Introduction. Bitcoin is a digital, decentralized, partially anonymous currency, not supported by any government or legal entity and not provided with gold or other goods. It relies on a peer-to-peer network and cryptography to maintain its integrity. The proponents claim that Bitcoin has many properties that could make it an ideal currency for consumers and merchants in a modern digital economy. Aim and tasks. The purpose of article was to determine and analyze impact of Bitcoin ecosystem on global digital economy. The research objectives were as follows: to specify the concept of Bitcoin ecosystem; to study the trends and prospects of cryptocurrencies development; to determine the role of Bitcoin as an alternative mean of preserving capital for investors – «gold bugs»; to compare the influence of gold and Bitcoin on development of a world financial system; to study the importance of Bitcoin and gold as financial assets of digital economy and the role of Bitcoin as a financial instrument inherent in this economy. Research results. The concept of Bitcoin ecosystem, its main components, factors and risks of development in historical and logical aspects are considered. The tendencies and prospects of cryptocurrencies development, particullary Bitcoin, their influence on traditional E-commerce, conduction of micro-payments, calculations in a field of virtual games are investigated. The role of Bitcoin as an alternative mean of capital preservation for a certain type of investors is determined. The comparative analysis of an influence of gold and Bitcoin on development of world financial system in historical aspect has been carried out. The conclusions are made about role of cryptocurrency (bitcoin) and gold as financial assets of digital economy. The role of Bitcoin as a financial tool corresponding to service requirements of actors of digital economy is determined. Conclusion. In last few years in many countries the large-scale Bitcoin-ecosystem and economy has developed with tens of millions of Bitcoins which daily change owners in electronic transactions. These funds still have a small amount relative to the rest of world's trading assets and economy. Today, while the digital currencies work in the semi-legal field in most countries, they may be a danger to national securities laws, be an instrument for tax evasion, illegal banking, money laundering, illicit drug trafficking, etc. This ability should be considered as one of the most unsafe risks of the functioning for Bitcoin ecosystem. But this is just the beginning of transformations for globalized system, since both society, economy and finance will become fully digital. The problem now is how to find right application for cryptocurrency, so that it becomes a paradigm of financial trust for humanity, as was previously with gold.
Samuel Fosso Wamba, Jean Robert Kala Kamdjoug, Ransome Epie Bawack, John G. Keogh
This paper aims to bridge the knowledge gap in the existing literature on Bitcoin, Blockchain and Fintech. It begins by clarifying the definition of these concepts. Through a systematic review and case studies in the supply chain industry, this paper brings out the applications, the benefits/value, and the challenges/issues of Bitcoin, Blockchain and Fintech in several industries. It also presents the research methodologies/approaches used during such research. The classification framework developed and used to perform an analysis of 141 articles from five top academic databases serves as a baseline study. It offers the opportunity to evaluate the level of knowledge on Bitcoin, Blockchain and Fintech, and their evolution over time. The findings show that these technologies are evolving, and organizations are embracing them for competitive advantage. Thus, organizations need to leverage research on these technologies to better understand them, optimize their business strategies, and develop critical insights for decision-making.
Marc Jourdan, Sébastien Blandin, Laura Wynter, Pralhad Deshpande
The Bitcoin transaction graph is a public data structure organized as transactions between addresses, each associated with a logical entity. In this work, we introduce a complete probabilistic model of the Bitcoin Blockchain, setting the basis for follow-up AI applications on Bitcoin transactions. We first formulate a set of conditional dependencies induced by the Bitcoin protocol at the block level and derive a corresponding fully observed graphical model of a Bitcoin block. We then extend the model to include hidden entity attributes such as the functional category of the associated logical agent and derive asymptotic bounds on the privacy properties implied by this model. At the network level, we show evidence of complex transaction-to-transaction behavior and present a relevant discriminative model of the agent categories. Performance of both the block-based graphical model and the network-level discriminative model are evaluated on a subset of the public Bitcoin Blockchain.
Bitcoin is the world’s leading cryptocurrency, with a market capitalization briefly exceeding $300 billion. This hints at Bitcoin’s \namorphous nature: is this a monetary or a corporate measure? Hard values become explicit in the processing of transactions and \nthe digital mining of Bitcoins. Electricity is a primary input cost. Bitcoins earned are often used to circumvent local currency \ncontrols and acquire US dollars. For the period August 2010 to February 2018, we examine the components of Bitcoin mining \nrevenues, their statistical contribution to daily changes, and to its variance. We provide evidence that Bitcoin transaction processing \nis capacity constrained.
