Bitcoin it is digital currency used for any Electronic Financial Transactions, created in 2008 by Satoshi Nakamoto as Peer-to-Peer Electronic System cash. The precise prediction of bitcoin exchange rate with respect to the US dollar is an essential matter because it effected on the world economic constancy. Meanwhile the technology that used in Bitcoin has flickered a revolution in world. This paper aim to a survy on the use artificial neural networks to predict the exchange rate of a Bitcoin(BTC ) currency. https://doi.org/10.24897/acn.64.68.172
BlAsT is an efficient scheme for achieving certification of data continuity through a history attached to a public blockchain. The scheme guarantees the properties of linearity, non-equivocation, time-stamping and transparency. We discuss the implementation of BlAsT over the Bitcoin and the Ethereum blokchains, provide a techno-economic analysis to evaluate the costs related to blockchain adoption, and numerically assess the performance of the proposed architecture in terms of storage and bandwidth requirements. Results show that the above properties can be guaranteed with a small cryptocurrency payment. The proposed scheme can be used for IoT devices under the assumption that the device is able to either perform blockchain validation or delegate it to a trusted node.
Cryptocurrencies have been in vogue ever since Bitcoin first appeared in 2008. From that moment on, a new potential market started evolving and is nowadays a daily topic for everyone involved in the financial and monetary markets. Cryptocurrencies presented themselves as a viable alternative to traditional currencies, with a lot of new interesting features, but also several aspects that split the opinions between those who understand it as a great alternative for the future and the more skeptical ones who still question its legality and use. Nowadays, cryptocurrency is one of the most interesting topics in the financial markets due to all the controversy associated, as well as the public acceptance, responsible for the huge prices that these coins have been reaching. In this dissertation, we aim to analyze every aspect concerning cryptocurrencies. With the intention to clarify the most important details about this new market, all these details have been scrutinized, from the several different types of cryptocurrencies and its behavior, to the factors that have an impact in cryptocurrencies prices. Cryptocurrency is still a trendy and unknown subject to many people, and that was the motivation and the main objective of this dissertation, to clarify everyone about this topic before thinking of investing in any of these new cryptocurrencies.
This project was focused on designing a tool for optimizing complex transactions in a traditional bank accounts, Bitcoin wallet accounts and Bitcoin exchanges. The challenges include transference fees eroding the amounts transferred, Bitcoin volatility and arbitrage. The tool should support hundreds of accounts with each account identifi ed by a bank or exchange, and a currency. The basic user-case, we call it Debit Scenario, appears when an account consumes it capital and has very little funding (sink or demand account), then the user set a minimum funding for the account, and we need to balance all the accounts of the network, using many currency circulations though many paths to satisfy the specifi ed funding limits. Another user case, we called it Custodian Scenario, is when certain accounts (i.e. supply or non-custodians) has upper limit on the amount of capital so we need to distribute the excess value in other accounts (i.e. demand or custodians) of the network. The problem was modelled as a multi-commodity min-cost max- flow problem with specifi c constraints including arbitrage information, and solved with linear programming. Simple and complex numerical scenarios are presented too.
Bitcoin is part of a wider range of opportunities to creating cryptocurrencies based on blockchains. Research has shown that the existing cryptocurrencies are very volatile and often illiquid. A cryptocurrency endorsed by a Central Bank, as the starter of a private blockchain, will most likely show more stability. It may even take the form of legal tender. However, since almost all countries have their own currency already, the governments will not feel the need for an additional currency. One exception is Palestine. It enjoyed the privilege of having its own currency in the past. The purpose of this research is the evaluation of the feasibility of a cryptocurrency as legal tender. The authors recommend a new Palestinian Pound built on a private blockchain using Hyperledger. In practice it would not differ from any other fiat (legal) currency. The current weakness of not having its own currency could be turned into a strength by becoming the most advanced economy where transactions are transparent and efficient. This paper fills a research gap by analyzing the opportunities of a cryptocurrency that is actual legal tender and endorsed by a monetary authority.
