. However, the swift pace of innovation in blockchain technologies, and the hype that has surrounded their "disruptive potential", make it difficult to understand whether these technologies are applied correctly, and what one should expect when trying to apply them to social good projects. This paper addresses these issues, by systematically analysing a collection of 120 blockchain-enabled social good projects. Focussing on measurable and objective aspects, we try to answer various relevant questions: which features of blockchains are most commonly used? Do projects have success in fund raising? Are they making appropriate choices on the blockchain architecture? How many projects are released to the public, and how many are eventually abandoned?
Blockchain technology has pioneered a new consensus approach to building a distributed public ledger globally. A key feature expected from cryptocurrencies and blockchain systems is the absence of a centralized control over the operation process. That is, blockchain solutions should neither rely on "trusted parties or powerful minority" for their operations nor introduce such centralisation tendencies into blockchain systems. On the other hand, real-world blockchain systems require steady funding for continuous development and maintenance of the systems. Given that blockchain systems are decentralized systems, their maintenance and developmental funding should also be void of centralization risks. Therefore, secure and "community-inclusive" long-term sustainability of funding is critical for the health of blockchain platforms. In this work, for the first time, we provide a systematic exposition of blockchain development funding, planning, management, and disbursement mechanisms aka "treasury systems" (for cryptocurrencies and blockchain systems). Drawing from existing literature, we identify and categorise various treasury models, thereby enabling an exploration of their properties, benefits and drawbacks. Particularly, we perform an evaluation of real-world cryptocurrency treasury system of top cryptocurrencies e.g., Dash governance system, and ZCash Foundation. Finally, we briefly discuss desired properties of decentralised treasury systems and provide suggestions for improvement or alternative solutions to existing systems or implementations.
One needs permission from somebody or someone to do pretty much anything these days. Whether it be parking your car, gaining a license, accessing a stock exchange or, more recently and topically, retaining personal data from a client business card, somebody somewhere insists you provide evidence that you have permission.
This paper explores ‘permissions’, i.e. the actions one is allowed to perform with items, and more specifically, permissions surrounding digital items, which are becoming increasingly complex. In order to effectively manage such permissions in contemporary markets, we believe that a new framework for defining and managing distributed permissions is needed: what one might call a species of ‘information rules’.
The goal of this report is to consider how Smart Ledgers could implement such a permissions framework. We intentionally explore new technical approaches, rather than recommending an evolution of current frameworks and technology. We believe that current technical ‘architectures’, largely based around a central third party and its information technology, are giving way to more distributed architectures. These distributed architectures are based on ‘Smart Ledgers’, multi-organisational databases with a super audit trail, typically containing some embedded computer code.
The research was led by Maury Shenk, Managing Director, Lily Innovation and Professor Michael Mainelli, Executive Chairman, Z/Yen Group.
The report concludes that the criteria for successful permissioning systems appear to be:
Precision – ability to accurately convey permissions;
Breadth – scope to convey any type of permission;
Applicability – comprehensibility and practicality of application in real-world markets and related interactions.
Ella Tallyn, Larissa Pschetz, Rory Gianni, Chris Speed · 5 authors
Technologies such as distributed ledgers and smart contracts are enabling the emergence of new autonomous systems, and providing enhanced systems to track the provenance of goods. A growing body of work in HCI is exploring the novel challenges of these systems, but there has been little attention paid to their impact on everyday activities. This paper presents a study carried out in 3 office environments for a 1-month period, which explored the impact of an autonomous coffee machine on the everyday activity of coffee consumption. The Bitbarista mediates coffee consumption through autonomous processes, presenting provenance data at the time of purchase while attempting to reduce intermediaries in the coffee trade. Through the report of interactions with and around the Bitbarista, we explore its implications for everyday life, and wider social structures and values. We conclude by offering recommendations for the design of community shared autonomous systems.
Reports on the development of Open and Interoperable Distributed Ledger Technology/Blockchain standards. Discusses how these standards drive global blockchain adoption and take development of the technology ecosystem to the next level. The field of blockchain or distributed ledger is growing rapidly. The lack of consensus on definitions, implementation, management, and core attributes is driving the need for standardization. Blockchain is often confused with cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin or Ethereum, but the potential applications of this technology in diverse fields, such as smart contracts, buying and selling energy, and so much more, make distributed ledger technologies one of the high-potential technologies for the future.
M. Dorofeyev, M. Ksov, Vadim V. Ponkratov, A. Masterov · 6 authors
M. Vasyunina6 The main aim of this article is to analyze the prerequisites for the development and the promotion of cryptocurrencies, covering the period from the emergence of the first forms of money to recent period. The paper focuses on findings of comparative analysis of consumer value of precious metals, cash and non-cash money and cryptocurrencies as different forms of money. The authors provide comprehensive descriptions and expert quantitative estimates for each of the listed forms of money, as well as determine the place of cryptocurrency in the modern financial system as a means of payment. The research presents a detailed analysis of the advantages and disadvantages of new technologies. The paper defines the status of cryptocurrencies in various countries of the world and names promising development trends. The authors determine the main obstacles hindering the circulation of cryptocurrencies in certain markets and assess the risks and prospects associated with the introduction and use of cryptocurrencies as a new form of money which aims at full/partial replacement of fiat money in the modern financial system. As a conclusion it is noted that weak integration into the financial system is the main obstacle to major distribution of cryptocurrencies as a means of payment.
In January 2009, the whole world was introduced to a new financial invention called Bitcoin. This coin is intended to accelerate globalisation of the financial market. Significantly, the inventor is credited as the first to succeed in solving the double-spending challenges associated with digital currency. Prior to the invention, a white paper about the bitcoin was authored and released in 2008under the name, Satoshi Nakamoto. However, the name, Satoshi Nakamoto, remains a mystery; the original inventor of the bitcoin remains a mirage to the financial world. Some analysts believe a pseudonym, rather than an original name, was used in creating the bitcoin. The main purpose of this research was to assess the financial impact of crypto currency, specifically bitcoin, on the Ghanaian and other economies across the globe. The systematic exploratory technique, an example of the mixed methods approach to scientific inquiry, was adapted for this research. Data required for the conduct of this research were obtained mainly from secondary sources. These included text books, journals, newspaper publications, and digital currency markets.Findings from the research revealed divergent views on the prospects of bitcoins in the medium- and long-term: some experts believed a bitcoin would soon trade at 1BTC: US$12,000 while others believed the future of the digital currency cannot be predicted with relative ease, what would become of the bitcoin in the medium- and long-term. The findings revealed some price volatilities in the bitcoin market. This notwithstanding, the digital currency has made remarkable strides in value since 2009 till date. The study recommended the need for governments to introduce measures that would ensure anti-money laundering, and "know-your-customer” controls; reduce the level of anonymity and privacy to eventually minimise use of bitcoins in criminal activities. There is the need for intelligence agencies of governments to engage the services of individuals who are technologically savvy to understand, operate and control the bitcoin system, which is technologically more complex than most of the computer systems used in day-to-day operations in various organisations. Institutions of higher learning and professional bodies could integrate the study of crypto currency into individual business related programmes.
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.