In cryptocurrency markets, credibility may be created before it can be verified. Promotional signals from influencers, online communities, exchanges, and project actors can create an impression of legitimacy before consumers are able to independently assess the quality, risks, or underlying value of the asset. This systematic review examines how promotional activity contributes to this condition and how the literature connects it with ethical concerns, consumer consequences, and governance. Following PRISMA 2020, 54 empirical studies published between 2019 and 2025 were identified through Scopus and analyzed using thematic synthesis. The findings indicate that promotion is distributed across social media, influencers, communities, exchanges, and project actors, making the boundary between marketing, personal opinion, and financial advice difficult to maintain. Ethical problems arise not only from fraud, but also from selective information, hidden incentives, artificial attention, and market signals that give uncertain assets an appearance of legitimacy. Consumer vulnerability is similarly situational. Knowledge and experience may offer some protection, but trust, technological complexity, social influence, and speculative expectations continue to shape judgement. Regulatory and educational responses remain fragmented because responsibility is dispersed across actors and jurisdictions. The review connects these relationships through an ethical marketing cycle that conceptually organizes how ethical concerns may develop across communication, market activity, consumer interpretation, and governance. This perspective extends ethical marketing beyond the accuracy of individual claims and locates responsibility within the structures through which cryptocurrency credibility is produced. The review is limited by its reliance on Scopus and the absence of a formal risk-of-bias assessment of the included studies.
Yaning Zhang, Wei Shao, Mai Nguyen, Kun Zhang · 5 authors
ABSTRACT Destinations are increasingly adopting Non‐Fungible Tokens (NFTs) as innovative tools for brand communication and visitor engagement in digital tourism contexts. Drawing on Construal Level Theory (CLT), we examine how the anthropomorphic (ANT) design of NFT characters influences tourists' impulsive travel intentions and whether customization strengthens this effect. In two online experiments, we tested a sequential mediation model linking ANT to impulsive travel intention through psychological distance (PD) and perceived playfulness. The results show that highly anthropomorphic NFT characters increase psychological proximity, which subsequently increases impulsive travel intentions. Moreover, customization significantly strengthens this indirect effect. This study extends research on digital destination marketing while offering practical guidance for designing effective NFT‐based tourism strategies.
R. Priyadharsini, Ravikanth Reddy Vadamala, R. Raajalakshmi, K. Raghav Prasad · 5 authors
The rapid transformation of global business environments driven by digitalization, technological advancement, changing consumer expectations, and competitive market dynamics has significantly altered traditional marketing practices and strategic business operations. Organizations operating in highly dynamic economic ecosystems are increasingly recognizing that conventional marketing frameworks alone are insufficient to sustain long-term growth, customer engagement, and market relevance. In this context, innovation-driven marketing models have emerged as a critical strategic approach that integrates creativity, data intelligence, technological innovation, customer-centric design, and adaptive business strategies to enhance organizational competitiveness and sustainable value creation. This research examines the growing significance of innovation-driven marketing models and their influence on consumer behavior, brand positioning, digital engagement, operational efficiency, and business sustainability across modern industries. The study explores how emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence, machine learning, big data analytics, blockchain, cloud computing, augmented reality, and social media ecosystems are transforming traditional marketing processes into highly personalized, predictive, and experience-oriented systems capable of responding to rapidly evolving market demands. The research further investigates how innovation-oriented marketing strategies support product differentiation, dynamic pricing, omnichannel communication, customer relationship management, and real-time market responsiveness in both online and offline commercial environments. Particular emphasis is placed on the role of innovation in enhancing customer engagement through interactive digital platforms, data-driven personalization, automated communication systems, influencer-based branding strategies, and experiential marketing campaigns. The study also evaluates how organizations leverage innovative business models to improve customer retention, market expansion, and strategic decision-making while simultaneously addressing challenges related to market uncertainty, consumer trust, technological adaptation, and ethical data utilization. A comparative assessment of traditional marketing approaches and innovation-driven marketing frameworks demonstrates that organizations adopting innovation-centric strategies experience stronger consumer loyalty, improved operational agility, enhanced brand visibility, and higher adaptability to changing economic conditions. Additionally, the research highlights the growing importance of sustainability-oriented marketing innovation, where businesses integrate environmental responsibility, social value creation, and ethical consumer engagement into their branding and communication practices. The findings indicate that innovation-driven marketing models not only contribute to commercial profitability but also strengthen organizational resilience and long-term strategic sustainability in highly competitive global markets. The study concludes that future business success increasingly depends on the ability of organizations to continuously innovate their marketing structures, technological capabilities, and customer engagement mechanisms in alignment with digital transformation and evolving consumer expectations. Therefore, innovation-driven marketing represents a transformative strategic paradigm capable of reshaping modern business ecosystems through intelligent, adaptive, and customer-focused value creation models.
