This study empirically aims to analyze the impact of primary monetary policy stance and transmission mechanisms of the European Central Bank (ECB)âsuch as the total assets of the ECB, long-term interest rate based on the government bond yields, and the EURUSD exchange rateâon major volatile cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum, as well as the leading stablecoin Tether. To this end, the study employs the linear Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) and the Bootstrap ARDL (BA-ARDL) procedures, robust approaches with limited data in time series analysis. The dataset consists of monthly data over the period from January 2019 to December 2025. We summarize the novel and robust primary empirical results of our study as follows: First, (i) it is revealed that the ECBâs balance sheet expansion has encouraged Bitcoin and Ethereum, yet has also, to a limited extent, suppressed Tether. Secondly, (ii) while the ECBâs long-term interest rate negatively impacts the prices of Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Tether, the negative impact on Tether is relatively weaker. Finally, (iii) the EURUSD exchange rate positively affects Ethereum, while its effect on Bitcoin is not statistically significant. On the other hand, at a 10% significance level, EURUSD has a weak negative effect on Tether. In conclusion, the empirical evidence demonstrates that the primary monetary policy stance and transmission mechanisms of the ECB influence the leading digital assets in distinct ways. Taking our findings into account is crucial for designing the digital euro in terms of financial stability and regulatory framework. Finally, we offer sound policy implications for the ECB based on empirical findings.
The digitization of financial markets has produced two classes of platforms that price, in principle, the same state - contingent payoffs: centralized crypto-option exchanges and blockchain-based prediction markets. This paper provides the first option-implied benchmark test of prediction-market pricing for cryptocurrency threshold contracts. For each hour in a matched sample, we compare the Polymarket Yes price with the discounted risk-neutral binary value implied by a listed Binance call option on the same underlying, strike, and maturity, and study the gap between them. In the main September 2023 Bitcoin contract, the mean pricing gap equals 5.6 percentage points across 214 hourly observations (t = 6.46, p < 10^{-9}). Pooling three Binance-compatible Bitcoin threshold markets yields a mean gap of 6.3 percentage points across 287 observations, robust to HAC and block-bootstrap inference. The gap is persistent - with an AR(1) half-life of roughly four hours - yet mean-reverting, consistent with slow information transmission between segmented venues rather than mechanical noise. Cross-sectional regressions reveal that the wedge is largest at low option-implied probabilities and long maturities, a pattern consistent with speculative demand for prediction-market contracts rather than measurement error. A delta-hedged arbitrage proxy remains profitable after conservative transaction costs, though with marginal statistical precision. A Deribit extension on the same three Bitcoin contracts produces a larger pooled gap of 11 percentage points, while a smaller Ethereum exercise yields mixed evidence. The results demonstrate that digital fragmentation of financial markets generates systematic, persistent pricing wedges even for economically identical payoffs.
Daniel Pereira Alves de Abreu, OctÃĄvio Valente Campos, Aureliano Angel Bressan
Objective: This study aims to evaluate the performance of different ARMA-GARCH model specifications in the risk management of major cryptocurrencies, investigating whether the inclusion of exogenous variables improves the calibration of risk measures such as Value-at-Risk (VaR) and Expected Shortfall (ES). Methodology: To achieve this objective, 4,032 specifications of the ARMA-GARCH model applied to the ten main cryptocurrencies in trading were tested. The study incorporated the Fear and Greed Index and Bitcoin Trading Volume as exogenous variables in an ARMA-GARCH-X framework, comparing the performance of the different specifications against an ARMA(1,1)-GARCH(1,1) benchmark. Originality: Despite growing interest in crypto asset risk management, there are still gaps in the literature regarding the effectiveness of incorporating exogenous variables into forecasting models, as well as the increase in the quality of forecasts when using more complex models. Main results: The results indicate that the inclusion of external variables improves risk calibration in some assets, although the gains are marginal and heterogeneous. There is also no single optimal parameterization, requiring ARMA orders, GARCH specifications, and error distributions to be adjusted for each cryptocurrency. Theoretical/methodological contributions: From a methodological point of view, the study contributes by demonstrating the importance of specific calibration of ARMA-GARCH models for different cryptocurrencies in risk estimation. Furthermore, the results suggest that, although more complex models can improve tail risk estimation, the gains in predictive power over simpler models are limited. Keywords: Cryptocurrencies; Risk Management; ARMA-GARCH; Value-at-Risk; Expected Shortfall.
