The approval and quick implementation of spot Bitcoin exchangetraded funds (ETFs) are a milestone in the mainstreaming of decentralized assets in conventional financial markets.Increasing market capitalization and institutional investor take-up of Bitcoin ETFs raise questions regarding their effect on market structure, liquidity, volatility, and financial system resilience.This paper investigates the differences between spot Bitcoin ETFs and conventional ETFs with respect to underlying assets, market characteristics, and regulatory complexities.Based on comparative analysis and a review of new academic literature and regulatory updates, the paper analyzes the effect of Bitcoin ETFs on market efficiency, institutional investor strategies, and crossborder regulatory responses.The findings reveal that Bitcoin ETFs enhance market accessibility, facilitate price discovery, and draw in institutional money but also increase market sensitivity and create new types of systemic risk via cross-market connectivity.This study offers an in-depth analysis of the developing role of Bitcoin ETFs and provides recommendations to regulators and institutional investors who are looking to reconcile innovation with financial resilience.
The rise of digital currencies has introduced significant challenges and opportunities for the traditional banking sector. This study investigates how cryptocurrency adoption influences the profitability and stability of banks in China, with a focus on the moderating role of government regulation. It examines the effects of both decentralized cryptocurrencies (e.g., Bitcoin, Ethereum) and the Digital Yuan (e-CNY), China's Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC), on key banking functions. Using a quantitative approach, data was collected through structured surveys and financial records, and analyzed using descriptive statistics, correlation analysis, multiple regression, and moderation techniques. The results show that while decentralized cryptocurrency adoption negatively affects bank profitability, CBDC usage strengthens financial stability by aligning with regulatory structures. Moreover, strong regulatory policies appear to buffer the negative financial effects of crypto adoption. These findings offer practical insights for banking institutions adapting to digital finance, and contribute to academic understanding of how innovation and regulation intersect in transforming financial systems.
Aijaz A. Shaikh, Galimkair Mutanov, Heikki Karjaluoto
The development of blockchain, metaverse, and digital payment technologies has pushed the boundaries of digital transformation even further—from financials to many other industries, most notably healthcare and education. Blockchain technology is widely recognized as a distributed ledger records transactions in a secured decentralized manner, thus eliminating the need for central control. Initially developed to support cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, blockchain’s applications have expanded significantly in recent years. For example, it enables the execution of smart contracts and secure data management in finance, supply chain management, and healthcare. Its innovative features like decentralization, immutability, transparency, and security make it a breakthrough in ensuring tamper-proof and reliable record-keeping (Beck et al., 2017). Blockchain also addresses privacy and security challenges, making it suitable for diverse applications from personal data processing in compliance with General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR) (Nofer et al., 2020) to Internet of Things (IoT) integrations (Ghiro et al., 2021).
As a distributed shared transaction ledger, blockchain technology has the characteristics of decentralization, immutable, irreversible and traceable, and is changing the inherent model of traditional industries. Smart contracts, as one of the core applications of blockchain technology, provide the basis for a variety of practical applications. However, the frequent security problems of smart contracts have not only caused huge economic losses, but also hindered the development of blockchain systems. According to relevant studies, the economic losses caused by smart contract security breaches have exceeded billions of dollars. Therefore, the security of smart contracts has become a hot topic at home and abroad. This study discusses the technical vulnerabilities and corresponding solutions of smart contracts from the code level. In-depth analysis of security vulnerabilities in smart contracts can help identify and repair potential security hazards, improve the overall security of contracts, and prevent the theft of funds or abnormal execution of contracts. By raising the security awareness of developers, enterprises and users, it is possible to promote the application of smart contracts in high-security fields such as finance and law and promote the healthy development of the blockchain ecosystem.
Communities that stretch across international borders struggle to resolve their members’ disputes. It is not a trifling problem. Distributed protocols such as Ethereum, EOS, and Dash host hundreds of billions of dollars in assets and handle transactions worth millions daily. Their members likely number in the tens of millions, scattered in unknown locations across the globe. Even the most successful of these communities have fractured over questions of how to interpret, apply, and amend their rules. The resulting “governance by hardfork” has generated skepticism about all things crypto – from currencies, to economics, to governments. Distributed protocols need a comprehensive, trustworthy, independent set of rules for resolving disputes. Ulex, an open source legal system, offers a solution. Its substantive and procedural rules can resolve the disputes of communities stretching across international borders. Its flag-free rules, drawn from tested and trusted private and non-governmental sources, define a wide range of legal claims and the procedures to follow in resolving them. This paper explains how Ulex can upgrade the governance of distributed protocol communities, describes current efforts on that front, and paints an attractive future of open source, non-territorial law.