Cheuk Hang Au, Po-Hsu Shieh, Vladimir Nurbaev, Kris M. Y. Law · 5 authors
Digital platforms face a fundamental paradox: while expanding service variety is a dominant competitive strategy, it risks inducing a “paradox of choice” that confuses and deters users. This tension manifests with extreme clarity in the nascent, high-complexity market of cryptocurrency exchanges, creating a pressing empirical puzzle. To resolve this, we adopt the Stimulus-Organism-Response (SOR) perspective in a three-stage mixed-method study to investigate how platforms can strategically manage this trade-off. Our qualitative exploration (Study 1) established a capital flow schema called “inflow, roll, and go” and identified key complexity-reduction mechanisms. A subsequent survey (n = 190, Study 2) validated that perceived innovativeness and scalability are critical stimuli for service variety, which in turn drives user continuance intention. A final survey (n = 140, Study 3) confirmed that users prioritise services that bridge to the traditional financial system, forming a minimal viable structure with a variety of functions. Our meta-inferences make several key contributions, including the resolution of the service variety paradox by introducing a theoretical distinction between value-adding “real-variety” and confusing “pseudo-variety” and the development of a strategic roadmap that guides exchanges in navigating the tension between service expansion and user confusion, offering actionable insights for platform strategy in any high-velocity digital market.
This study examines whether retail social media sentiment and community attention explain daily net capital flows into U.S. spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs), and whether issuer brand visibility conditions that relationship. We construct a balanced panel of N=10 ETFs over T=514 trading days (January 2024 to January 2026) and combine it with 162,819 cleaned Reddit posts to derive three AI-driven discourse variables: engagement-weighted sentiment, community attention, and a novel issuer-specific BrandScore. Entity fixed-effects regressions show that neither aggregate sentiment nor BrandScore level alone significantly predicts fund-level flows; however, the Sentiment × BrandScore interaction is significant (β^=2.930, p=0.038), indicating that sentiment becomes economically meaningful only when attached to a visible issuer. This interaction survives two-way (entity + date) fixed effects (p=0.012) and winsorization (p=0.004). Panel quantile regressions reveal distributional heterogeneity in the brand-sentiment channel. Rolling 90-day window estimation confirms the mechanism is episodic, with the interaction achieving significance in 62.8% of subsample windows. These results provide suggestive evidence for a brand-filtered sentiment transmission mechanism in digital asset markets.
The purpose of this paper is to identify the industry-specific and geographic patterns that shape the adoption of Web 3.0 technologies among Fortune Global 500 companies. The study addresses a gap in the existing literature by shifting attention from isolated technological applications such as blockchain, decentralized finance, artificial intelligence, and immersive environments toward a broader comparative analysis of how large multinational corporations adopt Web 3.0 across sectors and countries. Methodology. The paper is based on an empirical classification of Fortune Global 500 companies for 2024 into adopters and non-adopters of Web 3.0 technologies. The dataset includes 500 firms and covers sector affiliation, country of origin, employee counts, selected financial indicators, company characteristics, and a binary indicator of adoption status. The analysis applies descriptive statistics, comparative analysis, and cross-tabulations using publicly available data from annual reports, strategic plans, press releases, marketing materials, news coverage, and business databases. Results. The findings show that Web 3.0 adoption is significant but uneven: 216 companies are identified as adopters, while 284 are classified as non-adopters, indicating that Web 3.0 remains in a transitional stage of corporate diffusion. Adoption is concentrated in digitally intensive sectors such as Information Technology Services, Computer Software, Entertainment, Apparel, and selected Health Care activities, whereas sectors such as Transportation and Logistics, Real Estate, Homebuilders, and Medical Products and Equipment demonstrate limited or no adoption in the dataset. Geographic differences are also substantial, with adoption present in 25 out of 35 countries represented in the sample, although the intensity of adoption varies across national contexts. The results confirm that Web 3.0 diffusion is shaped by the interaction of sectoral structure, strategic fit, and geographic environment rather than by a uniform technological trajectory. Practical implications. The paper suggests that managers should approach Web 3.0 as a strategic option whose relevance depends on alignment with the firm’s business model, customer value proposition, governance needs, and innovation capabilities. Value/originality. The originality of the study lies in its cross-sectoral and cross-national perspective on Web 3.0 adoption among the world’s largest corporations, offering a more nuanced understanding of digital transformation in the Web 3.0 era and demonstrating that adoption is patterned, selective, and contingent rather than universal.