Micael Ferreira, Sven Rodrigues, Catarina I. Reis, Marisa Maximiano
Bitcoin continues to get more and more attention from the media, mainly because of the volatility of its value and insignificantly associated with the technological innovation. This cryptocurrency is supported by an immutable database and is distributed throughout a network of thousands of nodes, known as Blockchain. One way to ensure that all the concepts behind the Blockchain technology and infrastructure are seized is to conduct the development of one of the most popular context applications for it: a wallet for well-known cryptocurrencies. Yet Another Bitcoin Wallet (YABW) is a hybrid application available for both Android and iOS, which was developed with the Ionic and Angular frameworks. This application communicates with Bitcoin Blockchain to send, receive and store bitcoins; provides a set of features focused on security and user experience, and is available on the Play Store and Apple Store. A rather relevant issue that is becoming a major subject of current research is the application of the Blockchain infrastructure to other contexts that are neither directly connected to cryptocurrencies, nor are finance related. The implementation of a proof-of-concept application proposes the use of a blockchain for a specific case study: the exchange of meal vouchers of an institution amongst students. This is achieved using the decentralized platform Ethereum, which allows us to create a Smart Contract using the Solidity programming language to create a token that follows the Ethereum Request for Comment (ERC), the ERC-20 standard and represents the meal vouchers. This second application uses the architecture defined for YABW, reusing major components and custom developing specific modules to enhance the required features. There is still a lot of research to be done on the non-financial applicability of the Blockchain infrastructure and technology, but for the moment, we have left further evidence that it is possible and is a relative straight-forward process to accomplish from the technological perspective.
The rise of popular cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum has increased the popularity of blockchain technology, the framework these cryptocurrencies are built upon. The security and access control that blockchain technology has provided for cryptocurrencies has peaked the curiosity of other industries, realizing its potential value and future outlook. In this paper, we analyze two types of blockchains, permission-ed and permission-less, and introduce a two-tier blockchain concept utilizing both types for secure data sharing. We provide background on the consensus algorithms used for each blockchain type, Proof-of-Work and Proof-of-Authority. Testing on both Mac OS and Ubuntu Linux-based system environments, preliminary results show that by increasing the number of miners in a Proof-of-Work consensus, there is a correlating increase in the total block count in a permission-less blockchain, where the rate of increase is dependent on the system environment. In the Proof-of-Authority permission-ed blockchain, the block count observed little to no change across both environments.
Uang elektronik menjadi pilihan yang mulai ramai digunakan oleh banyak orang, terutama para pengusaha, pebisnis dan investor, karena menganggap bahwa uang elektronik akan menggantikan uang fisik dimasa depan. Cryptocurrency muncul sebagai jawaban atas kendala uang eletronik yang sangat bergantung kepada pihak ketiga. Salah satu jenis Cryptocurrency yaitu Bitcoin. Analogi keuangan Bitcoin sama dengan analogi pasar saham, yakni fluktuasi harga tidak tentu setiap detik. Tujuan dari penelitian yang dilakukan yaitu melakukan prediksi harga Cryptocurrency dengan menggunakan metode KNN (K-Nearest Neighbours). Hasil dari penelitian ini diketahui bahwa model KNN yang paling baik dalam memprediksi harga Cryptocurrency adalah KNN dengan parameter nilai K=3 dan Nearest Neighbour Search Algorithm : Linear NN Search. Dengan nilai Mean Absolute Error (MAE) sebesar 0.0018 dan Root Mean Squared Error (RMSE) sebesar 0.0089.
In the Bitcoin blockchain, rewarding methods for remunerating miners participating in a pool have to meet certain requirements in order to guarantee the proper functioning of the cryptocurrency ecosystem. In particular, these allocation rules reward pool participants in proportion to their contribution in the transaction validation process. Deployed rewarding methods met fairness concerns at the expense of vulnerability to miners exploiting pools' attractiveness for deciding when to mine for a pool and when to `hop' to another one resulting more attractive: a phenomenon called pool-hopping. The most used score-based methods are designed to prevent this practice, but are not completely hopping proof. In this work, we propose a methodology to analyze the pool-hopping phenomenon, focusing on the detection of pool-hoppers. Analyzing those Bitcoin transactions that pools create for rewarding its participants, it is possible to determine time epochs where miners worked. Thus, we analyze those miners that have worked intermittently for pools adopting a rewarding system which pays out for each validated block. This evaluation leads us qualifying the miners that have hopped along with their hopping behavior and financial performance.