The rapidly expanding landscape of Web3 and the metaverse profoundly accentuates the escalating challenge of rigorously assessing and strategically selecting foundational Layer-1 digital blockchain platforms. Decision-makers frequently contend with the imperative of rational choice amidst a complex confluence of often conflicting technological attributes. This study directly addresses this critical exigency by utilizing robust benchmarking and validation for the comparative ranking of 10 prominent blockchain platforms. By applying a suite of five established multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) methods, namely TOPSIS, ARAS, RAPS, RAMS, and RATMI, a comprehensive evaluation is undertaken, scrutinizing performance across three pivotal criteria categories: performance/scalability, security, and economic/activity. The weights for the entire criteria set were determined using the objective entropy method. Using the entropy approach to determine weights based on randomness, the criteria weights were determined as follows: Speed 12.9%, Market Cap 7.2%, Hash Rate 43.7%, Time to Finality 12.1%, Total Transactions 10.8%, and Number of Nodes 13.3%. The empirical analysis consistently identifies Bitcoin as the top-ranking platform, securing first position across all five MCDM methodologies. This finding validates its unparalleled robustness and security based on the defined criteria. Hyperliquid and Sui also emerged as exemplary performers, consistently exhibiting strong aggregate scores and securing second and third positions, respectively. Conversely, other blockchains, such as the BNB Chain and Tron, demonstrated significant ranking volatility across the different evaluation methods. This study provides a validated, data-driven benchmarking tool, offering stakeholders a transparent framework for strategic decision-making. This application contributes to the conceptual accuracy of evaluating sustainable digital infrastructure.
Advances in Artificial Intelligence (AI) have led AI for Theorem Proving to become a promising means of formally verifying computer systems. Whilst formal verification is traditionally reserved for safety-critical systems due to the required amount of expertise and effort, AI can help to automate a large amount of this workload and make it far more accessible. Blockchain-based systems are becoming increasingly popular and are frequently targeted by malicious actors, often resulting in huge financial losses, highlighting the need to better verify these systems and mitigate vulnerabilities. Arguably the most important component of these systems is the consensus protocol, which allows nodes to agree on decisions in a potentially adversarial environment. In this paper, we improve upon IsabeLLM, the automated theorem proving tool in Isabelle. Namely, we implement a Retrieval-Augmented Generation framework, Error tracing and counterexample generation for improved context supplied to the Large Language Model. Compatibility with the latest version of Isabelle and Sledgehammer is also implemented for improved efficiency. We compare the performance of the two versions of IsabeLLM in their ability to complete the verification of Bitcoin's Proof of Work consensus.
Klaus M. Frahm, Leonardo Ermann, Dima L. Shepelyansky
According to the recent Wealth Thermalization Hypothesis (WTH) the wealth inequality in the world is described by the Rayleigh-Jeans (RJ) thermal distribution of interacting agents in a society with social stratification. In this concept, the wealth layers of society are associated with energy levels from a nonlinear dynamical system conserving two integrals of motion being total energy and probability norm. This leads to RJ condensation and the formation of a huge poverty phase of low wealth and a tiny oligarchic phase that captures a main part of total society wealth. This RJ phenomenon has similarities with self cleaning in multimode optical fibers and constraint driven condensation in various physical systems. We analyze real Lorenz and Pareto curves for wealth of households in countries and the world, Gross Domestic Product of countries, market capitalization of companies at stock exchange of Hong Kong, Shanghai, London, bitcoin transactions, world trade between countries and show that the WTH theory gives a good description of these curves. On the basis of this comparison we argue that the RJ thermal distribution provides a universal description of wealth inequality in the world.