Social media platforms such as X (formerly Twitter) increasingly shape attention formation, market visibility, and value signaling in electronic commerce, particularly in emerging digital asset markets such as Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs). Prior work shows that social engagement correlates with NFT prices, suggesting its potential for valuation support. However, open social platforms exhibit heterogeneous user credibility, automated activity, and coordinated promotion, which can distort engagement-based inference. To address these challenges, we propose NFT-TRUST, a trust-aware social signal modeling framework that transforms raw engagement into credibility- and integrity-aware indicators for robust valuation support under manipulation-prone conditions. The framework integrates three components: (i) Credibility-Weighted Social Signal Aggregation (CW-SSA), (ii) Engagement Disproportionality Detection (EDD), and (iii) Integrity-Aware Signal Attenuation (IASA), which jointly reduce the influence of unreliable or manipulated signals while preserving informative engagement. Rather than estimating intrinsic NFT value from social signals alone, NFT-TRUST evaluates the reliability of social attention and converts it into trust-aware features. An XGBoost-based model is used to capture non-linear interactions among these features. Robustness is assessed through stress testing with RL-TweetGen-ST, a reinforcement learning–based synthetic tweet generator that simulates controlled engagement inflation. Experimental results show that NFT-TRUST achieves competitive predictive performance while demonstrating improved stability under simulated manipulation. Ablation analysis indicates that credibility and integrity components are complementary and jointly enhance the reliability of social-signal-based inference. Overall, this work advances trust-aware analytics in electronic commerce and supports more reliable social-driven valuation in emerging digital markets.
Social media has become a transformative force for entrepreneurship, enabling startups to access global markets, engage directly with customers, and build brands with limited resources. This study explores the role of social media in entrepreneurial success, focusing on platform-specific strategies, consumer engagement, and challenges faced by startups. Using qualitative methods, including thematic analysis of interviews and case studies, the study identifies key themes such as data-driven decision-making, authenticity, and leveraging influencer partnerships. Findings suggest that social media acts as a critical resource for startups, offering opportunities for growth while requiring adaptability to navigate challenges like algorithm changes and content saturation. The study integrates theoretical frameworks such as the Resource-Based View (RBV) and Dynamic Capabilities Framework to contextualize the findings and provide actionable insights for entrepreneurs. Future research directions include examining emerging platforms like Web3 and AI-driven social media strategies to further advance the understanding of digital entrepreneurship.
Alexander Kropiunig, Svetlana Kremer, Bernhard Haslhofer
Crypto Key Opinion Leaders (KOLs) shape Web3 narratives and retail investment behaviour. In volatile, high-risk markets, their credibility becomes a key determinant of their influence on followers. Yet prior research has focused on lifestyle influencers or generic financial commentary, leaving crypto KOLs' understandings of motivation, credibility, and responsibility underexplored. Drawing on interviews with 13 KOLs and self-determination theory (SDT), we examine how psychological needs are negotiated alongside monetisation and community expectations. Whereas prior work treats finfluencer credibility as a set of static credentials, our findings reveal it to be a self-determined, ethically enacted practice. We identify four community-recognised markers of credibility: self-regulation, bounded epistemic competence, accountability, and reflexive self-correction. This reframes credibility as socio-technical performance, extending SDT into high-risk crypto ecosystems. Methodologically, we employ a hybrid human-LLM thematic analysis. The study surfaces implications for designing credibility signals that prioritise transparency over hype.
