Blockchain Papers

Hongzhe Wen

Abstract Cross-numeraire pricing efficiency is central in digital asset markets because the same asset trades continuously against fiat, Bitcoin, and stablecoin-linked numeraires. This paper studies Ethereum (ETH) triangular consistency across ETH/USD, ETH/BTC, and BTC/USD prices, where USD denotes the U.S. dollar and BTC denotes Bitcoin. The benchmark requires the direct ETH/USD price to equal the synthetic price implied by ETH/BTC and BTC/USD. Using single-venue Coinbase true-USD hourly data from January 2022 through June 2023, I find that the log wedge has a near-zero mean, Augmented Dickey-Fuller diagnostics reject a unit root, first-order persistence is low, and absolute wedges widen during stress episodes. A Binance extension using Tether (USDT) as the dollar proxy shows a tighter unconditional wedge, which cautions against treating stablecoin denomination as the dominant average source of deviations in this sample. A Gate.io order-book extension for the Terra/Luna, FTX, and USD Coin-Silicon Valley Bank (USDC-SVB) stress windows constructs bid-ask executable bands and finds no positive after-fee executable breach across 524 common event-hour observations. The results show that Ethereum cross-numeraire prices are tightly consistent on average, but stress-state wedges should be interpreted as frictional parity deviations rather than executable arbitrage opportunities. JEL Classification: G12 , G14 , G15 , G23 , C58

R. Carè, S. Taddeo

No abstract is available for this record.

Patrick Mehrhoff

The structural supranational criterion has been applied to public attractors with a legal form, to a monetary attractor with none, and to private platform attractors. This paper carries it to a third attractor type, the computational-settlement platform on a pure-protocol substrate, the larger smart-contract platforms and the rollups that settle to them. The supranational criterion holds that an entity is a cascade attractor when its binding residue density spans participants so that no single participant’s reversal dissolves the network, with density a multiplicative product of depth, extent, and interconnection in which a necessary component at near-zero nullifies the whole. The decisive choice is the location of the residue. The residue is the composed stack, the deployed contracts, the value locked in them, the standards, and the settlement finality that applications and rollups depend on. It is not the token, which is the internal unit and the instrument that secures and meters the chain. Depth is switching-cost lock-in of composed state. Extent is the deployed value and the user base. Interconnection is composability, the dependence of applications on applications and of settlement layers on a base layer, the settlement interconnection of the Euro re-realised in contract code. The reversal test is the consensus halt, which suspends but does not relocate the residue, because the composed stack persists across it and resumes on restart. The de-concentration that governs whether a platform halts is operational, the diversity of the implementation, the clients and the sequencers, and it is not the distribution of stake, a measure on which the halting platform scores as well as the resilient one. The Ethereum finality incident of May 2023, set against the halt records of Solana and Avalanche, is the existence proof. The same class of client defect stalled Ethereum without halting it, because the independent clients that did not share the defect carried the chain, and halted the two platforms that ran a single client. The argument is set alongside the blockchain trilemma, which states the scalability-decentralisation tradeoff the spectrum populates, and it contributes what the trilemma does not, the location of the residue and the survival of the attractor when it halts.

Yaiza Cabedo, Tommaso Mancini-Griffoli, Fabian Schär, Nicolas Zhang

This paper examines how tokenization and distributed ledger technology may transform Financial Market Infrastructures (FMIs) by enabling smart contracts to perform a growing share of functions traditionally undertaken by central securities depositories, central counterparties, and trade repositories. It argues that while record-keeping, settlement, collateral management, and reporting can increasingly be executed on-chain, key functions requiring legal certainty, governance, accountability, and discretion remain institutional in nature. The analysis assesses which activities across issuance, clearing, settlement, and reporting can migrate to code, where limitations persist, and how risks evolve in tokenized environments. It finds that tokenization is more likely to reconfigure than eliminate FMIs, creating new efficiencies while introducing novel operational and governance risks. The most plausible outcome is a hybrid FMI model in which technology and institutions jointly provide the trust, resilience, and oversight required for financial stability.