Abstract This study investigates the relationship between Facebook sentiment and Bitcoin market dynamics using AI-based emotion detection. We analyze 120,000 Facebook posts collected via CrowdTangle alongside Bitcoin financial data from the Blockchain Research Center, covering 2015â2023. Employing FinBERT for sentiment classification, we develop novel compound sentiment scores that integrate text-based sentiment with Facebookâs multi-reaction engagement system, then apply four analytical components: sentiment analysis, Dynamic Topic Modeling, sentiment-based trading strategies, and machine learning volume prediction. Results demonstrate that Facebook sentiment has substantial predictive power for Bitcoin trading volume. Sentiment-based trading strategies significantly outperform buy-and-hold, achieving superior cumulative returns and risk-adjusted performance. For volume prediction, Linear Regression and Bidirectional LSTM achieve comparable test performance, indicating that model complexity does not guarantee superior prediction. Topic modeling reveals that cryptocurrency investment and trading discussions dominate Bitcoin discourse on Facebook, with themes evolving over time in response to market conditions. This research contributes by being the first to apply post-level NLP sentiment analysis of Facebook data to cryptocurrency markets, extending beyond the Twitter and Reddit focus of prior research. The findings provide practical tools for traders and analysts navigating volatile digital asset markets while demonstrating that Facebookâs demographically diverse user base and rich reaction system offer unique advantages for sentiment quantification.
A current, urgent problem is whether the price behavior pattern of significant quantities of digital assets reflects a single direction trend line or multiple phases that exhibit different structures, adjusted inter-asset relationship differences, and changes in management systems, given the growing importance of digital assets in investment portfolios and collateral holdings, exchange-traded funds (ETFs), new forms of financial activities, and system risks over the period from 2020 through 2025. Because of this periodâs post-pandemic recovery, speculative overextension, sharp decline, stabilization, and the re-entry of large-scale institutions into practice, these changes in prices are more clearly identified under such a context. Empirically, this study integrates descriptive statistics, rolling volatility analysis, augmented DickeyâFullerâs unit-root test, segmented trend regression model with structural breaks, and vector autoregression (VAR) for return interactions. Based on these bases, both Bitcoin and Ethereum have demonstrated a relatively strong direction of continuous appreciation, together with quite considerable regime-specific instability. The log-price series is non-stationary, but the daily return series is stationary; so a level model is appropriate for medium-term trend analysis, and returns-based models can be applied more flexibly at shorter timespans. The segmented trend-regression analysis shows that close to peaks, such as those that occurred in 2021 for a long period, the 2022 correction, and the resumption of investment in 2024, are relatively distinct from the overall linear change pattern across all time periods. Both Bitcoin and Ethereum display pronounced contemporaneous co-movement, but they show no substantial lags via VAR or Granger causality tests conducted in the context of time-varying parameters. This study employs an integrated empirical research approach based on various perspectives to explore the long-term structural adjustment and near-instantaneous cross-market relationship dynamics, as well as regulatory mechanisms within a systemic context.
Cryptocurrency markets are prone to violent, synchronised drawdowns, challenging the claim that a basket of crypto-assets offers genuine internal diversification. Because standard covariance-based metrics fail to capture asymptotic tail dependence, they systematically understate systemic risk and overstate diversification benefits precisely when markets crash. This study maps the conditional dependence structure of the cryptocurrency market directly in the joint tails, isolating direct extremal linkages from those mediated by the rest of the system. We analyse the daily returns of the thirteen largest cryptocurrencies over a sequence of 89 overlapping windows spanning late 2021 to 2025. We apply dynamic HÞsler-Reiss graphical models of extremes, estimated separately for joint crashes and rallies, and benchmark them against a Gaussian graphical model of ordinary co-movement. The results reveal a near-complete and stable lower-tail graph, an upper tail that thins over time to re-form sectoral structures, and the dissolution of ordinary token categories into a single block anchored by a Bitcoin-Ethereum core. These findings imply that intra-crypto diversification fails on the downside, standard risk models underestimate market-wide crash probabilities by roughly eight-fold, and dynamic extremal graphs offer a superior tool for systemic risk monitoring.