The rapid rise in cryptocurrencies has created an investment environment marked by unprecedented levels of information volume, fragmentation, and volatility. While prior research has examined drivers of trust and adoption in crypto markets, far less is known about the psychological consequences of information overload on investor decision-making. This study addresses this gap through nineteen semi-structured interviews with individual cryptocurrency investors, analyzed using an inductive, manually conducted thematic approach. Findings reveal four interconnected dynamics: decision fatigue and paralysis, heuristic reliance on influencers and peers, emotional strain characterized by anxiety and fear of missing out (FOMO), and diverse coping strategies ranging from selective filtering to withdrawal. These results demonstrate that crypto investing is not only a financial process but also a cognitively and emotionally taxing experience. By linking investor narratives to broader theories of decision fatigue, bounded rationality, and consumer vulnerability, the study contributes to interdisciplinary debates in marketing, behavioral finance, and consumer psychology. Practically, the findings highlight the need for clearer communication strategies, supportive platform design, and financial education initiatives that help investors manage cognitive strain and decision fatigue. In a market where credibility is fluid and decisions are often made under conditions of overload, understanding the psychological dimensions of investment behavior is essential.
Introduction: Robotics and artificial intelligence (AI) are rapidly reshaping hospitality by automating frontline and back-of-house processes, augmenting service encounters, and expanding the analytical scope of revenue management. Yet, existing research remains fragmented: service-robot studies largely emphasize adoption and human-robot interaction, while revenue-management research prioritizes pricing and distribution, sustainability research focuses on environmental practices, and hotel real-estate scholarship foregrounds governance and asset value. Meanwhile, blockchain technologies-through distributed ledgers, smart contracts, digital identity, and tokenization-offer a complementary trust and value-transfer layer that can address coordination and verification problems across hotel ecosystems (e.g., data sharing, sustainability claims, and owner-operator contracting). Methods: Drawing on an integrative literature synthesis, this conceptual article develops an integrative framework linking AI-robotics and blockchain capabilities to three interdependent hotel decision domains: (1) revenue management (demand forecasting, dynamic/open pricing, channel and loyalty optimization), (2) sustainability and operations (resource optimization, waste circularity, predictive maintenance), and (3) real estate and hotel asset management (digital twins, CapEx planning, valuation and risk analytics, and tokenized financing). Results: A conceptual model is proposed in which AI-robotics and blockchain jointly build digital operational and market-intelligence capabilities that improve financial performance (RevPAR/GOPPAR and net operating income), sustainability performance (carbon and resource intensity), and long-term asset value. Ten propositions articulate mechanisms and boundary conditions related to governance, ethics, privacy, cybersecurity, organizational readiness, regulation, and market context. Discussion: The article concludes with implications for hotel managers, owners, investors, and researchers, and outlines a future research agenda for hospitality, tourism, service management, and real-estate scholars.
In the digitally connected era, travel planning is increasingly hindered by the fragmentation of platforms used for destination discovery, accommodation booking, and experience sharing, forcing travelers to switch between multiple applications and leading to inefficiency, inconsistent information, and reduced satisfaction. To overcome this challenge, TripTale is introduced as an integrated web-based platform that unifies travel discovery, booking, and social interaction within a single ecosystem. The system enables users to explore destinations by selecting their country, state, and district, providing curated lists of tourist attractions with detailed highlights, cultural significance, and local specialties. By leveraging location-based services and interactive mapping, TripTale delivers real-time recommendations for nearby hotels, cafes, and lodges, allowing users to complete reservations directly within the platform. In addition to planning and booking, TripTale incorporates social networking features that allow travelers to upload photos, write reviews, and share travel tips, fostering a collaborative community and improving information reliability through shared experiences. A distinctive feature of TripTale is the integration of blockchain technology to authenticate and preserve travel memories. Users can convert their journeys into Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs), ensuring secure, tamper- proof, and verifiable ownership of their digital experiences, thereby transforming personal travel records into collectible digital assets. The platform is implemented using HTML5, Tailwind CSS, and JavaScript for the frontend, while FastAPI and Supabase manage backend services such as authentication, data storage, and real-time updates. Cloud deployment on Vercel and Render ensures high availability and scalability, while integration with Google Maps API enables dynamic navigation and location intelligence. By combining modern web technologies, blockchain innovation, and user-centered design, TripTale provides a comprehensive and future- ready solution that simplifies travel planning, enhances user engagement, and preserves valuable travel experiences in a secure digital environment.