Fabio Bassan

Il contributo analizza il ruolo delle piattaforme digitali nell’evoluzione dei mercati contemporanei e le trasformazioni prodotte dall’integrazione tra Web2, Web3 e intelligenza artificiale. L’Autore esamina l’emersione di nuovi modelli economici fondati sulla gestione dei dati, sulla profilazione degli utenti e sulla crescente capacità delle piattaforme di incidere sulle scelte dei consumatori e sugli equilibri istituzionali. Emergono cosi le differenze tra i modelli regolatori adottati nell’Unione europea, negli Stati Uniti e in Cina, evidenziando il ruolo centrale delle autorità indipendenti e delle reti europee di coordinamento nella costruzione di strumenti di vigilanza, enforcement e cross-regulation. Particolare attenzione è dedicata ai settori strategici interessati dalla trasformazione digitale — trasporti, mercati finanziari, energia, cybersicurezza e contratti pubblici — nei quali l’interazione tra piattaforme, dati e intelligenza artificiale impone nuove forme di tutela dei consumatori e nuovi modelli di regolazione partecipata. The contribution analyses the role of digital platforms in the evolution of contemporary markets and the transformations generated by the interaction between Web2, Web3 and artificial intelligence. The Author examines the emergence of new economic models based on data management, user profiling and the increasing ability of platforms to influence consumer choices and institutional balances. The work explores the different regulatory approaches adopted by the European Union, the United States and China, highlighting the central role of independent authorities and European coordination networks in developing mechanisms of supervision, enforcement and cross-regulation. Particular attention is devoted to strategic sectors affected by digital transformation — including transport, financial markets, energy, cybersecurity and public procurement — where the interaction between platforms, data and artificial intelligence requires new forms of consumer protection and innovative models of participatory regulation.

Armando Di Cello

Il contributo analizza l’evoluzione delle piattaforme digitali di pagamento nel passaggio dai modelli del Web2 alle prospettive del Web3, con particolare attenzione alle ricadute per i consumatori, gli operatori e le autorità di vigilanza. L’Autore ricostruisce le principali trasformazioni del settore dei pagamenti, segnato dalla convergenza tra innovazione tecnologica, nuove discipline europee, esigenze di sicurezza, contenimento delle frodi e tutela della fiducia degli utenti. Il saggio approfondisce il ruolo del nuovo pacchetto normativo europeo sui servizi di pagamento, con riferimento alla PSD3 e al Payment Services Regulation, evidenziando le criticità connesse alla responsabilità dei prestatori di servizi di pagamento, alla colpa grave dell’utente, all’educazione finanziaria e alla crescente rilevanza dei servizi tecnici abilitanti, dei digital wallet e delle BigTech. Particolare attenzione è dedicata all’euro digitale, considerato come possibile ponte tra Web2 e Web3 e come strumento per preservare il ruolo della moneta pubblica nell’ecosistema digitale. Il contributo esamina infine le stablecoins, mettendo a confronto l’approccio prudenziale europeo, fondato su MiCA, stabilità finanziaria e sovranità monetaria, con l’impostazione statunitense più orientata al mercato. In conclusione, viene sottolineata la centralità di un enforcement coerente, coordinato e multilivello, capace di bilanciare innovazione, certezza del diritto, tutela dei consumatori e stabilità del sistema dei pagamenti. The contribution analyses the evolution of digital payment platforms in the transition from Web2 models to Web3 perspectives, with particular attention to the implications for consumers, operators and supervisory authorities. The Author reconstructs the main transformations affecting the payment sector, shaped by the convergence of technological innovation, new European rules, security needs, fraud prevention and the protection of users’ trust. The essay examines the role of the new European regulatory package on payment services, with reference to PSD3 and the Payment Services Regulation, highlighting the issues related to the liability of payment service providers, the concept of gross negligence of users, financial education and the growing importance of enabling technical services, digital wallets and BigTech companies. Particular attention is devoted to the digital euro, considered as a possible bridge between Web2 and Web3 and as a tool to preserve the role of public money in the digital ecosystem. The contribution also explores stablecoins, comparing the European prudential approach, based on MiCA, financial stability and monetary sovereignty, with the more market-driven approach adopted in the United States. In conclusion, the essay emphasizes the central role of coherent, coordinated and multi-level enforcement, capable of balancing innovation, legal certainty, consumer protection and the stability of the payment system.

