Blockchain Papers

Massimo Franceschet, Davide Della Libera

Currently, the best known applications of blockchain technology are finance and art. In particular, the blockchain art market, born in early 2018 without fuss, went parabolic around 2021, also thanks to record-breaking sales of digital artworks associated with a Non-Fungible Token (NFT), mediated by the grand dames of auction houses Christie’s and Sotheby’s. In this contribution we merge art and finance on blockchain and explore the opportunity of buying blockchain art as a financial investment. While there exists a relatively large literature on traditional art as investment, the topic of investing in NFTs is still in its infancy. Thus, we provide methods (metrics) and tools (a Web app) to reason about opportunities, in terms of risks and returns, of investing in art on chain.

Anne-Sophie Radermecker, Victor Ginsburgh

Three years after the sensational debut of non-fungible tokens (NFTs) on the art scene, it seems timely to reflect on their presumed revolutionary attributes. The speculative fascination at the beginning has gradually given way to mixed outcomes, with hardly predictable future directions. However, once recontextualized in the art ecosystem and its value chain, one may question the ability of NFT technology to lead to radical changes. Our main argument is that although they offer perspectives that are worth considering regarding contracts, authors’ rights management, and provenance, blockchain-based technologies do not substantially modify the typical characteristics of the art world. Based on recent press articles and academic publications, we comment on the effects of this technology on producers (artists’ creative process and career development), intermediaries (art market gatekeepers), and consumers (quest for authenticity, collecting habits, and museum intervention in the art market). Our main conclusions suggest that NFTs perpetuate oversupply and job precarity in cyberenvironments and reinforce existing purchasing behaviors driven by the quest for authenticity and conspicuous consumption. Our goal is to mitigate some statements found in the literature and the press, especially regarding the democratization of the art market, and to help art market stakeholders approach this technology most objectively.

Der‐Chen Huang, Ling-Chun Liu, Yong‐Yuan Deng, Chin‐Ling Chen

In recent years, due to the slowdown of the global economy and the instability of the stock market and real estate market, the art market has gradually become the third-largest investment market after the former two. As more and more funds flow into the art market, the two seemingly unrelated industries, art, and finance have increasingly close cooperation due to the growing prosperity of the art market. As a very important part of the process of art financialization, the development of art banks has also received extensive attention from all walks of life. In addition, blockchain, as a technology to jointly maintain reliable databases through trustlessness and decentralization, has grown rapidly in recent years, and is gradually applied in various fields. The advantages of blockchain technology are decentralization, anonymity, immutability, and traceability of stored information. The proposed scheme applies the characteristics of blockchain technology to Art Bank’s art rental system, and will have the following advantages: the use of Hyperledger technology, various art banks being merged into an alliance, and information among alliance members being shared, which is convenient for tenants to comprehensively query a single item. Using blockchain technology, in an environment where there is no central authority, under the premise of preventing the tampering of artwork-related information, ensures that the detailed information of the artwork is shared. Traditional leasing agreements can be compiled into smart contract leasing contracts to automatically run and manipulate data. The proposed protocol satisfies the following security requirements: identities’ mutual authentication, non-repudiation between every two parties, and other major security requirements based on blockchain. When a dispute arises, our proposed scheme also has an arbitration mechanism to clarify responsibilities.

Hamid Reza Saeidnia, Brady Lund

Purpose There is a need for technology that can protect scientific findings as a unique asset but is this possible? Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) are one possible solution. Design/methodology/approach Plagiarism is an unethical act and a violation of acceptable practices in the field of scholarly research and writing. Over the years, effective tools have been created to prevent and minimize plagiarism, especially through the integration of artificial intelligence technology to identify copied text. However, there is still scientific plagiarism of contents (such as articles, inventions or other digital objects). Findings NFTs are unique digital identifiers that use blockchain technology to ensure ownership rights of an object are maintained. NFT is a blockchain derivative that first entered the world of digital currencies and has now entered other areas, such as economy, fashion, music and computer games. Originality/value In this essay, how this technology may be useful to preventing acts of academic plagiarism is discussed.