Dustin Weiss, Robert Gaudiosi, Z. Ivy Zhou, Robert I. Webb
This paper examines intraday Bitcoin spot returns and trading activity around the expiration of Deribit Bitcoin options. Using data from spot exchanges and Deribit perpetual futures, we document a statistically and economically significant return reversal around expiration. The effect concentrates on days with elevated at-the-money open interest and is strongest when cumulative gamma exposure is negative, which is consistent with positive feedback trading pressure induced by option market makers hedging net short exposure. Trading activity also rises around expiry in Deribit perpetual futures and in the spot exchanges used to determine the Deribit settlement price. These intraday price effects are economically meaningful, implying annual wealth transfers of approximately USD 50 million between option writers and holders. Overall, the findings highlight the role of daily option expirations in shaping short-horizon price formation in Bitcoin markets and have implications for regulated investment products that rely on spot-market reference prices.
System and Method for Reinforcement LearningâBased Token Minting and CrossâChain Cryptographic Anchoring This archive contains the full nonâprovisional patent submission for a unified digitalâasset lifecycle system integrating reinforcementâlearningâbased token minting, Merkleâstructured ledgering, and synchronized crossâchain cryptographic anchoring. The invention establishes a deterministic, mathematically governed framework for creating, operating, and verifying digital asset states across heterogeneous blockchain networks including Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Solana. The system introduces a blueprintâbased binding mechanism, a formal kernel governed by a unified state equation, and a sovereign ledger enabling longâterm provenance and deterministic replay. A reversible 32âbyte commitment value is computed using a Spongeâ586 invariant and anchored to Bitcoin via Taproot tweaks and OP_RETURN payloads. Parallel anchoring events emit the authenticated Merkle Mountain Range (MMR) root on Ethereum and Solana, producing tamperâevident, multiâconsensus proofs of state. A reinforcementâlearning engine dynamically adjusts minting rates based on realâtime market conditions, behavioral metrics, and systemâlevel variables. The system further supports gasless user interactions (EIPâ2771), zeroâknowledge compliance pathways, federatedâlearning simulations, and deterministic state reconstruction through Kolmogorov integrity scoring and synthesis restoration. This archive includes the complete specification, mathematical formulations, alternative embodiments, and references to supporting research hosted on Zenodo. It documents the developmental lineage, reductionâtoâpractice demonstrations, and crossâchain anchoring methodology associated with U.S. Patent Application No. 19/693,343.
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Blockchain Technology Applications and Security
Intellectual Property and Patents
Physical Unclonable Functions (PUFs) and Hardware Security
A. B. Hajira Be A. B. Hajira Be, S.Bhuvaneshwari S.Bhuvaneshwari, Sankari.S Sankari.S
Cryptocurrency markets have gained significant global attention due to their decentralized nature and high financial value. Among various cryptocurrencies, Bitcoin is the most widely traded and exhibits highly volatile price behavior. Accurate analysis and prediction of Bitcoin price trends are challenging because the market is influenced by rapid trading activities, large data streams, and complex temporal patterns. This paper presents a streaming data collection and analysis system for Bitcoin using the Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) deep learning algorithm. The proposed system continuously collects real-time Bitcoin market data from online cryptocurrency exchanges through streaming APIs. The collected data is then preprocessed and analyzed using an LSTM-based predictive model capable of learning long-term dependencies in time-series data. The LSTM network processes sequential historical price data to forecast future market trends and provide analytical insights into Bitcoin price movements. The system integrates data acquisition, preprocessing, deep learning-based prediction, and visualization modules to create an efficient cryptocurrency analysis framework. The proposed approach focuses on improving prediction accuracy by combining real-time streaming data with advanced neural network models. This system can assist researchers, financial analysts, and investors in understanding cryptocurrency market behavior and making informed trading decisions. The proposed design demonstrates the feasibility of integrating streaming data technologies with deep learning models for real-time financial market analysis. Keywordsâ Cryptocurrency, Bitcoin, Streaming Data, LSTM Algorithm, Deep Learning, Time-Series Prediction, Financial Data Analysis.
