Srinidhi Rai, Shamantha Rai B, Permanki Guthu Rithesh Pakkala, Prakhyath Rai
Abstract A blockchain is a continuously expanding list of documents known as blocks that are connected together via cryptography. A smart contract is a computer program that executes itself in accordance with the terms of a contract. In Traditional vaccine delivery systems, vaccine delivery information is not visible to all the supply chain entities, thereby prone to data tampering. Thus, transparency is the biggest concern in this system. In the case of the COVID-19 pandemic, the rapid launch of a vaccine and the implementation of a worldwide vaccination campaign is crucial, but their success depends on the availability of an operable and transparent distribution chain that all necessary stakeholders can assess. In the proposed work, we show how blockchain technology may be used to enable transparent tracing of COVID-19 vaccination registration, storage, and distribution and self-reporting of side effects by constructing a prototype using smart contracts.
This study examines the responses of Bitcoin and gold to categorical financial stress and compares the responses before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. The OLS and Quantile regression estimations revealed that gold and Bitcoin exhibit similar reactions in full and pre COVID-19 samples. Gold and Bitcoin respond positively to equity valuation and safe assets categories of financial stress. Gold also reacts positively to the credit category of financial stress suggesting that widening credit spreads are bullish for gold. Bitcoin and gold respond differently in the funding category, and there is no significant reaction to volatility-related financial stress. Overall, the effects of categorical financial stress on gold and Bitcoin are similar in the full sample and sub-sample before COVID-19, but the effects are heterogeneous. Interestingly, during the pandemic, the reactions of gold and Bitcoin to categorical financial stress have changed. Gold only reacts positively to the credit category of financial stress across quantiles. Bitcoin reacts positively to credit and safe asset categories but not across all quantiles. The findings offer insights into the effects of several systemic financial stress on the value of safe haven assets.
The coronavirus pandemic occurred in 2019 and caused an impact on cryptocurrencies. This paper focuses on the relation between the return of cryptocurrencies and the new daily confirmed cases of COVID-19 worldwide, taking Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Tether as three examples. It is shown that the new daily cases have a significant influence on Bitcoin and Ethereum. And the short-term impact of new global confirmed cases on Bitcoin is positive, then remains volatile and eventually disappears. The different phenomena show that different cryptocurrencies have reacted differently to the pandemic impact.
Ruzita Abdul‐Rahim, Airil Khalid, Zulkefly Abdul Karim, Mamunur Rashid
This paper estimates the comovement between two leading cryptocurrencies and the G7 stock markets. It then attempts to explain the comovement with the rational investment theory by examining whether it is driven by market uncertainty measures, public attention to COVID-19, and the government’s containment and health responses to COVID-19. Wavelet Coherence heatmaps show that the stock-cryptocurrency comovements increase significantly and positively during the pandemic, indicating that cryptocurrencies lose their safe haven properties against stocks during the heightened market uncertainties. Over the longer investment horizons, Bitcoin reemerges as a safe haven or strong hedger while Ethereum’s properties weaken. Seemingly Unrelated Regression results reveal that the stock-cryptocurrency comovements are rationally explained by market uncertainties, government responses to COVID-19, and market fundamentals. However, the comovements are also driven by the fear of COVID-19 to a certain extent. Our findings offer valuable insights for investors considering cryptocurrencies to rebalance their equity portfolios during market distress. For policymakers, the Economic Policy Uncertainty (EPU) results suggest that government policies and regulatory frameworks can be used to regulate speculation and investment activities in the cryptocurrency market.
It is well known that the introduction of Blockchain in the agri-food sector represents a digital innovation aimed at increasing business income through the reduction of production inputs (and therefore of production costs expressed at constant prices) and/or the increase of output (increase in the quantity produced and therefore in revenues expressed at constant prices). According to Schumpeter, innovation and entrepreneurship mainly depend on innovative people, their skills and knowledge. In fact, digital innovation is always aimed at increasing the competitiveness of the company and can concern an improvement in technical and economic efficiency. On an existing company structure, efficiency concerns an optimization of the variable production factors to be used in the production process (reduction of variable costs: example quantity of water used; quantity of fertilizers to be used according to seasonal trends; quantity of pesticides to be used) which have repercussions on the structure of the cost of production and therefore positive effects on the net income of the entrepreneur. In the present study after examining the economic theory of innovation, through the theory of value examined why agri-food companies should adopt innovations such as the Blockchain. The study highlights that digital innovations can be implemented by entrepreneurs according to company size and with a view to increasing the value of production and that the affirmation of innovation requires long periods of time.