Karthik Venugopal, K.S. Santhosh Anand, Nidhish Lakhinana, M Namratha

Limited edition collectibles such as shoes, watches, vehicles, and so on are high-value goods whose value only grows with time, but there is no means to validate the item’s originality or track the chain of ownership. This is usually done with a tangible certificate of authenticity, which can get lost or damaged over time. In this paper, we solve this problem by creating an NFT (Non-Fungible Token) for the object that will be permanently recorded on the blockchain network and will trace the chain of ownership as well as the cost at each transaction. NFTs can be issued to rare collectibles to aid in the authentication of the item’s authenticity. Blockchain tokens are classified as either fungible or non-fungible assets. Fungible tokens are interchangeable; they are identical and can be replaced by another identical token. They may be used to represent everything from Bitcoin and video game cash to tokenized representations of actual commodities like crude oil or gold. NFTs (non-fungible tokens) are one-of-a-kind and cannot be traded. Non-fungible assets are unique and cannot be swapped directly, such as a piece of digital art you made, a car ownership certificate, or a gaming character.The NFT which is created is secured by the consensus mechanism of blockchain and prevents fraudulent transactions. The NFT can be transferred from one ETH wallet to another ETH wallet when the collectible is sold to another person and this transaction is stored in the blockchain. The NFT’s whole transaction history is permanently preserved on the blockchain and can be confirmed by anybody using the token ID.

Howard Zhong, Mark Hamilton

Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) are non-interchangeable assets, usually digital art, which are stored on the blockchain. Preliminary studies find that female and darker-skinned NFTs are valued less than their male and lighter-skinned counterparts. However, these studies analyze only the CryptoPunks collection. We test the statistical significance of race and gender biases in the prices of CryptoPunks and present the first study of gender bias in the broader NFT market. We find evidence of racial bias but not gender bias. Our work also introduces a dataset of gender-labeled NFT collections to advance the broader study of social equity in this emerging market.

Enzo Bastian

Depuis quelques années, les Non-Fungible Tokens font l'objet d'un intérêt croissant notamment sur le marché de l'art. Ils suscitent des opérations spéculatives importantes, mais ne sont appréhendés juridiquement que de manière lacunaire. Ce manque d'encadrement présente des risques notamment sous l'angle du droit des marchés financiers et favorise des comportements criminels tels que le blanchiment d'argent. Dans l'attente d'une nécessaire modification législative, une solution pour réduire ces risques consisterait à catégoriser le NFT comme un instrument financier. Cet article aspire à illustrer comment une telle qualification serait envisageable ainsi que les conséquences y relatives.
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 Das Interesse an Non-Fungible Token ist in den letzten Jahren insbesondere auf dem Kunstmarkt gestiegen. Sie führen zu beträchtlichen Spekulationsgeschäften, werden aber rechtlich nur lückenhaft erfasst. Dieser fehlende Rahmen birgt insbesondere unter dem Gesichtspunkt des Finanzmarktrechts Risiken und begünstigt kriminelle Verhaltensweisen wie Geldwäsche. Bis zu einer notwendigen Gesetzesänderung könnte eine Lösung zur Verringerung dieser Risiken darin bestehen, die NFT als Finanzinstrument zu kategorisieren. Dieser Artikel will aufzeigen, wie eine solche Einstufung aussehen könnte und welche Konsequenzen damit verbunden sind.

Xiting Wang

NFTs are non-fungible, one-of-a-kind digital assets that are enabled by blockchain technology. Digital encrypted assets known as non-fungible tokens are one-of-a-kind, rare, and impossible to duplicate. A greater variety of use cases, including as digital art, domain names, gaming, collectibles, and others, have been observed recently for NFTs. On a blockchain, like Ethereum, NFTs are created (i.e., minted), and they can be used to confirm ownership of an asset (where it came from, who is the owner, etc.). Data from a joint analysis by Nonfungible.com and L' Atelier BNP Paribas indicates that 2020 In 2018, the overall market value of the NFT market was around $ 338,035,012 with an annual growth rate of 299%. This excludes wash trading and abandoned projects. Some NFTs cost millions of dollars, which is quite expensive. How can the value of NFTs be fairly honestly evaluated is a common question. Let's analyze the history of NFT's evolution before responding to this query.