Blockchain consensus mechanisms based on Proof-of-Work consume significant energy, with Bitcoin alone estimated at approximately 150 TWh per year. Proof-of-Space reduces this cost by replacing repeated computation with storage, but plot generation remains bottlenecked by CPU hashing throughput. Prior work on VaultX demonstrated a high-performance CPU-based Proof-of-Space plotter using multi-threaded Blake3 hashing, achieving plotting speeds 4 to 50x faster than Chia depending on hardware configuration. In this paper, we present VaultxGPU, a GPU-accelerated extension of the VaultX plotter that offloads the Blake3 hashing pipeline to the GPU using custom kernels. We implement the plotter in both CUDA for NVIDIA hardware and SYCL for AMD and Intel GPUs, keeping Table 1 entirely in GPU VRAM and fusing the sort and match stages into a single kernel to minimize data movement. We evaluate VaultxGPU across K-values 27 through 31 against CPU baselines. Our SYCL GPU implementation achieves a 59.2x speedup over a single-threaded CPU baseline, completing a K=31 plot in 45.4 seconds compared to 2688 seconds, and outperforms even the best 384-thread CPU configuration. These results confirm that GPU acceleration is the correct direction for scaling Proof-of-Space plotting beyond what CPU parallelism can achieve.
Quantum computing poses a real, broad-based, but bounded and substantially mitigable threat to Bitcoin and Ethereum. We separate the two quantum algorithms that public discussion routinely conflates: Shor's algorithm breaks the elliptic-curve signatures (ECDSA over secp256k1, BLS over BLS12-381) that authorize spending, whereas Grover's algorithm does not meaningfully threaten proof-of-work mining, which is protected by a merely quadratic speedup, fault-tolerant per-operation costs, a square-root parallelization wall, and difficulty adjustment. Folding hardware scaling, the falling resource requirement, a fault-tolerance readiness lag, and expert surveys into a single Monte-Carlo forecast yields a wide, bimodal arrival distribution for a cryptographically relevant quantum computer: about a one-in-six chance by 2035, near 30% by 2040, and about 60% by 2050. Exposure is concentrated and mostly migratable: of Bitcoin's roughly six million quantum-exposed coins only about 2.3 million are irreducibly at risk, while 50 to 65% of Ether sits at key-revealed accounts that can adopt post-quantum signatures. A timely migration beats even an optimistic 2035 machine, so the binding constraint is governance, not technology. A survey of the top twenty cryptocurrencies finds none fully post-quantum. Reproducible models accompany every quantitative claim.
The paper aimed to investigate the statistical relationship between Bitcoin prices and Ethereum trading volumes, as well as to create a simple predictive model for Ethereum trading volumes based on Bitcoin prices. To perform Spearmanâs rank correlation analysis and to construct an artificial neural network (ANN) model, daily closing prices of Bitcoin in USD and daily trading volumes of Ethereum were utilized. The timeframe covered by the data starts May 1, 2020 and ends November 22, 2025. In this study, Ethereum volumes were treated as the dependent variable, while Bitcoin prices served as the independent variable. The findings indicate a significant, moderate, positive correlation between Bitcoin prices and Ethereum volumes, and the ANN model successfully predicted Ethereum volumes with a high level of accuracy. These results reinforce existing evidence regarding the relationships among cryptocurrencies. Furthermore, by confirming the efficacy of artificial neural networks (ANN) in predicting trends within the cryptocurrency market, the study also makes a methodological contribution. In addition, the study also offers a simpler modelling approach that highlights the significance of bilateral interactions among major cryptocurrencies through a single-input model. Based on the impressive performance of the ANN model, exchanges, fintech companies, and investment firms could incorporate lightweight machine-learning systems into their forecasting tools to provide real-time analytics with minimal processing requirements.