In the modern digital age, personal and organizational finance management has become increasingly complex and vulnerable to data tampering, lack of transparency, and security breaches. Traditional budgeting systems rely heavily on centralized databases, making them prone to manipulation and cyber-attacks. To overcome these challenges, this project proposes a Blockchain-based Budget Tracking System that ensures secure, transparent, and tamper-proof financial record-keeping. The system leverages the decentralized and immutable nature of blockchain to store and manage income and expense transactions. Through smart contracts, users can add, categorize, and retrieve financial data, which is permanently recorded on the blockchain. The application provides a user-friendly interface integrated with crypto wallets (e.g., MetaMask) to authenticate users and facilitate seamless interactions with the blockchain. Key features include expense/income categorization, transaction history tracking, budget alerts, and visual analytics. By decentralizing financial tracking, the system promotes trust, accountability, and auditability, making it suitable for individuals, families, NGOs, and small businesses. This innovative approach not only enhances security but also empowers users with full control over their financial data. This project demonstrates the potential of blockchain technology in transforming conventional budgeting systems into transparent and secure decentralized applications.
Market sentiment in the cryptocurrency market is a crucial determinant of price movements and investment strategies. This study conducts a bibliometric analysis to explore the relationship between investor sentiment, behavioural biases, and cryptocurrency market dynamics from 2009 to 2023. Utilising a dataset of 5,184 records from the Web of Science and advanced bibliometric tools (Citespace, VOSviewer, and Nvivo), we identify key research trends, influential contributions, and emerging areas of study. Our findings highlight that investor sentiment, herding behaviour, and social media influence play significant roles in shaping cryptocurrency prices. Additionally, momentum and contagion effects emerge as dominant factors, underscoring the presence of psychological biases in cryptocurrency trading. This study provides critical insights into the evolving landscape of digital finance by mapping research clusters and citation networks. The results reveal key gaps in the literature, such as the need for further research on sentiment-driven contagion, the role of alternative sentiment proxies (Google Trends, Twitter), and cross-market influences. These insights offer valuable implications for academics, policymakers, and market participants by advancing the understanding of behavioural dynamics in cryptocurrency markets and guiding future research directions.
Elva Leka, Luis Lamani, Arjol Lule, Klajdi Hamzallari
This paper presents a novel framework designed to enhance the certification of real estate ownership and transactions through the integration of Ethereum blockchain technology, Near Field Communication (NFC), and smart contracts. The proposed architecture establishes a secure, transparent, and efficient digital certificate management system by leveraging immutable blockchain records, decentralized document storage via the InterPlanetary File System (IPFS), and NFC paper tags for effective physical-to-digital integration. The implementation employs encryption keys, Quick Response (QR) codes, and NFC tags to ensure data integrity and accessibility. A user-centric design has been developed to accommodate various stakeholders, including property owners, buyers, notaries, and land registry officials. This solution significantly improves upon traditional real estate transaction methods by facilitating end-to-end digital transactions, enhancing transparency and traceability, and substantially reducing the risk of fraud. By empowering participants to execute transactions and update records on a decentralized platform, this system fosters increased trust and operational efficiency within the Albanian real estate market. Furthermore, the design ensures compatibility with existing tax and payment procedures, providing a seamless transition for all stakeholders involved. The findings of this project aim not only to revolutionize real estate practices in Albania, but also to offer a scalable model for global implementation. By addressing the challenges associated with property certification and transactions, this innovative system contributes to a safer, more transparent, and efficient real estate environment. This framework is characterized by legal compliance, enhanced traceability, and robust fraud prevention mechanisms, ultimately paving the way for a modernized approach to real estate management in Albania and beyond.
The immutable nature of blockchain makes it challenging to amend or clarify smart contracts once they are deployed. In light of these challenges, new approaches to dispute resolution will be necessary to effectively manage smart contract conflicts. Alternative dispute resolution methods, such as mediation, may offer more flexible and tailored solutions compared to traditional court proceedings.
The rapid rise of FinTech innovations and digital banking has fundamentally altered the landscape of financial services, enabling unprecedented accessibility, efficiency, and customer-centric solutions. However, this digital transformation is increasingly entangled with escalating geopolitical tensions, which pose significant risks to global financial stability, cross-border payments, data sovereignty, and cyber-security. This study investigates how these geopolitical dynamics influence FinTech innovation and the security architecture of digital banks. Drawing on a mixed-method approach - combining case studies from major financial centres (e.g., EU, U.S., China), expert interviews, and quantitative risk modeling - we analyze the ways in which political rivalries, economic sanctions, and regulatory fragmentation drive both risk and innovation in the FinTech sector. We find that heightened geopolitical risk pressures banks to enhance their cyber-resilience, data governance, and regulatory compliance, while also accelerating the development of decentralized finance (DeFi), blockchain-based cross-border systems, and resilient infrastructure. Yet, these shifts are not uniform: smaller digital banks and fintech startups often lack the capacity to absorb geopolitical shocks, leading to a bifurcation in capability between well-capitalized incumbents and emerging players. Based on our findings, we propose a policy framework that balances innovation with systemic security, including multilateral cyber-risk intelligence sharing, harmonized regulatory sandboxes, and strategies for “geo-resilient” FinTech architecture. Our study contributes to a deeper understanding of how geopolitical risk shapes the future of digital banking and offers actionable insights for financial institutions and regulators seeking to secure the next generation of FinTech.