Yixiang Tan, Zhiying Wu, Jieli Liu, Jiajing Wu · 6 authors

The non-fungible token (NFT) is an emergent type of cryptocurrency that has garnered extensive attention since its inception. The uniqueness, indivisibility and humanistic value of NFTs are the key characteristics that distinguish them from traditional tokens. The market capitalization of NFT reached 21.5 billion USD in 2021, almost 200 times of all previous transactions. However, the subsequent rapid decline in NFT market fever in the second quarter of 2022 casts doubts on the ostensible boom in the NFT market. To date, there has been no comprehensive and systematic study of the NFT trade market or of the NFT bubble and hype phenomenon. To fill this gap, we conduct an in-depth investigation of the whole Ethereum ERC721 and ERC1155 NFT ecosystem via graph analysis and apply several metrics to measure the characteristics of NFTs. By collecting data from the whole blockchain, we construct three graphs, namely NFT create graph, NFT transfer graph, and NFT hold graph, to characterize the NFT traders, analyze the characteristics of NFTs, and discover many observations and insights. Moreover, we propose new indicators to quantify the activeness and value of NFT and propose an algorithm that combines indicators and graph analyses to find bubble NFTs. Real-world cases demonstrate that our indicators and approach can be used to discern bubble NFTs effectively.

Claudia Giannoni, Francesca Medda, Silvia Bartolucci

No abstract is available for this record.

Kateřina Krouská

This thesis studies herding behavior in the cryptocurrency market between 2017 and 2022. Results from the static model reveal significant imitative behavior in the up market and during the bull year 2017. In addition, this thesis ranks among the first papers that study the effect of the early stage of the war in Ukraine on the market-wide herding behavior. Furthermore, due to Bitcoin's dominant position among other coins, closer attention is devoted to studying its influence on the herding behavior in the market. However, herding seems to be present only during extreme Bitcoin movements. In response to these results, five dominant coins (Bitcoin, Ethereum, XRP, Litecoin and Dogecoin) are excluded from the sample and their influence on the rest of the market is studied. The evidence suggests strong herding behavior of the rest of the market around these five giants. Therefore, the return of smaller coins seems to be influenced by the performance of larger coins, rather by solely that of Bitcoin. JEL Classification G02, G15, G40, C22, C58 Keywords Cryptocurrencies, Herding behavior, Bitcoin, COVID-19 Title Analysis of herd behavior across cryptocurren- cies Author's e-mail 43789078@fsv.cuni.cz Supervisor's e-mail jiri.kukacka@fsv.cuni.cz

Young Jun Han, Ken Nah

No abstract is available for this record.

Claudia Giannoni, Francesca Medda

No abstract is available for this record.

Kristýna Coufalová

This thesis investigates the potential of cumulative prospect theory to ex- plain future cryptocurrencies' returns. Moreover, the study aims to determine whether the predictive power of cumulative prospect theory value persists when cumulative prospect theory value is computed by plugging the percentage form of return (for instance, 5%) instead of the decimal form (for instance, 0.05). Using a rolling sample of 200 cryptocurrencies with the highest market capitali- sation for each month from March 2017 to March 2023, we found that regardless of using returns in percentage or decimal form, the cumulative prospect theory value function produces comparative abnormal portfolio returns and confirms the hypothesis that cryptocurrencies with high (low) cumulative prospect the- ory value earn low (high) subsequent returns. JEL Classification G11, G12, G41 Keywords Prospect theory, Cumulative Prospect Theory, Cryptocurrency, Behavioural Economics Title Prospect Theory in the Cryptocurrency Market Author's e-mail 31078966@fsv.cuni.cz Supervisor's e-mail jiri.kukacka@fsv.cuni.cz

Ikram Nur Muharam, Iis Tussyadiah

Abstract This study investigates how exposure to local prices changes the transaction utility of international tourists, and the role of purchasing power parity (PPP) and the use of cryptocurrency in these changes. Findings indicate that tourists’ transaction utility did not vary all that much when they visited a country with comparable PPP to their own. Meanwhile, when traveling to countries with a lower PPP, tourists enjoy a heightened transaction utility. Furthermore, using Bitcoin results in greater transaction utility than using fiat currency.