This paper examines spillover dynamics, hedging effectiveness, and portfolio optimisation across tourism, cryptocurrency, and Fintech markets within a time-varying connectedness framework that incorporates traditional financial markets. We document pronounced time-varying spillovers, peaking during the COVID-19 pandemic, with traditional finance emerging as the dominant shock transmitter and the tourism sector as a key net receiver. Transmission-channel evidence suggests that total connectedness increases with credit stress and is positively correlated with market uncertainty and tourism mobility, with these effects intensifying during the COVID-19 pandemic. Cryptocurrencies offer the least costly but weakest hedges, while tourism assets hedge crypto exposure more effectively, albeit with greater downside risk. Dynamic portfolio weight strategies outperform hedge-ratio strategies, and the minimum connectedness portfolio (MCoP) delivers the highest risk-adjusted returns. Diebold–Mariano tests indicate no significant differences in return predictability, whereas Jobson–Korkie results show that minimum correlation portfolio (MCP) and MCoP significantly outperform the minimum-variance portfolio (MVP). Downside risk measures highlight the superior performance of MCoP at the cost of deeper drawdowns. These findings underscore the value of connectedness-based strategies for portfolio design in increasingly integrated markets.
This study examines the influence of social media influencers (SMIs), fear of missing out (FOMO), and financial literacy on cryptocurrency investment decisions among Generation Z in Indonesia. A quantitative approach was employed using Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM). Data were collected through an online questionnaire distributed to Gen Z respondents, using purposive sampling and yielded 366 valid responses. The findings show that SMI primarily shape early interest by disseminating information, while FOMO dominates Gen Z’s investment behavior, driving impulsive decisions. As a moderator, FOMO negatively affects investment decisions, with fear outweighing influencer recommendations. Financial literacy emerges as the strongest predictor, fostering rational evaluation and reducing reliance on external cues. However, it does not strengthen SMI’s effect, underscoring the interplay of emotional, social, and cognitive factors in Gen Z’s cryptocurrency investments. This study provides new insights by jointly examining SMI, FOMO, and financial literacy on cryptocurrency investment decisions among Gen Z in Indonesia, an underexplored contextual and interactional perspective.
This paper studies how luxury brands act in the metaverse. It utilizes a literature review and two semi-structured expert interviews. It details three stages of digital adoption: resistance, selective integration, and Web3 experiments. It explains how NFTs, virtual goods, and token-gated access create technical scarcity and visible status. It shows how young consumers use digital items to build identity and community. It also lists key risks: energy use, data privacy, and brand dilution. The findings outline key digital tools that help maintain core luxury values and point to unanswered questions about long-term brand equity and consumer behavior.
Open access
Consumer Behavior in Brand Consumption and Identification
Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) have garnered attention because of their potential to disrupt traditional business models in various industries. This study provides insights into the drivers of individuals' intentions to purchase NFTs by investigating the relationship between perceived value (scarcity, uniqueness, verifiability, and royalty), as well as facilitating conditions, social influence, individual differences, and personality traits, and the intention to purchase NFTs. Decision-makers, creators, and investors can benefit from understanding these drivers. The proposed model integrates constructs from multiple adoption frameworks and related NFT literature to analyze the individual determinants of NFT purchase intentions. This study utilized a survey to collect data from participants and employed the partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS/SEM) technique to validate the proposed model empirically. The findings indicate that perceived value, facilitating conditions, social influence, individual differences, and personality traits significantly shape individuals’ intentions to purchase NFTs. Perceived scarcity, verifiability, and royalty were found to be positively associated with perceived value, whereas perceived uniqueness did not demonstrate a statistically significant relationship. Furthermore, the study suggests that individual differences and personality traits do not moderate the relationship between perceived value and NFT purchase intention. However, individual differences and personality traits are directly associated with NFT purchase intention.
