Blockchain Papers

Xiangling Wu, Shusheng Ding

No abstract is available for this record.

Samuel Asumadu Sarkodie, Mohammad Amin Amani, Maruf Yakubu Ahmed, Phebe Asantewaa Owusu

Bitcoin is a breakthrough financial technology but a volatile asset in financial markets with a complex fundamental consensus algorithm (Proof-of-Work) limiting its large-scale adoption due to environmental-related issues. Hitherto, the role of its technical and infrastructural composition that drives carbon footprint from an ecological perspective is rarely discussed in the literature. Here, we use machine learning and econometric techniques to analyze the past, present, and future changes in Bitcoin's carbon footprint with daily data spanning July 18, 2010 to December 04, 2021. We document technical drivers, decomposition effects, causal nexus, and implications of the Bitcoin blockchain's increasing energy and carbon footprint. We show that Bitcoin's technical drivers could have potential impacts on Bitcoin's carbon footprint, and subsequently, global climate change. For example, the network's hashrate increases mining difficulty––thereby increasing Bitcoin's energy consumption and subsequently, carbon footprint. We observed a direct association between the marginal effect of block size and transaction count––implying that a higher block size improves transaction efficiency and then reduces Bitcoin's energy and carbon footprint. Besides, low mining difficulty increases market capitalization whereas increasing mining difficulty reduces bitcoin mining profit in the long run. This infers the reward for mining Bitcoin has a diminishing return in the long term. Thus, the adoption of advanced hardware for Bitcoin mining will spur energy and carbon intensity, yet will have a low return on investment. We highlight environmental regulations and regulatory changes that could limit Bitcoin's carbon footprint.

Hui Hong, Cheng Zhang

No abstract is available for this record.

Nannan Li, Zhenjing Gu, Gadah Albasher, Nouf Alsultan · 5 authors

No abstract is available for this record.

Nishant Sapra, Imlak Shaikh

Purpose While Blockchain can serve us, Bitcoin threatens our survival. If Bitcoin is assumed to be a country, it will rank 38th globally for energy consumption. With 90.2 metric million tonnes of carbon dioxide, Bitcoin mining and trading has emerged as an environmental threat. The current study investigates how the trading-specific variables, the prices of Crypto Index and Ethereum, affect bitcoin-based energy consumption. Also, the role of mining-specific variables is analyzed. Design/methodology/approach The study uses monthly data from various sources collected from December 2018 to January 2023. The authors used the Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) Model to determine the short- and long-term relationships between variables. This study uses the Theory of Green Marketing and the Theory of Cross Elasticity of Demand as a theoretical lens. Findings The findings show that escalating crypto market index and Ethereum prices with a one-month lag increases bitcoin-specific electricity consumption and carbon emissions. Green investors may shift to cryptocurrencies based on consensus other than of Proof-of-Work. Ethereum behaves like a substitute for Bitcoin, reflected by the long-term positive relationship between Bitcoin's energy consumption and Ethereum prices. Originality/value The study analyses how the crypto market index and Ethereum price affect bitcoin-based energy use. The relationships identified are substantiated by the literature to provide suggestions to green investors and policymakers to mitigate the harmful impact of Bitcoin's colossal energy consumption on the natural environment.

Suwan Long, Brian M. Lucey, Dayong Zhang, Zhiwei Zhang

No abstract is available for this record.

Tzu-Kuang Hsu, Wan-Chu Lien, Yao-Hsien Lee

Crude oil, Bitcoin, and carbon dioxide emissions are major issues that are significantly impacting the global economy and environment. These three issues are complexly interlinked, with profound economic and environmental implications. In this study, we explore the correlation among these three issues and attempt to understand the influence of crude oil and Bitcoin on carbon dioxide emissions. We created a novel approach, named quantile mediation analysis, which blends mediation regression with quantile regression, enabling us to explore the influence of Brent crude oil on carbon dioxide emissions by considering the mediating impact of Bitcoin. According to the findings from using our new approach, the impact of Brent crude oil on carbon dioxide emissions is partly mediated by Bitcoin, and the association between Brent crude oil and carbon dioxide emissions involves both direct and indirect effects. Since the carbon dioxide generated by the extraction of crude oil and Bitcoin has a great impact on the environment, accelerating the use of clean energy technologies to reduce our reliance on crude oil should be the direction that the cryptocurrency industry ought to pursue in the future.