In the Bitcoin system, miners are incentivized to join the system and validate transactions through fees paid by the users. A simple "pay your bid" auction has been employed to determine the transaction fees. Recently, Lavi, Sattath and Zohar [LSZ17] proposed an alternative fee design, called the monopolistic price (MP) mechanism, aimed at improving the revenue for the miners. Although MP is not strictly incentive compatible (IC), they studied how close to IC the mechanism is for iid distributions, and conjectured that it is nearly IC asymptotically based on extensive simulations and some analysis. In this paper, we prove that the MP mechanism is nearly incentive compatible for any iid distribution as the number of users grows large. This holds true with respect to other attacks such as splitting bids. We also prove a conjecture in [LSZ17] that MP dominates the RSOP auction in revenue (originally defined in Goldberg et al. [GHKSW06] for digital goods). These results lend support to MP as a Bitcoin fee design candidate. Additionally, we explore some possible intrinsic correlations between incentive compatibility and revenue in general.
In the Bitcoin system, miners are incentivized to join the system and validate transactions through fees paid by the users. A simple "pay your bid" auction has been employed to determine the transaction fees. Recently, Lavi, Sattath and Zohar [Lavi et al., 2019] proposed an alternative fee design, called the monopolistic price (MP) mechanism, aimed at improving the revenue for the miners. Although MP is not strictly incentive compatible (IC), they studied how close to IC the mechanism is for iid distributions, and conjectured that it is nearly IC asymptotically based on extensive simulations and some analysis. In this paper, we prove that the MP mechanism is nearly incentive compatible for any iid distribution as the number of users grows large. This holds true with respect to other attacks such as splitting bids. We also prove a conjecture in [Lavi et al., 2019] that MP dominates the RSOP auction in revenue (originally defined in [Goldberg et al., 2006] for digital goods). These results lend support to MP as a Bitcoin fee design candidate. Additionally, we explore some possible intrinsic correlations between incentive compatibility and revenue in general.
This research aims to identify how Bitcoin-related news publications and\nonline discourse are expressed in Bitcoin exchange movements of price and\nvolume. Being inherently digital, all Bitcoin-related fundamental data (from\nexchanges, as well as transactional data directly from the blockchain) is\navailable online, something that is not true for traditional businesses or\ncurrencies traded on exchanges. This makes Bitcoin an interesting subject for\nsuch research, as it enables the mapping of sentiment to fundamental events\nthat might otherwise be inaccessible. Furthermore, Bitcoin discussion largely\ntakes place on online forums and chat channels. In stock trading, the value of\nsentiment data in trading decisions has been demonstrated numerous times [1]\n[2] [3], and this research aims to determine whether there is value in such\ndata for Bitcoin trading models. To achieve this, data over the year 2015 has\nbeen collected from Bitcointalk.org, (the biggest Bitcoin forum in post\nvolume), established news sources such as Bloomberg and the Wall Street\nJournal, the complete /r/btc and /r/Bitcoin subreddits, and the bitcoin-otc and\nbitcoin-dev IRC channels. By analyzing this data on sentiment and volume, we\nfind weak to moderate correlations between forum, news, and Reddit sentiment\nand movements in price and volume from 1 to 5 days after the sentiment was\nexpressed. A Granger causality test confirms the predictive causality of the\nsentiment on the daily percentage price and volume movements, and at the same\ntime underscores the predictive causality of market movements on sentiment\nexpressions in online communities\n
Rubaiyat Islam, Yoshi Fujiwara, Shinya Kawata, Hiwon Yoon
In a closed economic system like blockchain, the total amount of generated cryptocurrency called bitcoin is conserved and the transaction patterns demonstrate an insight of money flow inside the blockchain. For the last 2 years, bitcoin market has grabbed an immense attention from the investors, technology entrepreneurs and currency enthusiasts. In this paper, we have come up with some findings in our investigation about the bitcoin time-series transaction patterns. We have graphically represented bitcoin’s weekly patterns as a real economic currency that has been minted, stored and exchanged inside the bitcoin blockchain network. We identified outliers’ activities with the help of descriptive statistical analysis. We also demonstrated transaction pattern behavioral change. The main implication of these findings is to understand some stylized facts of the time-series transaction of cryptocurrency-based fully digital financial system. Besides in our analysis, we have shown that the behavioral change of the transaction pattern is capable of explaining the system development events or major historical events that have a network impact.
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.