Juan Carlos López-Pimentel, Carolina Del-Valle-Soto, Leonardo J. Valdivia, Raúl Monroy
Immutability is one of the main characteristics of Blockchain. However, most software development is not static. This dilemma, among others, has caused a new branch of blockchain-oriented software engineering. This paper emphasizes the importance of the early phases of software development before deploying blockchain-based software. It follows case-based research to illustrate the implications of smart contracts designed in the early phases without including all requirements. The paper presents a digital identity case designed within a microservice architecture. We show two stages: an initial design and an upgrading requirement, which causes considerable changes in the architecture. The case is analyzed from three different perspectives: 1) Economic, finding that re-deploying smart contracts does not implicate considerable cost; 2) Computational perspective, finding that it generates various implications: smart contract purpose duplication, storage wastage, failure to recognize the original smart contract, cascade dependency repercussion, and migration problems; and 3) Interconnected effect, a simple change, required for upgrading smart contracts, generates broad collateral repercussions in both on-chain (within the blockchain) and off-chain.
The emergence of Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs) has accelerated the digital transformation of monetary systems, yet cross-border interoperability remains fragmented across national and regional implementations. This paper presents a technical model for a multi-CBDC ecosystem designed to enable seamless value exchange between sovereign digital currencies while maintaining compliance, settlement finality and monetary sovereignty. Drawing from comparative analyses of CBDC initiatives in China, the European Union and emerging economies, the proposed model introduces a bridge-layer architecture that supports both wholesale and retail CBDCs through programmable smart contracts, distributed ledger interoperability and standardized messaging protocols.
The rapid evolution of financial technology (FinTech) has significantly transformed the structure and function of financial intermediation, reshaping how financial services are delivered, accessed, and regulated. This systematic review examines the FinTech revolution and its implications for the future of financial intermediation by synthesizing findings from recent scholarly literature, industry reports, and policy analyses. The study explores key dimensions of FinTech innovation, including digital lending platforms, peer-to-peer (P2P) lending, blockchain-based financial services, robo-advisory systems, mobile payments, and decentralized finance (DeFi). Findings indicate that FinTech has enhanced efficiency, reduced transaction costs, improved financial inclusion, and increased competition within the financial sector by disintermediating traditional financial institutions in several service areas. However, the review also identifies persistent challenges, including regulatory uncertainty, cybersecurity risks, data privacy concerns, and systemic vulnerabilities associated with digital financial ecosystems. The analysis further highlights a gradual shift from traditional bank-centered intermediation toward hybrid financial ecosystems characterized by collaboration between banks, FinTech firms, and BigTech companies. The study concludes that while FinTech is redefining the role of financial intermediaries, it is unlikely to eliminate them entirely; rather, it is driving their transformation into more technology-enabled, platform-based entities. The review contributes to ongoing debates on financial innovation by providing an integrated understanding of emerging trends and their implications for policy, regulation, and financial stability.
Urooj Waheed, Muhammad Ahsan Khan, Yusra Mansoor, Huma Jamshed · 5 authors
In any democratic electoral system the fundamental right of every eligible citizen is to vote in order to elect the desired representative. However minimal efforts have been made to improve the voting mechanism. Many states are still utilizing paper based balloting systems, however technological advancements have led to the introduction of electronic voting machines (EVMs) to improve security and maintain public trust in the electoral process. Irrespective of these efforts, lack of transparency, low voter turnout, and susceptibility to vote rigging persist in these E-Voting systems. Blockchain technology is emerging as a solution to address these challenges by enhancing security and trust in E-Voting, effectively mitigating its longstanding issues. The transparency, immutability, and resistance to tampering provided by blockchain enhance the reliability and credibility of the voting process. This paper presents a decentralized E-Voting system that uses a public blockchain built on Ethereum smart contracts to ensure public accountability and transparency in the E-Voting process.
The increasing importance of emerging digital assets has created a multifaceted environmental challenge and opportunity. This paper explores one form of emerging digital asset, cryptocurrency (crypto), and the causal factors that drive its environmental impact. While cryptocurrency makes up a relatively small proportion of overall global electricity consumption (0.6 percent) and carbon dioxide equivalent emissions (0.2 percent), the electricity demand associated with its mining operations is growing rapidly. Its emissions profile surpasses that of traditional banking by a wide margin and, when compared on a climate damages per unit price basis, also exceeds that of gold mining by an order of magnitude. A scenario analysis reveals that cryptocurrency is set on an unsustainable path. The paper concludes with recommendations that include efforts to improve cryptocurrency's environmental performance and enable migration toward greater adoption of efficient algorithmic approaches; increased transparency of cryptocurrency mining operations through monitoring and reporting frameworks to promote grid stability and decarbonization; and investment that prioritizes the use of cryptocurrency for everyone's benefit.