In this paper, we investigate the relationship between the RavenPack news-based index associated with coronavirus outbreak (Panic, Sentiment, Infodemic, and Media Coverage) and returns of two commodities—Bitcoin and gold. We utilized the novel quantile-on-quantile approach to uncover the dependence between the news-based index associated with coronavirus outbreak and Bitcoin and gold returns. Our results reveal that the daily levels of positive and negative shocks in indices induced by pandemic news asymmetrically affect the Bearish and Bullish on Bitcoin and gold, and fear sentiment induced by coronavirus-related news plays a major role in driving the values of Bitcoin and gold more than other indices. We find that both commodities, Bitcoin and gold, can serve as a hedge against pandemic-related news. In general, the COVID-19 pandemic-related news encourages people to invest in gold and Bitcoin.
There have been increasing concerns regarding the cryptocurrency market for several reasons, regarding its decentralized system, and impact on the current financial market. Thus, the introduction of a regulated cryptocurrency market has sparked the public’s interest. This research study aimed to evaluate Indian respondents’ knowledge of cryptocurrencies and their receptivity (on the basis of several factors) towards the introduction of a regulated cryptocurrency market in India by conducting an online survey using a mixed-method research approach. Among the eight different factors examined, the study found the level of liquidity to be the highest-rated factor amongst respondents in influencing their receptivity. This finding suggests that the Indian public prefers a fast-flowing and smooth trading market, like the cryptocurrency market. Another top-rated factor was the level of security, possibly due to the increasing concern of cyberattacks in the financial markets.
 Conversely, anonymous usage, inflation risk, and operation cost were the least influential, highlighting the Indian public’s unique characteristics. Data revealed that respondents who were finance professionals and had IT experience were generally more receptive to the idea of a regulated cryptocurrency market in India. As a result, additional nuanced marketing strategies targeted at different sectors, especially the finance and IT sectors, as identified through the results include: introducing a regulated cryptocurrency market to the Indian public by highlighting their concern for the level of security and attracting them by highlighting how its regulation by authorities would keep in check the threats it poses.
Marcel C. Minutolo, Werner Kristjanpoller, Prakash L. Dheeriya
The importance of cryptocurrency to the global economy is increasing steadily, which is evidenced by a total market capitalization of over $2.18T as of December 17, 2021, according to coinmarketcap.com (Coin, 2021). Cryptocurrencies are too confusing for laymen and require more investigation. In this study, we analyze the impact that the effective reproductive rate, an epidemiological indicator of the spread of COVID-19, has on both the price and trading volume of eight of the largest digital currencies-Bitcoin, Ethereum, Tether, Ripple, Litecoin, Bitcoin Cash, Cardano, and Binance. We hypothesize that as the rate of spread decreases, the trading price of the digital currency increases. Using Generalized Autoregressive Conditional Heteroskedasticity models, we find that the impact of the spread of COVID-19 on the price and trading volume of cryptocurrencies varies by currency and region. These findings offer novel insight into the cryptocurrency market and the impact that the viral spread of COVID-19 has on the value of the major cryptocurrencies.
This paper examines the diversification role of socially responsible investments (SRI) during the COVID-19 pandemic. To assess the contribution to risk diversification and improved financial performance of SRI we analyze the effect of including clean energy equities in portfolios of conventional equities and other assets commonly considered as safe havens. We construct minimum variance portfolios for different rebalancing frequencies and by considering or restricting short positions. Two approaches are applied: AR-GARCH models to fit the marginal distributions of individual assets and DCC skew Student copula specifications to model the conditional dependencies among pairs via the Kendall's tau correlation measure. We provide evidence of the important role that SRI have played in diversifying and improving the financial performance of portfolios based on different securities such as traditional equities, Treasury bonds, gold, crude oil and Bitcoin.
The purpose of the article is to describe the state of the financial market during and after the COVID-19 pandemic. The financial environment is facing new questions about the future, one of which concerns the role played by cryptocurrencies in the coming years. In recent years the cryptocurrency market has been experiencing spectacular growth, with more than 5,500 cryptocurrencies now in existence worldwide. They can either be used as safe haven currencies that provide protection against market volatility or as a payment system with the prospect of consolidation. Whatever the case may be, the pandemic circumstances favour the development of these digital assets. The crisis generated by the pandemic has also affected the value of bitcoin, which has been quite volatile. While it seems to be recovering, the near future is uncertain. The uncertainty brought about by the coronavirus health crisis has caused a general collapse in the stock markets. In this context, the authors review the behaviour of bitcoin, with its dips and recoveries, which can occur in a matter of a few hours. The first months of national lockdowns were mainly marked by social issues. When social distancing has become the norm, cryptocurrencies can play a bigger role than they did previously, driving the evolution of money away from cash in the direction of cashless society.