Khanh Quoc Nguyen, Tālis J. Putniņš

No abstract is available for this record.

Diwen Jiang, Junxiao Liu, Ming Sun

Since cryptocurrency went viral, it has been a profound question about how to evaluate the price value for this special currency. On account of the attributes of cryptocurrency, the factors that would be considered are different from traditional stock in asset pricing. This paper introduces four mod

Marie-Sophie de Clippele, Antoine Vandenbulke, Collège Belgique

Désormais bien connue, la technologie « blockchain » a permis le développement des cryptomonnaies dès 2008. Cette technique de certification qui permet de se passer du contrôle d’un organe central a ensuite été élargie à plusieurs usages. Parmi ceux-ci, la blockchain a notamment été utilisée pour certifier la propriété d’images numériques – on parle, dans le jargon (qui tend désormais à s’étendre dans le langage courant) de « NFT » (acronyme de « Non-Fungible Tokens »). Les NFT, qui sont des jetons cryptographiques non fongibles – c’est-à-dire qu’ils ne sont pas interchangeables, contrairement aux cryptomonnaies –, permettent d’identifier le « propriétaire » d’une image numérique. L’intérêt des NFT est de créer de la rareté là où elle n’existait pas : les images numériques, contrairement aux œuvres physiques, sont en effet duplicables à l’infini. Le NFT vient alors certifier qui est le titulaire de l’image (qui doit être distingué de son auteur) et crée, par ce même acte, une valeur économique au bien immatériel en question. La conférence s’intéresse, dans un premier temps, à l’apparition des NFT dans le domaine de l’art, ainsi qu’à leurs effets sur le marché de l’art, en ce compris sur les collections muséales. Dans un second temps, les NFT sont analysés sous l’angle juridique, soulevant notamment la question de leur définition et champ d’application, ainsi que celle des droits d’auteur : comment articuler titularité d’un NFT aux droits de l’auteur d’une œuvre (numérique)?

Olivier Pitel, Patrick Martin-Mattera

La circulation de l’œuvre d’art au sein de dispositifs numériques confère à son objet des caractéristiques nouvelles. Ces caractéristiques permettent-elles de considérer l’œuvre d’art virtuelle comme le contraire de l’objet lathouse, marchandise clinquante, illusoire et éphémère, avidement offerte à une jouissance toujours insatisfaite ? Car l’œuvre d’art virtuelle, parce qu’elle tente de défaire le voir, puise son pouvoir dans le réel et vise un au-delà de l’objet, alors élevé par la sublimation à la dignité de la Chose. Déjà, au milieu du XX e siècle, le ready-made, par un coup d’avance, avait résisté aux dispositifs de l’objet d’art établi, œuvrant par-là à une esthétique de l’absence. L’unicité perdue de l’œuvre d’art s’en trouvait alors restaurée par un dispositif artistique paradoxal, qui éclairait d’une aura renouvelée les plus communs des objets. Mais qu’en est-il aujourd’hui, époque de fusion intense entre les discours de l’art, de la science et du capitalisme, où se développent les Non Fungible Tokens (NFTs), objets d’art numériques par principe infiniment reproductibles, mais dont l’unicité originale se trouve pourtant garantie à prix d’or via la blockchain ?

Tara Merk

No abstract is available for this record.

Bingling Wang, Min-Bin Lin, Wolfgang Karl Härdle

No abstract is available for this record.

Sophie Berghueser, Martin Spann

No abstract is available for this record.

Katherine B. Forrest, Jerrold Wexler

No abstract is available for this record.

Sinda Hadhri

No abstract is available for this record.