Abaid Ullah Yousaf, Matloub Hussain, Tobias Schoenherr

Purpose With refineries contributing 68% of CO 2 emissions from stationary combustion sources alone, smart technologies and the circular economy (CE) model for resource loop optimization can be a solution for carbon neutrality, especially within petroleum. Thus, this study aims to explore energy conservation by green technology improvement as a CE strategy for resource loop optimization and digital incorporation to maximize reprocessing lead ability rate and carbon-neutral benefits. Design/methodology/approach A game theory approach with Stackelberg equilibrium is considered under government cap-and-trade regulation to stimulate green technology improvement. The refinery acts as a Stackelberg leader and invests in green technology and the retailer as the Stackelberg follower, collects end-of-life lubricants against refund price and offers a two-part-tariff contract to the manufacturer having a significant role in smart technologies. Findings First, green technology improvement is directly influenced by the reprocessing capability and refund price and digital technologies are significant to consider. Second, a two-part-tariff contract coordinates the supply chain for limited reprocessing capability by the retailer. Lastly, the government can effectively manipulate the development of green technology by changing the permit price depending on the intentions. Research limitations/implications The primary limitation is this study has focused on the petroleum sector and data was referenced from the oil refineries of a single country. Practical implications Overall, this study provides empirical guidance for policymakers on how to leverage energy-efficient smart technologies for lubricant reprocessing, enabling resource optimization as part of a CE strategy in the petroleum industry and advancing sustainable development goals. Originality/value The suggested model responds to the contemporary literature related to CO 2 emissions and CE initiatives across the petroleum sector with the extended role of smart technologies and government cap-and-trade regulations.

Men Qin, Chi‐Wei Su, Yunxu Wang, Nicoleta Mihaela Doran

Exploring the safe-haven characteristics of bitcoin from novel perspectives is crucial to diversify the investment and reap the benefits. This investigation employs bootstrap full-and sub-sample techniques to probe time-varying interrelation between global supply chain pressure (GSCP) and bitcoin price (BP), and further answer if “digital gold” could resist the strains of global supply chain. The empirical outcomes suggest that GSCP positively and negatively affects BP. The positive influence points out that high GSCP might boost the international bitcoin market, driving BP to rise, which indicates that “digital gold” could resist the pressures of global supply chain. But the negative effect of GSCP on BP could not support the above view, mainly affected by the weak purchasing power and more valuable assets, which is not consistent with the assumption of the inter-temporal capital asset pricing model (ICAPM). In turn, GSCP is adversely affected by BP, highlighting that the international bitcoin market may be viewed as a stress reliever for the global supply chain. Against a backdrop of the deteriorative Russia-Ukraine war and the intensifying global supply chain crisis, the above conclusions could bring significative lessons to the public, enterprises and related economies.

Meng Qin, Chi‐Wei Su, Oana‐Ramona Lobonţ, Muhammad Umar

No abstract is available for this record.

Feng Liu, Linlin Wang, Deli Kong, Shi Chen · 8 authors

Critics decry cryptocurrency mining as a huge waste of energy, while proponents insist on claiming that it is a green industry. Is Bitcoin mining really worth the energy it consumes? The high power consumption of cryptocurrency mining has become the latest global flashpoint. In this paper, we define the Mining Domestic Production (MDP) as a method to account for the final outcome of the Bitcoin mining industry's production activities in a certain period time, calculate the carbon emission per unit output value of the Bitcoin mining industry in China, and compare it with three other traditional industries. The results show that Bitcoin mining does not always have the highest when compared with others. The contribution of this paper is that we give a new perspective on thinking whether Bitcoin mining is more efficient to make more profit, in terms of the same amount of carbon emissions per unit compared to other industries. Moreover, it could even be argued that Bitcoin may present an opportunity for some developing countries to build out their electrical capacity and generate revenue.

M. Jabłczyńska, Krzysztof Kość, P Rys, Paweł Sakowski · 6 authors

The main aim of the study is to analyze BTC mining's efficiency under current market conditions (December 2021), including soaring energy prices produced from many different sources in different geographical locations. After a thorough analysis of initial assumptions concerning the (1) price of mining machine with associated components and its effective amortization period, (2) difficulty and the hash rate of the BTC network, (3) BTC transaction fees, and (4) energy costs from various sources, we have found that currently, BTC mining is not profitable, except for some rare cases. The main reason for this phenomenon is the fast and unpredictable increase of difficulty of the BTC network over time which results in decreasing participation of already purchased mining machines in the BTC network hash rate. The research is augmented with a detailed sensitivity analysis of mining efficiency to initial parameters assumptions, which allows observing that the conditions for BTC mining to be efficient and profitable are very challenging.