Niniejszy artykuł ma na celu przybliżenie istoty bitcoin oraz jest próbą odpowiedzi na pytanie, jaką rolę elektroniczna moneta odegra na globalnym rynku finansowym w przyszłości. W pierwszej kolejności w artykule przedstawiono dwa sposoby definiowania bitcoin oraz mechanizm emisji tej monety i obrotu w Internecie. Na tej podstawie wyodrębniono zalety i wady elektronicznej monety w kolejności ich ważności. Następnie zaprezentowano dotychczasową genezę rynku bitcoin, co pozwoliło na zidentyfikowanie i uszeregowanie determinant jego rozwoju. Wśród nich za najistotniejsze uznano ograniczoną podaż bitcoin i rosnący nań popyt, pogłębianie się globalnego kryzysu zadłużeniowego, stopniowe wprowadzanie przejrzystych regulacji prawnych, utrzymanie wiarygodności dotyczącej emisji monet oraz rosnącą akceptację tej formy płatności przez użytkowników Internetu. Na koniec rozważań o bitcoin przedstawiono możliwe zastrzeżenia zgłaszane przez biernych obserwatorów rynku, które wciąż pozostają bez jednoznacznej odpowiedzi. W podsumowaniu przyjęto stanowisko pośrednie, nadające bitcoin status nowatorskiego wynalazku, który dzięki swojej hybrydowej naturze może być pierwszym krokiem do pieniądza przyszłości.
Penelitian ini menganalisis pengaruh Jakarta Stock Composite Index (JKSE), saham LQ45 (LQ45), Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA), Nikkei 225 (JP225),Indeks Dollar (USDI), dan Gold Futures (GC terhadap harga Bitcoin (BTC). Data pengamatan penelitian adalah data bulanan dimulai dari Juli 2013 sampai Agustus 2018.Sumber data berasal dari laporan index dan harga Bitcoin Investing.com.Teknik menggunakan Vector Error Correction Model. harga Bitcoin(BTC) sebagai variabel dependen, dan Jakarta Stock Composite Index (JKSE), saham LQ45 (LQ45), Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA), Nikkei 225(JP225), Indeks dollar (USDI), dan Gold Futures (GC) sebagai variabel independen.Hasil penelitian memperlihatkan bahwa Jakarta Stock Composite Index(JKSE), saham LQ45 (LQ45), Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA), Nikkei 225 (JP225), Indeks Dollar (USDI), dan Gold Futures (GC) memberikan dampak signfikan terhadap harga Bitcoin (BTC). Efek dari keseluruhan faktor bersifat moderat dan mengarah pada keseimbangan jangka panjang.
This paper is deeply motivated by the need to explore the impressive Bitcoin price development by addressing Bitcoin as money in its essential attribute as a medium of exchange. We adopt a monetary economics viewpoint and resort to a representative agent modelling strategy within a money-in-the-utility function (MIUF) framework. First, we show that the impressive Bitcoin price development observed since its inception can be interpreted as a hyperdeflation when we focus on Bitcoin role as a medium of exchange. Second, we show that specific monetary features of Bitcoin, its asymptotical fixed nominal stock and divisibility down to eight decimal places, account for a strong possibility of speculative hyperdeflationary paths. It is shown that those paths are fully consistent with the medium of exchange monetary role of Bitcoin and the representative agent optimizing behavior.
These days, the amount of digital health data is increasing. Legacy systems with privacy and security problems are used to store and share them. The blockchain technology appears as a disruptive solution to improve those systems. The main objective of this thesis work is to create a model based on the blockchain technology to securely store and share simple health assets. The days when blockchain was only related with cryptocurrencies, like bitcoin, are long past. Today, blockchain is considered an important technology to all applications that need immutable and traceable data, a cryptographic and distributed ledger and secure transactions. MedRec and Medical chain are examples of solutions, based on the blockchain technology, to manage health records that have been developed. The projected model describes a possible integration between MyXimi and a blockchain network. MyXimi users would be the terminals of the network. They will insert new health assets and get assets from the network. The network would consist of several distributed machines administrated by Compta. Those machines would store a public ledger of the health data transactions and all the sensitive data encrypted, always. As an application feature, management terminals would have access to anonymous health data for stats. To test the main features of the projected model it was created a demonstration system: XBlock. Within this system were used several methods to increase the privacy and security of the health data, such as, data encryption and data masking. XBlock was presented to a board of business and IT specialists, in Compta. In conclusion, XBlock proves itself as a true value to enhance the levels of security and privacy of health data when storing it and sharing it. As future work, is suggested the implementation of the propose model integrated with an health app. During this process, it’s important to improve the blockchain network, in terms of its performance and scalability.