Pilar Grau Carles, Diego Jaureguizar Arellano, Carlos Jaureguizar Francés
In this paper we examine the characteristics of the daily price series of 16 different cryptocurrencies between July 2017 and February 2018. The methodologies used for the analysis are the so-called Minimum Spanning Tree (MST) and hierarchical analysis by dendrogram, both obtained Pearson correlations between daily returns. This methodology visualizes the market relationships between the assets analyzed, identifying a high correlation between price movements for all the currencies. In addition, it has been possible to identify Ethereum’s position as a benchmark currency in the cryptocurrency market, rather than Bitcoin, as one might expect, due to its popularity and trading volume.
Libing Fang, Elie Bouri, Rangan Gupta, David Roubaud
We assess whether the long-run volatilities of Bitcoin, global equities, commodities, and bonds are affected by global economic policy uncertainty. Empirical results provide evidence supporting that, except for the case of bonds. We further examine whether the correlation between Bitcoin and global equities, commodities, and bonds are affected by global economic policy uncertainty and the results reveal that global economic policy uncertainty has a negative significant impact on the Bitcoin-bonds correlation, and a positive impact on both Bitcoin-equities and Bitcoin-commodities correlations, suggesting a possibility for Bitcoin to act as a hedge under specific economic uncertainty conditions. Interestingly, the hedging effectiveness of Bitcoin for both global equities and global bonds enhances slightly after considering the level of global economic policy uncertainty. Implications for investors and policy-makers are discussed.
Bitcoin, merkezi otoriteye ihtiyaç duymayan, dağıtık ve dijital bir para birimi olarak, son yıllarda finans dünyasındaki popüler konuların başında gelmektedir. İlk dönemde Bitcoin’in finansal özelliklerine duyulan ilgi, zaman içerisinde Bitcoin’e hayat veren blok zinciri teknolojisine doğru kaymaya başlamıştır. Hemen her gün yeni bir uygulama alanını duymaya başladığımız blok zinciri teknolojisi alanındaki akademik araştırmalar sınırlı sayıdadır. Ülkemizde de gerek uygulama gerekse akademik anlamda yeterli sayıda çalışma olmadığını söyleyebiliriz. Bu inceleme, blok zinciri teknolojisini sistematik olarak gözden geçirerek, kullanım alanlarını, açık noktalarını ve gelecek beklentilerini tartışmaktadır.
Block Chain (BC), the technology behind the Bitcoin crypto-currency system. Blockchain helps Build Trusted, Powerful and Transparent Process with the potential to disrupt Intermediaries, Third parties & Expensive processes. Proof-of-Work (PoW), Proof of Stake (PoS), Proof of Authority (PoA), consensus algorithm plays a vital role in ensuring BC security by maintaining a digital ledger of transactions, which is considered to be incorruptible. Firstly, we explore top crypto currencies after that we will explore blockchain and mining concept. In further we will be exploring Ethereum blockchain solidity programming more and make DAPPs on Ethereum blockchain network.
This research is based on the phenomenon of new investment instrument called Cryptocurrency-Bitcoin which becomes popular in recent years. Based on that phenomenon, this research tries to search which is the best investment instrument from three instruments such as Bitcoin, stocks, and gold. The research method used is quantitative method with the type of research is comparative descriptive. In this study, the authors use Sharpe, Treynor and Jensen index approach to evaluate the performance. This study intends to do a comparison from the index using the data of the investment instrument in the period of January 2014 to August 2017. The study sample was taken from price result from every investment instrument during the period of study. The result shows that Bitcoin is the best instrument because based on Sharpe, Treynor, and Jensen value the return is better than the other two instruments.
Yongjun Ren, Yepeng Liu, Sai Ji, Arun Kumar Sangaiah · 5 authors
In this paper, the blockchain technology is utilized to build the first incentive mechanism of nodes as per data storage for wireless sensor networks (WSNs). In our system, the nodes storing the data are rewarded with digital money. The more the data stored by the node, the more the reward it achieves. Moreover, two blockchains are constructed. One is utilized to store data of each node and another is to control the access of data. In addition, our proposal adopts the provable data possession to replace the proof of work (PoW) in original bitcoins to carry out the mining and storage of new data blocks, which greatly reduces the computing power comparing to the PoW mechanism. Furthermore, the preserving hash functions are used to compare the stored data and the new data block. The new data can be stored in the node which is closest to the existing data, and only the different subblocks are stored. Thus, it can greatly save the storage space of network nodes.