Ayyüce Memiş Karataş, Emin Karataş, Ayhan Kapusuzoğlu, Nildağ Başak Ceylan

Abstract This chapter presents an overview of the Bitcoin and its impacts on the environment and economics from the viewpoint of carrying out a systematic analysis of the literature related to the environmental and economic effect of digital currency. It is aimed to summarize and critically examine the points of view regarding Bitcoin mining, considering its effects on global warming and the social environment, employing peer-reviewed data associated through literatures. As a result, this study provides the chance to analyze the set of knowledge regarding the effects of the Bitcoin mining procedure on the ecosystem in regard to energy use and CO2 emissions regarding unit root tests and causality test based on nonlinear models. The results show that there exists a nonlinear causal relationship between statistics on Bitcoin mining and the CO2 emissions. The results also imply that Bitcoin remains to be a tool utilized in the economic environment for a range of objectives despite high energy consumption and some negative environmental impact within the scope of renewable energy; hence, authorities would take Bitcoin mining impacts into account to reduce CO2 emissions.

Di Wang, Daozhi Zhao, Fang Chen

With the development of ecological economics, energy-saving green energy chain management has been a wide concern of academia and industries. However, the relatively high cost of green investment makes manufacturers face the problem of financial constraints. On this basis, because the green level information of products is proprietary to manufacturers, manufacturers will lie about the green level of products in order to improve their profits out of the principle of profit maximization. As a result, banks cannot obtain the true green level of products, reducing the benefits of the green energy-efficient supply chain system and making the market of green products volatile. In view of this, blockchain technology is introduced in this paper to improve customer’s product green level sensitivity and obtain lower green credit interest rates from banks. In this paper, a green supply chain financing model based on blockchain technology was constructed under the condition of green information misreporting, and it is compared with the benchmark without blockchain technology. Research shows that the adoption of blockchain can achieve Pareto improvement of green supply chain members. In addition, manufacturers have an incentive to adopt blockchain if the cost of blockchain investment falls below a certain threshold, and consumer green sensitivity increases below that threshold. We compared the profits of green manufacturers with those of retailers and the total emissions of manufacturers. The results show that: (1) When the financing intensity exceeds a certain value, there is an optimal coverage of green financing to ensure that the profit target of manufacturers, the profit target of retailers and the emission reduction target are achieved simultaneously. (2) The adoption of blockchain can achieve Pareto improvement of green energy supply chain members. The actual data of green transformation of Jinyuan New Technology Company were cited. Through calculation, it was found that green transformation can reduce the emissions of enterprises. When the financing intensity is in a certain range, the profits of manufacturers and retailers can be maximized, and the emission reduction degree is the highest. Thus, the practicability and reliability of this model were proved. (3) Manufacturers have an incentive to adopt blockchain if the cost of blockchain investment falls below a certain threshold, and consumer green sensitivity increases below that threshold. The research results of this paper provide solutions for enterprises with limited funds for green transformation and provide a theoretical basis for the government to formulate emission reduction incentive mechanism.

Provash Kumer Sarker, Chi Keung Marco Lau, Ashis Kumar Pradhan

This paper investigates the asymmetric effects of climate policy uncertainty (CPU) and the global price of energy index (GPEI) on Bitcoin prices. It applies the nonlinear ARDL method and the Granger causality test to examine how changes in climate policy uncertainty and energy prices influence Bitcoin prices. Using the monthly data of CPU, GPEI, and BTC from 2013M10–2021M12, the findings show that CPU's increases and GPEI's decreases positively affect BTC in the short term. Specifically, CPU and GPEI's increase and decrease show significantly higher effects on BTC in the long term. The causality result shows bidirectional causality between BTC and CPU's increases/decreases, while unidirectional causality runs from GPEI's increases/decreases to BTC. These findings suggest that Bitcoin investors should be aware of the risks associated with climate policy uncertainty and fluctuations in energy prices, as these factors can significantly asymmetrically impact Bitcoin prices.