This study examines the effects of the epidemic and the price bubble on the effectiveness of the cryptocurrency market. In this Research, We collect the daily closing price of 5 cryptocurrencies from https://coinmarketcap.com/. The data was taken from 01 September 2017 to 14 December 2021 with a total data or sample of 1231 daily data from each currency or a total of 6155 samples from a total of all tested currencies. The five cryptocurrencies are Litecoin (LTC), Cardano (ADA), Ethereum (ETH), Ripple (XRP), and Bitcoin (BTC). To measure market inefficiency we use magnitude market inefficiency (MIM) and the study by Le Tran and Leirvik (2019) is used to establish the adjusted magnitude of market inefficiency (AMIM). In this study AMIMt is calculated on a daily frequency by using the daily closing price as the basis for calculation.We found that the three periods of the cryptocurrency bubble in the cryptocurrency market occurred in late 2017, early 2018, and July 2020. The cryptocurrency financial bubble had a lesser impact than the announcement of a worldwide pandemic being declared for COVID-19 on March 11, 2020. It is very likely that a bubble will occur during July 2020 related to the declaration that COVID-19 is a pandemic of global scope.
The Covid-19 crisis, or even the restrictions, quarantines, and lifestyle changes that it brought, occurred in the year 2020. Economic statistics mentioned the effects of the crisis. Stock exchanges around the world, for example, have experienced substantial collapses, leading in a drop in the value of various individuals' assets. During the Covid-19 crisis, this master's study attempts to understand the utility of cryptocurrencies for hedging and safe haven objectives. It's difficult to make consistent conclusions about the suitability of cryptocurrencies for hedging against financial market risks based on existing research. Previous results have varied greatly based on the model utilized, the time period, and the asset risk hedged. Usability for hedging purposes varies in general. In this study, we wrote an article based on the most popular cryptocurrencies in the world and their development mechanisms, history and other facts. The article also discusses the role and importance of cryptocurrencies as a means of payment in the future. Keywords: cryptocurrency, covid-19 crisis, bitcoin, ethereum, blockchain technology
Cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology are increasingly loved, especially the COVID-19 pandemic sweeping the world. Some people choose to trade, invest, or mine using cryptocurrency because it is considered practical and able to generate fantastic profits. This article was written to analyze the prospects and implications of using cryptocurrency as a currency. To explore and describe the prospects and implications of cryptocurrency as a currency, a study was conducted with a literature review approach from secondary sources regarding the reasons for the prohibition of cryptocurrencies, the instability of crypto values, and without a clear underlaying of assets. Furthermore, the study in this article is expected to be able to explain the advantages and disadvantages of cryptocurrencies as well as alternative efforts in creating a stable and fair world currency
Dewi Prihatini, Danang Sudarso Widya Prakoso Joyo Widakdo
The study determines the relationship between demographic factors and personality traits with the performance of cryptocurrency traders. The research data is obtained from 100 cryptocurrency traders using the quota sampling method, correlational, with a quantitative approach. This study applies the Chi-square test to examine the relationship of demographic factors with performance and the Rank-Spearman test for the relationship of personality traits with performance. The results found that demographic characteristics (gender, age, length of trading) were positively associated with performance. Furthermore, personality traits (extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, neuroticism, openness to experience) have negative and insignificant influences on the performance of cryptocurrency traders.
In this paper, we investigate the role of Bitcoin as a safe haven against the stock market losses during the spread of COVID-19. The performed analysis was based on a regression model with dummy variables defined around some crucial dates of the pandemic and on the dynamic conditional correlations. To try to model the real dynamics of the markets, we studied the safe-haven properties of Bitcoin against thirteen of the major stock market indexes losses using daily data spanning from 1 July 2019 until 20 February 2021. A similar analysis was also performed for Ether. Results show that this pandemic impacts on the Bitcoin status as safe haven, but we are still far from being able to define Bitcoin as a safe haven.