This article looks at the application of present Indian payment system policies and regulatory model on virtual-currency in India. In fact, simply banning cryptocurrency in India would not serve the purpose of legislature and Reserve Bank of India (RBI); rather it will boost cryptocurrency frauds in India due to absence of any law. The present article analysis shows that there is an ample scope within the present models and policies with necessary amendments to facilitate the regulation of virtual-currency in India. The analysis also suggests new model regulation on cryptocurrency which shall constitute the basic model regulations in India to govern cryptocurrency technology and products. Author uses the Banking Regulation Act as a model, regulating all types of new fintech products such as cryptocurrency, Bitcoin & business activity, its intermediaries, exchanges, customer protection in robust and transparent fashion in India.
Lucas Kuhring, Zsolt István, Alessandro Sorniotti, Marko Vukolić
Permissioned blockchains promise secure decentralized data management in business-to-business use-cases. In contrast to Bitcoin and similar public blockchains which rely on Proof-of-Work for consensus and are deployed on thousands of geo-distributed nodes, business-to-business use-cases (such as supply chain management and banking) require significantly fewer nodes, cheaper consensus, and are often deployed in datacenter-like environments with fast networking. However, permissioned blockchains often follow the architectural thinkining behind their WAN-oriented public relatives, which results in end-to-end latencies several orders of magnitude higher than necessary. In this work, we propose StreamChain, a permissioned blockchain design that eliminates blocks in favor of processing transactions in a streaming fashion. This results in a drastically lower latency without reducing throughput or forfeiting reliability and security guarantees. To demonstrate the wide applicability of our design, we prototype StreamChain based on the Hyperledger Fabric, and show that it delivers latency two orders of magnitude lower than Fabric, while sustaining similar throughput. This performance makes StreamChain a potential alternative to traditional databases and, thanks to its streaming paradigm, enables further research around reducing latency through relying on modern hardware in datacenters.
Luís Pacheco, Bruno César Araújo, Fernando Oliveira Tavares
O presente artigo tem dois objetivos principais, o primeiro passa por examinar a Bitcoin nomeadamente as suas características e o segundo objetivo assenta na pesquisa da sua relevância em Portugal. A análise destes pontos é fundamental para clarificar este tema de elevado interesse à escala global e contribuir com dados atuais sobre a sua situação em Portugal. Esta pesquisa exploratória permitiu concluir que a Bitcoin apesar da inegável inovação e vantagens apresenta um número elevado de desvantagens e consequências económicas que merecem atenção. De acordo com os resultados obtidos no estudo empírico verificou-se que existe um conhecimento geral da Bitcoin e uma forte tendência para a sua utilização futura. Outro aspeto que merece ser salientado é o facto dos inquiridos acreditarem no potencial alternativo da Bitcoin quando comparada com moedas como o dólar, o euro ou o iene.
Yusuf Sani Abubakar, Ahmad Faosiy Ogunbado, Mpawenimana Abdallah Saidi
Bitcoin is a type of cryptocurrency and the most successful in blockchain management. It has become famous in recent years. The critical aspects of cryptocurrency are its legitimacy, source of money laundering, tax evasion, lack of regulation etc. The aim of this study is to explore the view of Muslim scholars on the legality of bitcoin with respect to Shariah. The study adopts doctrinal approach which utilizes descriptive approach of qualitative research methodology which relies on secondary data in form of text books, journals, newspapers, related websites etc. The study found that Muslim scholars are divided on the issue. A part of them completely rejected bitcoin and considered it against Shariah principles. On the other hand, some Muslim scholars believe bitcoin does not contradict Islamic principles and therefore may be used, however with certain conditions. The researchers tend to support the proponents’ view as most of the opponents’ grounds for the rejection are temporary in nature which may be covered through policy regulations.