Irvylle Cavalcante, Jamilson Júnior, Jônatas Augusto Manzolli, L.A.L. de Almeida · 7 authors

In the present day, it is crucial for individuals and companies to reduce their carbon footprints in a society more self-conscious about climate change and other environmental issues. In this sense, public and private institutions are investing in photovoltaic (PV) systems to produce clean energy for self-consumption. Nevertheless, an essential part of this energy is wasted due to lower consumption during non-business periods. This work proposes a novel framework that uses solar-generated energy surplus to charge external electric vehicles (EVs), creating new business opportunities. Furthermore, this paper introduces a novel marketplace platform based on blockchain technology to allow energy trading between institutions and EV owners. Since the energy provided to charge the EV comes from distributed PV generation, the energy’s selling price can be more attractive than the one offered by the retailers—meaning economic gains for the institutions and savings for the users. A case study was carried out to evaluate the feasibility of the proposed solution and its economic advantages. Given the assumptions considered in the study, 3213 EVs could be fully charged by one institution in one year, resulting in over EUR 45,000 in yearly profits. Further, the economic analysis depicts a payback of approximately two years, a net present value of EUR 33,485, and an internal rate of return of 61%. These results indicate that implementing the proposed framework could enable synergy between institutions and EV owners, providing clean and affordable energy to charge vehicles.

Xiangyang Yu, Xiaojing Wang

With the realization of the “dual carbon” goal, urban public transport with an increasing proportion of new energy vehicles will become the key subject to achieve the carbon emission reduction goal. Under the new background of deep coupling between transport networks and power grids, it is of great significance to study the carbon-trading mode of urban public transport participation in promoting the development of new energy vehicles and improving the operating efficiency and low-carbon level of the “energy-transport” system. In this paper, based on blockchain technology, a framework for urban public transportation networks to participate in carbon trading is established to solve the current problems of urban public transportation’s insufficient motivation to reduce emissions, lax operation strategy and lack of carbon-trading matching mechanisms. Finally, Hyperledger Fabric was selected as the simulation platform, and we simulated the model through the calculation example. The results show that the proposed scheme can effectively improve the operating efficiency of urban public transport and reduce its operating costs and carbon emissions. In addition, policy recommendations on carbon price, carbon quota and penalties are proposed to improve the institutional system of the carbon-trading market.

William Downing, Dalton Harvey, Dennis Wagura, Yong Shi

Blockchain is a technology that has taken the business world by storm. The worldwide spending on blockchain solutions is expected to grow from 1.5 billion in 2018 to an estimated 15.9 billion by 2023. According to a recent study by LinkedIn, it is found that Blockchain tops the list of most in-demand hard skills for 2020. Colaboratory, or “Colab” for short, is a product from Google Research, that allows anybody to write and execute arbitrary python code through the browser. This paper will begin with the concept and discussion of Blockchain and Colab followed by developing an Ethereum-based project that creates smart contracts within Colab for bicycle registry that will communicate with a Database system.

Facundo Carrillo, Elaine Hu

Maximum extractable value (MEV) has been extensively studied. In most papers, the researchers have worked with the Ethereum blockchain almost exclusively. Even though, Ethereum and other blockchains have dynamic gas prices this is not the case for all blockchains; many of them have fixed gas prices. Extending the research to other blockchains with fixed gas price could broaden the scope of the existing studies on MEV. To our knowledge, there is not a vast understanding of MEV in fixed gas price blockchains. Therefore, we propose to study Terra Classic as an example to understand how MEV activities affect blockchains with fixed gas price. We first analysed the data from Terra Classic before the UST de-peg event in May 2022 and described the nature of the exploited arbitrage opportunities. We found more than 188K successful arbitrages, and most of them used UST as the initial token. The capital to perform the arbitrage was less than 1K UST in 50% of the cases, and 80% of the arbitrages had less than four swaps. Then, we explored the characteristics that attribute to higher MEV. We found that searchers who use more complex mechanisms, i.e. different contracts and accounts, made higher profits. Finally, we concluded that the most profitable searchers used a strategy of running bots in a multi-instance environment, i.e. running bots with different virtual machines. We measured the importance of the geographic distribution of the virtual machines that run the bots. We found that having good geographic coverage makes the difference between winning or losing the arbitrage opportunities. That is because, unlike MEV extraction in Ethereum, bots in fixed gas price blockchains are not battling a gas war; they are fighting in a latency war.