At the end of 2019, the COVID-19 pandemic that originated from Wuhan - China has become a serious global problem. China implemented a policy of isolation, social distancing, and mass vaccination among the population, and simultaneously its stock market recorded a remarkable growth in 2020 and 2021. Using the time-series data in the period from January 22, 2020, to March 24, 2021, the method of non-linear autoregressive distributed lags (NARDL) model is used to assess the impact of the pandemic on the Shanghai stock market. The research results show that there has been no impact of the pandemic on the Shanghai stock market both in the short and long terms. As for the impact of cryptocurrencies, there is an impact of cryptocurrencies on the stock market in the short term, specifically, a decrease in the price of the bitcoin-related cryptocurrency has significantly increased the Shanghai stock market. Further, there has been no impact between bitcoin-related cryptocurrencies and the stock market in the long term.
A cryptocurrency is a form of digital payment that does not rely on banks to validate transactions. It’s a peer-to-peer payment system that allows anyone from anywhere to send and receive money. Digital currency is the future of finance. India has huge rapid growth opportunities in cryptocurrency adoption. The objective of the study is to understand the growth of cryptocurrency over the year and to compare the conventional investment avenues with the cryptocurrency and SWOT analysis for future prospective of cryptocurrency in India. In India around 20 million active users of cryptocurrency. From July 2020 to June 2021 cryptocurrency market raised 640%in India. During this period from total digital currency transactions from Southern Asia, 42% is coming from the Indian market which is about $10 million. A comparative analysis of conventional investment avenues with cryptocurrency shows that Indian investors still prefer to invest in conventional investment avenues. The reason behind this, a lack of information, security issues, and no regulations for cryptocurrency are seen. SWOT analysis shows that in the Indian market due to a decentralized system, no mediate intervention, low transaction cost, the worldwide accessibility adoption rate is high. The major barrier for cryptocurrency's major weaknesses and threats are highly volatile market, security threats, black marketing, no regulations, threats associated with unknown identity. Still Indian cryptocurrency market is huge, and growth is high in the future.
S. K. Joshi, Manu Sharma, Rashmi Prava Das, Kamalakanta Muduli · 8 authors
The COVID-19 pandemic has affected more than 214 countries across the world, disrupting the supply of essential commodities. As the pandemic has spread, humanitarian activities (HAs) have attempted to manage the various situation but appear ineffective due to lack of collaboration and information sharing, inability to respond towards disruption, etc. This study aims to determine and provide insights into the critical factors that may enhance the effectiveness of HAs during the pandemic. A systematic literature review was undertaken to explore critical factors and validated by experts using the fuzzy–Delphi method. These were further assessed to identify the cause-and-effect relationship by means of the fuzzy decision-making trial and laboratory (DEMATEL) method. The results show that building a blockchain-enabled digital humanitarian network (BT-DHN) is the most significant factor during the pandemic. The use of digital platforms for sharing real-time information enhances the effectiveness of HAs. This study offers stakeholders, policymakers, and decision-makers the opportunity to consider these factors in strategic planning to deal with pandemic disruption.
The uncertainty due to the COVID-19 outbreak has encouraged investors to look for value hedging instruments to minimize risk, which can be in the form of hedging assets or safe-haven assets. In response to it, this study aims to find out whether Bitcoin, Ethereum, and gold can behave as hedging and safe-haven assets before and amid the pandemic in Indonesia. The strategy is by observing the effects of volatility and return of Bitcoin, Ethereum, and gold on the Indonesian stock market. This study employed both quantile regression and simple linear regression models on data of daily closing price taken before and during COVID-19. This study finds that they can be hedge and safe-haven assets during the COVID-19 pandemic in Indonesia. The findings show some significant correlations between assets that can help investors determine which assets can be hedging instruments.
Yuriy Kamenivskyy, Abhinav Palisetti, Layal Hamze, Sara Saberi
The COVID-19 vaccine distribution chain faced multiple challenges associated with the lack of production capacity, security issues, and miscommunication between different actors. Blockchain technology has been shown to solve the security and miscommunication issues in other industries. We first identify distribution chain challenges via literature reviews and primary interviews. Case studies that solved these challenges in other industries also served as a source. This information allowed us to devise a blockchain framework for the vaccine distribution chain and evaluate its application feasibility. We present the framework using data flow diagrams. The proposed framework helps minimize the circulation of counterfeit vaccines and vaccination records, improves communication between stakeholders in the distribution chain, increases supply chain security, and simplifies vaccine inventorying and handling processes.