The rise of centralised social networks has consolidated power among a few major technology companies, raising critical concerns about privacy, censorship, and transparency. In response, decentralised alternatives, including Web3 platforms like Decentralised Social (DeSo) and Fediverse platforms such as Mastodon, have gained increasing attention. While prior research has explored individual aspects of decentralised networks, comparisons between Fediverse and Web3 platforms remain limited, and the unique dynamics of Web3 networks like DeSo are not well understood. This study provides the first in-depth study of DeSo, characterising user behaviour, discourse, and economic activities, and compares these with Mastodon and memo.cash . We collected over 3.1M posts from 13K users on DeSo and Mastodon, along with 11M DeSo on-chain transactions via public APIs. Our analysis reveals that while DeSo and Mastodon share similarities in passive content engagement, they differ in their use of URLs, hashtags, and community focus. DeSo is primarily oriented around Decentralised Finance (DeFi) topics, whereas Mastodon hosts diverse discussions with an emphasis on news and politics. Despite DeSo’s decentralised social graph, its transaction graph remains centralised, underscoring the need for further decentralisation in Web3 platforms. Additionally, while wealth inequality exists on DeSo, low transaction fees promote user participation irrespective of financial status. These findings provide new insights into the evolving landscape of decentralised social networks and highlight critical areas for future research and platform development.
The rapid growth of decentralized web technologies, such as IPFS, ENS, and Arweave, has enabled the creation and hosting of censorship-resistant, open-access websites.However, these systems suffer from a fundamental usability problem: decentralized websites are effectively invisible to the average user due to the absence of an indexing and discovery infrastructure.This paper introduces Web3 Compass, a search engine purpose-built for the decentralized internet.Unlike traditional search engines that rely on centralized servers and behavioral tracking, Web3 Compass discovers and indexes content from decentralized domains through real-time blockchain monitoring, resolver contract interactions, and a custom IPFS infrastructure.It outlines the visibility problem, examines failed or insufficient past solutions, and presents the architectural design of a hybrid, privacy-preserving search tool optimized for the decentralized web.The contribution aims to address the core bottleneck in Web3 usability by making decentralized content discoverable and accessible.
Tema je primjena kriptovaluta u turizmu i ugostiteljstvu, s naglaskom na stavove i iskustva turista. Kriptovalute se sve više spominju kao potencijalno sredstvo plaćanja koje može donijeti brojne prednosti poput bržih i jeftinijih transakcija, smanjenja troškova konverzije valuta i većeg stupnja sigurnosti. Unatoč tome, njihova je upotreba u praksi još uvijek ograničena, ponajviše zbog volatilnosti cijena, sigurnosnih rizika, nedostatka regulative i nedovoljne razine informiranosti korisnika. Predmet istraživanja odnosi se na motivaciju turista za korištenje kriptovaluta, prepreke koje ih u tome sprječavaju, kao i na procjenu utjecaja mogućnosti plaćanja digitalnim valutama na izbor destinacija, hotela i restorana. Posebna pažnja posvećuje se i procjeni dugoročne održivosti kriptovaluta u turističkoj ponudi. Istraživanje je provedeno metodom anketiranja na uzorku od 72 ispitanika, a podaci su obrađeni primjenom deskriptivne statistike. Rezultati su pokazali da većina ispitanika poznaje kriptovalute samo pov
Brett Martin, Polymeros Chrysochou, Carolyn Strong, Adam J. Mills
ABSTRACT This research note reviews research published in Psychology & Marketing in response to our call for papers for cryptocurrency research. Cryptocurrency is an area worth trillions of dollars and it offers a rich field of potential research topics for consumer psychology. Based on the articles by scholars published in Psychology & Marketing , we present a synthesis of the literature surrounding consumer behavior and cryptocurrency and propose a conceptual model to guide future research. This conceptual model organizes the literature by antecedents, process, and outcomes. In addition, we present a summary table of contributions from the research and offer a range of future research opportunities to be explored.