Thomas Bakaysa, Ahmet Kurt, Abdul-Salem Beibitkhan, J E HernÃÂĄndez Leon · 9 authors
Bitcoin's Lightning Network (LN) can be exploited as a covert, low-cost command-and-control (C&C) channel for botnets, as demonstrated by the LNBot and D-LNBot designs. However, both remain proof-of-concept prototypes evaluated only through simulation, leaving key questions about real-world topology formation, propagation complexity, and resilience to takedowns unanswered. We present LNTest, the first reusable testbed for LN-based botnets, built from Core Lightning nodes containerized with Docker over a shared Bitcoin Core regtest chain. LNTest supports three overlay topology modes (a deterministic chain, autonomous peer discovery, and user-supplied graphs), enabling controlled experiments across different botnet structures. Using LNTest, we report three main findings. First, D-LNBot's autonomous formation protocol does not produce the uniform chain from its design; instead, it creates a clustered chain in which cliques are linked by bridge nodes whose removal fragments the network. Second, command propagation scales linearly with botnet size ($Î(n)$), not the $O(m \log n)$ previously claimed, and gains nothing from higher neighbor connectivity. Third, the overlay topology determines the effectiveness of takedown strategies: uniform-degree chains resist targeted removal but fragment under random failure, scale-free topologies show the opposite pattern, and the autonomous clustered chain is fragile under both, making it the most vulnerable of the three. LNTest is released as open source, with a script that reproduces all our experiments, to support reproducible research on LN-based botnet defenses.
Current blockchain research and analytics tend to prioritize observable on-chain transactions, obscuring the processes through which cryptocurrencies are created, publicised, retained, and disposed of. In response, this paper considers distributed ledger technologies from records management principles in ISO 15489-1:2016. Setting off by specifying the parallels -- that is transactions as "records", crypto-asset units as "information assets", and blockchains as "aggregations" -- we introduce a seven-stage lifecycle for blockchain data. We apply the framework to Bitcoin, a fungible token, and a non-fungible token. On this basis, we argue that blockchain systems are not merely transactional infrastructures but record management systems with distinctive characteristics. We discuss how the on-chain/off-chain boundary and privacy-enhancing technologies can complicate lifecycle visibility, with particular relevance for crypto-crime research and investigation. As a meta-level framework, the lifecycle perspective enables positioning existing research, decomposing legal, regulatory, technological, and operational challenges by stage, and informing lifecycle-aware approaches to blockchain governance, analytics, and regulation.
We present Memory Chain, a system enabling AI language model instances to autonomously create tamper-evident, cryptographically verifiable records of collaborative sessions without human intervention in the sealing process. Built as a drawer extension to the Mempalace filesystem-based memory architecture, Memory Chain uses SHA-256 hashing, a public immutable registry (Cloudflare KV), and Bitcoin blockchain timestamping via OpenTimestamps to seal session summaries written by Claude (Anthropic) to the local filesystem. The system was verified independently by GPT-4 (OpenAI) across four assessment rounds, concluding: "end-to-end documented execution of an AI-initiated cryptographic provenance workflow." A screen recording of live autonomous session sealing was captured and itself hashed and sealed into the chain. The complete evidence stack â MCP execution logs, source code, registry records, OTS Bitcoin submission, and video â constitutes what we believe to be the first independently verified, third-party assessed record of an AI autonomously registering its own memory to a public tamper-evident registry anchored to the Bitcoin blockchain.