Maria Apostolaki, Gian Marti, Jan Müller, Laurent Vanbever
Routing attacks remain practically effective in the Internet today as existing countermeasures either fail to provide protection guarantees or are not easily deployable. Blockchain systems are particularly vulnerable to such attacks as they rely on Internet-wide communication to reach consensus. In particular, Bitcoin -the most widely-used cryptocurrency- can be split in half by any AS-level adversary using BGP hijacking. In this paper, we present SABRE, a secure and scalable Bitcoin relay network which relays blocks worldwide through a set of connections that are resilient to routing attacks. SABRE runs alongside the existing peer-to-peer network and is easily deployable. As a critical system, SABRE design is highly resilient and can efficiently handle high bandwidth loads, including Denial of Service attacks. We built SABRE around two key technical insights. First, we leverage fundamental properties of inter-domain routing (BGP) policies to host relay nodes: (i) in locations that are inherently protected against routing attacks; and (ii) on paths that are economically preferred by the majority of Bitcoin clients. These properties are generic and can be used to protect other Blockchain-based systems. Second, we leverage the fact that relaying blocks is communication-heavy, not computation-heavy. This enables us to offload most of the relay operations to programmable network hardware (using the P4 programming language). Thanks to this hardware/software co-design, SABRE nodes operate seamlessly under high load while mitigating the effects of malicious clients. We present a complete implementation of SABRE together with an extensive evaluation. Our results demonstrate that SABRE is effective at securing Bitcoin against routing attacks, even with deployments as small as 6 nodes.
Cryptocurrency is a well-developed blockchain technology application that is currently a heated topic throughout the world. The public availability of transaction histories offers an opportunity to analyze and compare different cryptocurrencies. In this paper, we present a dynamic network analysis of three representative blockchain-based cryptocurrencies: Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Namecoin. By analyzing the accumulated network growth, we find that, unlike most other networks, these cryptocurrency networks do not always densify over time, and they are changing all the time with relatively low node and edge repetition ratios. Therefore, we then construct separate networks on a monthly basis, trace the changes of typical network characteristics (including degree distribution, degree assortativity, clustering coefficient, and the largest connected component) over time, and compare the three. We find that the degree distribution of these monthly transaction networks cannot be well fitted by the famous power-law distribution, at the same time, different currency still has different network properties, e.g., both Bitcoin and Ethereum networks are heavy-tailed with disassortative mixing, however, only the former can be treated as a small world. These network properties reflect the evolutionary characteristics and competitive power of these three cryptocurrencies and provide a foundation for future research.
The rapid proliferation of digital technologies with new functionalities has profoundly changed competitive environments, reshaping traditional business strategies and processes (Bharadwaj, Sawy, Pavlou, & Venkatraman, 2013). Such technologies also give rise to new ways of collaboration, leveraging resources, product/service design, development, and deployment over open standards and shared technologies (Markus & Loebecke, 2013). At the microlevel, digital technologies also reshaped the mentality of entrepreneurs (Domenico, Daniel, & Nunan, 2014) and hence affect their decision-making processes (Shepherd, Williams, & Patzelt, 2014). Digital entrepreneurship includes ventures and transformation of existing businesses by creating novel digital technologies and/or novel usage of such technologies. Currently, many countries consider digital entrepreneurship as a critical pillar for digital economic development. It is imperative to develop a fine-grained understanding of digital entrepreneurship. Traditionally, research on entrepreneurship seeks to understand “how, by whom, and with what effects opportunities to create future goods and services are discovered, evaluated, and exploited” (Shane & Venkataraman, 2000) and how entrepreneurial activities, processes, and outcomes are influenced by certain contexts (Zahra, Wright, & Abdelgawad, 2014). Despite the increasing numbers of entrepreneurs and businesses that are currently using digital technologies to pursue opportunities, research has lagged far behind practice and paid limited attention to the phenomenon (Grégoire & Shepherd, 2012). Particularly, the understanding about the role that digital technologies play in entrepreneurship and the role that users and agents play in digital entrepreneurship remains limited (Nambisan, 2016). Several review articles on entrepreneurship also clearly point out the gaps in understanding the novel usage of digital technologies by entrepreneurs (Kiss, Danis, & Cavusgil, 2012; Mainela, Puhakka, & Servais, 2014; Shepherd et al., 2014). Research in the IS field has a relatively long tradition of investigating entrepreneurial actions enabled by digital technologies within an organizational context (Bharadwaj et al., 2013; Sambamurthy, Bharadwaj, & Grover, 2003). However, only a few recent studies have shed light on the characteristics and design of digital