Ylva Baeckström, Akanksha Jalan, Roman Matkovskyy, Julia Roloff
Abstract Individual investors dominate the rapidly growing US$2.73 trillion cryptocurrency market. Cryptocurrencies are highly controversial because of their real and expected ethical and environmental impacts. Surveying 1500 individual investors in Denmark, Finland, and Sweden, we reveal that beliefs about the ethical, sustainability, and environmental implications of cryptocurrencies influence current and intended ownership. While future participation intentions are predicated on currently owning cryptocurrencies, this relationship is moderated by investors’ ethical and sustainability perceptions. Cryptocurrency knowledge and education significantly moderate the relationship between belief and intended ownership. Furthermore, we identify notable gender differences: ethical beliefs more strongly mediate future holding intentions among men, while sustainability perceptions have a greater mediating effect among women. In line with dual-process theory concepts, previous cryptocurrency trading experience and knowledge further reinforce this relationship. Our research has broad relevance to stakeholders, including policy makers, particularly in light of the current debate about Fintech’s role in fostering financial inclusion and the dubious ethical, sustainable, and environmental position of cryptocurrency mining and trading.
Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) have emerged as a transformative innovation in art and technology, relying heavily on social networks for promotion and revenue generation. The value of NFTs is profoundly influenced by their scarcity, rarity, and unique breeding mechanisms, which present novel challenges for viral marketing strategies. In this paper, we introduce a new research problem of NFT Revenue Maximization (NRM), which focuses on maximizing revenue from the perspective of NFT marketplaces by optimally selecting users for viral marketing campaigns (NFT airdrops) and determining the ideal quantities of NFTs to release. We prove the hardness of NRM and propose an approximation algorithm named Quantity and Offspring-Oriented Airdrops (QOOA). Our algorithm leverages the concepts of Scarcity-Conscious Revenue and Valuation-based Quantity Inequality to prune suboptimal airdrops and quantities at an early stage. To further enhance revenue through NFT breeding, QOOA identifies and incentivizes Rare Trait Collectors to acquire multiple NFTs with rare traits, facilitating the breeding of high-value offspring. Experimental results demonstrate that QOOA significantly outperforms baselines, achieving up to 3.8 times higher revenue in large-scale social networks.
Cryptocurrency markets are often volatile with no central authority as a decentralized system based on cryptography makes the records, making investors in this sector particularly susceptible to reliance on social cues rather than fundamentals. This paper uses a qualitative study design that collects 1000 text-rich entries in social media and forum posts to determine herding behaviour in cryptocurrency markets, particularly behavioural trading strategy design and decision risk quantification. This data is collected using a purposive sampling strategy that selects texts published during periods of extreme volatility, such as during Bitcoin crashes and meme coin surges between January 2021 and January 2025. Following a thematic analysis of this data, the results indicate that herding behaviour among investors is mostly caused by fear of missing out (FOMO), emotional contagion, influencer reliance, collective rationalisation of risk, and post-herd regret and justification. These social cues lead to investors relying on them to value cryptocurrency assets instead of conducting fundamental analysis, which would be beneficial.
The metaverse is reshaping media industries by providing immersive 3D environments that challenge traditional communication models. This study investigates virtual spaces created by three major media outlets in Portugal: RFM (radio station), TVI (television channel), and Expresso (newspaper). Using virtual ethnographic methods, this study explores how these media brands represent themselves in the metaverse, identifying their differential attributes in terms of content variety, interactive features, and monetisation opportunities. While RFM primarily seeks platform expansion, TVI and Expresso utilise the metaverse as commemorative environments to mark their anniversaries, resulting in distinct experiential approaches. RFM reinforces its identity oriented towards entertainment and youth through gamification and avatar-based engagement mechanisms, including challenges, contests, and a points-based reward system. TVI diverges most from its traditional identity, emphasising innovation with a futuristic cosmic-themed space featuring non-fungible tokens (NFTs) of iconic broadcast pieces. Expresso adopts a more conservative approach, using the metaverse to support journalistic heritage through historical storytelling and new interactive formats. The findings indicate that, despite the participatory potential of the metaverse, Portuguese media outlets are choosing to maintain editorial control over content and user interactions. Ultimately, the research shows that the metaverse is not a one-size-fits-all solution, but a diverse and evolving environment where media brands promote different immersive experiences to position themselves as innovators and leaders in rapidly evolving digital ecosystems.