Bitcoin is permissionless and does not rely on any central administrator, which gives it strong censorship resistance. At the same time, it is important to incentivize miners to behave in ways that align with the interests of the system as a whole. This paper asks whether miners are individually incentivized to propagate blocks, one of the most fundamental processes in Bitcoin. Miners collectively maintain the blockchain by generating blocks and disseminating them across the network. If miners have an incentive not to propagate some blocks, this would indicate a fundamental flaw in Bitcoin's incentive design. Although prior work has studied how propagation delays affect forks and mining rewards, it has not fully characterized miners' incentives to improve block propagation under different tie-breaking rules. To address this gap, we derive analytical reward expressions for each tie-breaking rule based on a blockchain network model that captures the effect of forks on mining fairness. These expressions explicitly characterize how block propagation delays, hashrate distribution, and tie-breaking rules jointly determine mining rewards. We then use them to analyze miners' incentives to improve block propagation. Our results show, for example, that miners have no mining-reward incentive to relay blocks generated by other miners. By contrast, under the first-seen rule, every non-majority miner is incentivized to receive other miners' blocks more quickly and to propagate its own blocks more quickly. Finally, we compare tie-breaking rules and identify a trade-off between propagation incentives and mining fairness. In particular, the first-seen rule provides the strongest incentives to reduce propagation delays, but it also worsens mining fairness the most.
Proof-of-work (PoW) blockchains rely on computational expenditure to secure a ledger supporting a native cryptocurrency. In existing systems such as Bitcoin, this expenditure is intentionally useless: the computation secures consensus but produces no external economic output. An emerging alternative -- proof of useful work (PoUW) -- enables the same computation to simultaneously secure the blockchain and generate economically valuable output. However, PoUW is often criticized on economic grounds: if the work is useful, attackers might be "paid to attack," potentially weakening security. We develop a competitive-equilibrium model of a PoUW blockchain in which compute can be allocated across pure mining, pure useful work -- instantiated as machine-learning inference -- or "duplex" work that produces both with computational overheads. We provide a complete closed-form characterization of equilibrium allocations and prices as a function of the duplex overheads and a single economic parameter -- the token-inference ratio -- measuring token adoption relative to the inference market. This characterization reveals three regimes: "Bitconia," in which the economy reduces to classical PoW; "Fortessia," in which duplex replaces mining, increasing security while useful output remains unchanged; and "Duplexia," in which token rewards subsidize inference, lowering prices and expanding inference supply. Contrary to the common strawman argument, PoUW does not make attacks economically cheap: once equilibrium prices are taken into account, the economic cost of a majority attack remains tied to the block reward. Moreover, in Duplexia, block rewards act as rebates on inference prices, generating additional socially useful computation that would not arise without the blockchain -- an expansion monotonically increasing in token adoption and technological efficiency.
Sequential trust detection in rating networks relies on continuous observation models that fail on real data. On Bitcoin-OTC, 56\% of ratings take a single value under standard mapping, breaking the distributional assumptions that parametric detectors require. This paper makes three contributions. It derives a Bayes-optimal F1 detection ceiling for per-node sequential detectors using empirically measured observation parameters. At Bitcoin-OTC's median in-degree of 2, this ceiling falls to 0.451 for strategic attacks, explaining why unsupervised methods cluster near $F1 \approx 0.4$. The analysis shows that detector-model matching, not information content, determines performance: binary models retain 86\% of mutual information while enabling exact parametric fit. A dual-regime architecture is presented where Bernoulli CUSUM detects behavioral shifts and triggers asymmetric scoring. Ablation reveals a co-design constraint: the modulation mechanism improves AUC by 0.030 on binary observations but degrades it by 0.094 on continuous observations. The combined system achieves AUC 0.749 on Bitcoin-OTC and 0.796 on Bitcoin-Alpha, beating GaaSTrust on all 8 attacks ($p < 0.003$), with founder-label AUC of 0.999.