platforms for entrepreneurial activities, such as crowdfunding (Burtch, 2013; Burtch, 2014; Zheng, Li, Wu, & Xu, 2014). The objective of this special issue is to provide a forum for IS and other business scholars to engage in this important dialogue on digital entrepreneurship and to contribute to the development of cumulative knowledge in this pivotal area. The selected articles address digital entrepreneurship from quite diversified perspectives with different methodologies and shed light on the roles of technologies. In particular, these studies reveal some interesting interactions among platforms, players, institutions, and agency and offer rich insights to guide future research on digital entrepreneurship. The study on “Digital Transformation by SME Entrepreneurs: A Capability Perspective” by Li, Su, Zhang, and Mao (2018) offers a special perspective to understand the transformation of SMEs in a digital ecosystem. This paper presents case studies that describe how seven SMEs have transformed from local, incapable small firms to active and successful cross-border e-commerce (CBEC) players on the Alibaba platform. From the authors' view, these Chinese firms were “least likely to embrace IT and complex digital platforms for foreign trade.” The miracle happened through dynamic managerial capability building, organization capability building for CBEC, and strategic changes. A key perspective to appreciate the paper is its exposition on how SMEs acquire capabilities through the Alibaba digital platform. While the authors rightfully focus on SMEs' acquisition of capabilities necessary for CBEC and beyond, a reader may as well appreciate how a digital platform plays a nurturing role in this process. Almost at every step, the platform goes the extra mile in motivating SMEs, providing hands-on training on the use of the platform, providing social networking and mutual learning among SMEs, building CBEC tools to overcome trading barriers, and motivating SMEs for strategic transformation. Therefore, the moral of the story is really not only about how individual SMEs became heroically successful but also about what a platform should do to build a digital ecosystem, with CBEC being an example. The authors call it the “management-oriented service” of the platform, which could be interpreted as the “nurturing,” “coaching,” and “scaffolding” roles of the platform. The intricate relationship between the platform and SMEs is what makes this case study different. A plausible explanation of this phenomenon is the Chinese business culture on relationships or “guanxi.” If so, this study offers an interesting contrast to the typical arms-length business relationship that exists between firms and a platform in the West. The paper, “From a Marketplace of Electronics to a Digital Entrepreneurial Ecosystem (DEE): The Emergence of a Meta-Organization in Zhongguancun, China,” by Du, Pan, Zhou, and Ouyang (2018), focuses on the digital entrepreneurial ecosystem (DEE) and, particularly, the role of the external environment, using a case-based approach. The paper reports on the findings from a single case study of an emerging DEE in China, often referred to as “China's Silicon Valley.” Meta-organizational theory is used to show that the emergence of the DEE involves the development of a meta-organization or “community.” The meta-organization comprises elements of labour (institutional supporters, coworking space operators, and niche players) and integration effort, which is concerned with the construction of a common infrastructure and the cultivation of an entrepreneurial culture. The study adds to the literature by providing a rich account of the emergence of a DEE and showing the importance of taking a community perspective in examining how the actors involved organize to exploit the entrepreneurial opportunities available through digital technologies. Given that much of the research on digital entrepreneurship is at the single firm level, this study makes an important contribution by examining the ecosystem and the meta-organization formation process. This provides a richly grounded basis for guiding entrepreneurs on the dynamics of a DEE and the roles and processes involved. Sometimes, digital platforms may pose negative challenges to heterogeneous entrepreneurship. The stigma of a digital platform is one of such challenges that might affect entrepreneurs and their ventures on the platform. The study by Ingram Bogusz and Morisse (2018), entitled “How Infrastructures Anchor Open Entrepreneurship: The Case of Bitcoin and Stigma,” brings a fresh perspective to understand the relational aspects of digital platforms by using an ideological lens to examine how a digital platform (in this case bitcoin infrastructure) is described and interpreted by open entrepreneurs and how such ideologically heterogeneous entrepreneurship responds to stigma towards bitcoin communities. The authors used a case study of the bitcoin community and entrepreneurs to reveal the possible ideologies held by entrepreneurs over bitcoin communities, ranging from mainstream, pragmatist, technologist to libertarian. Entrepreneurs with different ideologies develop different interpretations of the stigma towards bitcoin communities and hence respond in different ways. Financing is a critical issue for entrepreneurship, and crowdfunding offers a novel approach. Two papers in this special issue provide interesting and supplementary insight. The paper entitled “Sponsor's Cocreation and Psychological Ownership in Reward-based Crowdfunding” by Zheng, Xu, Zhang, and Wang (2018) addresses the topic of online reward-based crowdfunding. The study draws on