Sai Shibu N B

Abstract Carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions primarily contribute to global warming and climate change. The immediate source of CO2 emissions is burning fossil fuels like petrol, diesel, natural gas and coal, accounting for 78% of total emissions. CO2 emissions have risen since the late 1800s, reaching a record high of 33.1 billion tons in 2019. The paper proposes a Blockchain and IoT-based framework to track and trade carbon credits, aiming to reduce carbon dioxide emissions and mitigate their impact on global warming and climate change. We consider electrical energy as one use case for carbon emission and credit trading. The framework will monitor the energy usage of each entity, recording real time carbon emissions in a tamperproof blockchain ledger. Each entity will receive carbon credits based on the recorded emissions, which can then be traded on a blockchain exchange. This will enable entities with higher emissions to offset their emissions by purchasing credits from entities with lower emissions. The blockchain ledger ensures the authenticity and transparency of the carbon emissions data, promoting a secure and efficient solution for reducing carbon emissions. The paper also outlines a reward and penalty mechanism for consumers, encouraging them to reduce their carbon footprint and contribute to a more sustainable future. The paper discusses the blockchain and IoT-based carbon credit exchange architecture, including algorithms for estimating energy consumption, carbon emissions, reward, and penalty. The paper concludes with a proof of concept implementation using the Ethereum platform and a performance evaluation of the algorithms. The paper proposes a comprehensive solution for reducing carbon emissions and mitigating their environmental impact, leveraging the strengths of blockchain and IoT technologies.

Reşat Ceylan, Cihat KARADEMİR, Şencan FELEK

Bu çalışmada, 2017M1-2022M1 dönemleri arasındaki veriler kullanılarak Bitcoin (BTC) ile Karbon Emisyonu (CO2) arasındaki ilişki incelenmiştir. Son zamanlarda yapılan çalışmalara istinaden kripto para ve enerji piyasalarının spekülatif ve kırılgan yapıya sahip olduğu ve bundan dolayı değişkenlerin doğrusal olmayan bir forma sahip olabileceği konusuna dikkat çekildiği gözlenmektedir. Dolayısıyla bu bilgiler çerçevesinde çalışmada öncelikle Luukkonen vd. (1988), Harvey vd. (2008) doğrusallık testi ve Kapetanios vd. (2003) doğrusal olmayan birim kök testi ile değişkenlerin doğrusallık sınaması yapılmaktadır. Akabinde değişkenlerin doğrusal olmayan forma sahip olduğu tespit edildiği için çalışmada Kapetanios vd. (2006) Doğrusal Olmayan Eşbütünleşme analizi kullanılmaktadır. Kapetanios vd. (2006) testi bulgularına göre BTC ile CO2 arasında uzun dönemde doğrusal olmayan bir eşbütünleşme ilişkisi olduğu tespit edilmektedir. Bu durum BTC ile CO2 arasındaki ilişkinin uzun dönemde dengeye doğrusal olmayan bir şekilde yakınsadığı sonucunu göstermektedir. Değişkenler arasında doğrusal olmayan eşbütünleşme ilişkisini tespit ettikten sonra bu ilişkinin yönünü belirlemek amacıyla yapılan Granger nedensellik testi sonucuna göre ise Bitcoin’den Karbon Emisyonuna doğru tek yönlü nedensellik olduğu tespit edilmektedir. Bu bulgu, BTC üretiminde kullanılan enerjinin çevre dostu kaynaklardan elde edilmesine yönelik politikaların benimsenmesi gerektiği biçiminde yorumlanabilir.

Daniela Balutel, Marie‐Hélène Felt, Gradon Nicholls, Marcel Voia

Since 2016, the Bank of Canada has conducted annual surveys to monitor awareness, adoption and usage of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. This report incorporates results from the 2019 Bitcoin Omnibus Survey and the November 2020 Cash Alternative Survey. We find that between 2018 and 2020, the level of Bitcoin awareness and ownership among Canadians remained stable: nearly 90% of the population were aware of Bitcoin, while only 5% owned it. We find that about half of Bitcoin owners stated they usually obtained their bitcoins through mobile or web exchanges, while one-fifth used mining. Bitcoin owners were susceptible to certain risks, as evidenced by the fact that about half of current and past owners stated they had been affected by events such as price crashes, losing access to funds, scams or data breaches. The most commonly cited reasons for owning Bitcoin were related to its use for investment or based on interest in the technology. Bitcoin owners displayed greater knowledge about the Bitcoin network than nonowners, yet they scored lower on questions testing financial literacy.

Tian-yuan Zhang, Tiantian Feng, Mingli Cui

No abstract is available for this record.

Ali Fırat Yazıcı, Ali Bahadır Olcay, Gökçen Arkalı Olcay

No abstract is available for this record.