The modern stage of the evolution of money is associated with the development of virtual economy as part of the global economic system based on interactive business on the ground of information technologies. The development of new forms of money is due to the activation and deepening of the information sphere and information society. Due to such conditions and the impact of technological innovation, economic science acquires a new meaning; significant changes take place in all spheres of economic activity, including the financial sector. The manifestation of such changes is the transfer of transactions into the electronic format, the emergence of new means of payment, the latest payment instruments and systems. The paper considers the main features of cryptocurrencies, with attention to the most popular and widespread of them - Bitcoin. Based on the expert survey and literature, the attitude of the central banks of foreign countries and the National Bank of Kazakhstan regarding the recognition and regulation of cryptocurrency have been analyzed, and conclusions about the prospects for using cryptocurrency in Kazakhstan have been made.
Eaman Jahani, P. M. Krafft, Yoshihiko Suhara, Esteban Moro · 5 authors
Participants in cryptocurrency markets are in constant communication with each other about the latest coins and news releases. Do these conversations build hype through the contagiousness of excitement, help the community process information, or play some other role? Using a novel dataset from a major cryptocurrency forum, we conduct an exploratory study of the characteristics of online discussion around cryptocurrencies. Through a regression analysis, we find that coins with more information available and higher levels of technical innovation are associated with higher quality discussion. People who talk about "serious" coins tend to participate in discussion displaying signatures of collective intelligence and information processing, while people who talk about "less serious" coins tend to display signatures of hype and naïvety. Interviews with experienced forum members also confirm these quantitative findings. These results highlight the varied roles of discussion in the cryptocurrency ecosystem and suggest that discussion of serious coins may be oriented towards earnest, perhaps more accurate, attempts at discovering which coins are likely to succeed.
We showcase a graph mining tool, BiVA, for visualization and analysis of the Bitcoin network. It enables data exploration, visualization of subgraphs around nodes of interest, and integrates both standard and new algorithms, including a general algorithm for flow based clustering for directed graphs, and other Bitcoin network specific wallet address aggregation mechanisms. The BiVA user interface makes it easy to get started with a basic visualization that gives insights into nodes of interests, and the tool is modular, allowing easy integration of new algorithms. Its functionalities are demonstrated with a case study of extortion of Ashley Madison data breach victims.
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.
In this article, we attempt to delineate the relationship between bitcoin prices and global factors such as stock index, economic policy uncertainty, gold spot prices, implied volatility and crude oil prices in a time-frequency domain. We resort to wavelet-based analysis to capture the multiscale interactive behavior of bitcoin with global factors. We primarily show that bitcoin is insulated from global factors in the short run. However, the existence of a significant relationship of bitcoin with global factors cannot be denied in the medium to long run, which could be attributed to the endogenous and intertwined economic system. Among the global factors considered in the study, we find the impact of economic policy uncertainty and crude oil prices to be more prominent on bitcoin. Our study offers some interesting insights on multiscale sensitivity of bitcoin to global factors, which may be useful for investors for taking informed decisions
The Bitcoin network is a complex network that records anonymous financial transactions while encapsulating the relationships among its pseudonymous users. This paper proposes graph mining techniques to explore the relationships among wallet addresses (pseudonyms for Bitcoin users) suspected to be involved in a given extortion racket, exploiting the anonymity of the Bitcoin network to collect and launder money. Starting around Bitcoin addresses of potential interest, neighborhood subgraphs are analyzed in terms of path length and confluence to detect suspicious Bitcoin flow and other wallet addresses controlled by the suspected perpetrators. We show with a dataset of the Ashley Madison blackmail campaign from August 2015 how the mechanisms can be used both to estimate the amount of money that was extorted by the suspected perpetrators under the specific blackmail campaign, and also estimate the amount of money handled by them during the same period of time.
With the vigorous development of blockchain technology represented by Bitcoin, blockchain technology has gradually surpassed the era of programmable currency and entered the era of smart contracts. Smart contracts are event- driven and stateful. With the in-depth development of blockchain technology, smart contracts use protocols and user interfaces to complete all steps of the contract process, allowing users to implement personalized code logic on the blockchain. Contract technology has the characteristics of decentralization, autonomy, observability, verifiability, and information sharing. It can effectively build programmable finance and programmable society, and is widely used in digital payment, financial asset disposal, multi-signature contracts, cloud computing, Internet of Things, sharing economy and other fields. First, it explains the basic concepts, full life cycle, basic classification, basic structure, key technologies, development status and main technology platforms of smart contracts; then discusses the application scenarios and development issues of smart contract technology, aiming to provide smart contract technology. The research and development provides reference.