data from a sample of individual crowdfunding investors in China. It focuses on how the sponsor's psychological ownership of the entrepreneurial project is promoted by their value cocreation process and leads to an improvement of the sponsor-entrepreneur relationship and commitment. Sponsor's cocreation positively influences psychological ownership by generating perceptions of control and intimate knowing about the project, which the authors showed as important mediators of the relationship. The study found that the relationship between sponsor cocreation and psychological ownership was moderated by the entrepreneur's activeness, as well as by social connections, implying that active involvement of the entrepreneur and sharing of information were important factors in enhancing the relationship. The paper makes an important contribution to a so-far neglected area of reward-based crowdfunding research by focusing on the postinvestment behaviours and relationships of sponsors and entrepreneur. By considering the role of sponsor cocreation on the relationship and the sponsor's ongoing commitment to the project, the paper provides useful insights into the psychological and behavioural dimensions associated with reward-based crowdfunding. The study by Thies, Wessel, and Benlian (2018), entitled “Network Effects on Crowdfunding Platforms: Exploring the Implications of Relaxing Input Control,” sheds light on the mechanisms that drive the evolution and growth of a crowdfunding platform. Using 8-year data from one of the most popular reward-based crowdfunding platforms, Kickstarter, the authors seek to answer whether, in such digital platforms, the platform growth is mainly driven by funders, entrepreneurial projects, or their reciprocal relationship. The findings suggest asymmetric network effects, in that increasing the number of entrepreneurial projects, as compared with the number of funders, contributes more to network effects and is more critical for platform growth. Hence, should losing input control, one of the mechanisms to increase the number of entrepreneurial projects, be a reasonable choice? The results show that both same-side and cross-side network effects would be compromised. The value in this research is to offer a useful way to understand the dynamics in digital platforms resulting from network structures. The selected articles investigate quite a diversified yet related set of phenomena in digital entrepreneurship and reveal the rich interaction among digital platforms, entrepreneurs, institutions, and investors. We believe these studies add great value to enrich our understanding of digital entrepreneurship and hope the exploration effort made by the authors in this special issue will inspire future research developments. Dr Kathy Ning Shen is an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Business and Management at the University of Wollongong in Dubai. She received her Doctoral degree in Information Systems from the City University of Hong Kong and was the Chairperson of the Management Information System Department at Abu Dhabi University. Her main research areas include human-computer interaction, applications of information systems in organizations, e-marketing, virtual communities, and knowledge management. She has published more than 60 refereed journal and conference articles. Her work has appeared in top refereed journals such as Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, Information & Management, Journal of Business Research, Communications of the ACM, Behaviour and Information Technology, Journal of Computer Information Systems, and Internet Research and top conferences in the field. Professor Valerie Lindsay is Professor of Entrepreneurship and Management, and Director of Graduate Programs (SBA) at the American University of Sharjah (AUS) in the UAE. She has a PhD from the University of Warwick in the UK. Prior to joining AUS, she was the Dean of the Faculty of Business at the University of Wollongong in Dubai, held academic positions at the Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand, the University of Auckland, New Zealand, and at the University of Warwick, UK, specializing in international business and strategy. Professor Lindsay's research interests lie in the area of international strategy, specifically, internationalization and market entry, SMEs, services internationalization, and business in Asia. Her work has been published in leading journals, including Management International Review, Organizational Dynamics, Industrial Marketing Management, and International Journal of Services Industry Marketing, and she coauthored the book Knowledge at Work. Before joining academia, Valerie was the New Zealand Marketing Manager for ICI Pharmaceuticals and also worked in two New Zealand government departments in the areas of trade and tertiary education. She has consulted widely in strategy and marketing in industry and in government over many years. Professor Yunjie (Calvin) Xu is a Professor at the School of Management, Fudan University, Shanghai, China. He received his PhD in Management Information Systems from Syracuse University, New York, USA. His research interests include electronic commerce, knowledge management, and social media. His research publications appeared in various information systems journals, including Journal of Management Information Systems, Journal of Association for Information Systems, Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, IEEE Transactions on Professional Communication, Communication of the ACM, International Journal of Electronic Commerce, Journal of Retailing, and Decision Support Systems.