Authors unavailable

Non Fungible Token (NFT) Industry has been witnessing 16 million dollar trade in recent times.The following is the development of the decentralized NFT marketplace divided into three principal phases: smart contract development on the Ethereum blockchain using Solidity, creation of the frontend using React.js,Next.js,Node.js,HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, and backend development using Express.jsand MongoDB.The aim of this project is to offer a transparent and safe digital marketplace to mint, buy, and trade NFTs.The project employs ERC-721 standards for the uniqueness of tokens, Web3.js for interaction with smart contracts, and off-chain metadata storage with the help of REST APIs and MongoDB.Results indicate that the marketplace functions securely and efficiently, with seamless user interaction and successful on-chain transaction execution.Challenges related to deployment cost, metadata storage, and smart contract gas optimization were addressed during development.The final product demonstrates a fully functional, scalable, and decentralized NFT marketplace platform.

VINCENZO DI PERNA

Blockchains are distributed ledgers that let mutually distrustful parties agree on an append-only transaction history without relying on a central authority. By combining cryptographic hashing, digital signatures, and consensus mechanisms, blockchains provide tamper evidence, auditability, and agreement among nodes. Modern blockchain systems significantly vary in consensus design (e.g., Proof of Work, Proof of Stake, Proof of Author- ity, and Byzantine Fault Tolerance mechanisms), access model (open vs. permissioned), and execution layers (from simple asset transfers to expressive smart-contract virtual machines). The related architectural choices shape decentralization, fault tolerance, and the attainable latency-throughput envelope. As blockchain deployments expand to payments, tokenization, decentralized finance, supply chain traceability, and digital identities, comparing these systems has become an urgent necessity. Unfortunately, rigorous blockchain evaluation remains difficult. On the one hand, measurements are confounded by fluctuating network conditions, heterogeneous infrastructures, and rapidly evolving software. On the other hand, results are too often collapsed to a single number (such as transactions per second) without dispersion or methodological details; economic assessments of crypto-assets lack a unified and interpretable index that captures the balance of core economic parameters and their trade-offs (usage, liquidity, stability, and security) rather than market price sentiment; and experimental studies rarely address the dimensions of experimental repeatability (same setup, same results) and performance predictability (stable expectation). The consequence is an evidence gap: how to assess and compare the efficiency of blockchains – spanning performance, energy, economics, and result stability – in different scenarios? This dissertation aims at reducing this gap with a coherent yet modular approach that combines topology-controlled benchmarking with an orthogonal, entropy-based economic analysis, delivering four contributions. First, it introduces Lilith, a system-agnostic benchmarking framework that couples workload generation with network emulation to run controlled, repeatable experiments under explicit overlay topologies (i.e., the logical peer- to-peer connectivity graphs) and link properties such as latency, bandwidth, and packet loss. Lilith orchestrates deterministic deployments (pinned artifacts, controlled boot order, and CPU core pinning and memory binding), integrates power probes, and provides a uniform client interface; this underpins a comparison based on typical performance metrics. Second, Lilith is employed to quantify blockchain energy consumption under realistic conditions. Third, Lilith is adopted for a network-controlled, multi-run measurement campaign to produce a public dataset. By combining dispersion metrics (e.g., worst-case deviation) with analysis of variance and intraclass correlation, we quantify run-to-run variability and performance predictability across blockchains, topologies, workloads, and node-set sizes. Fourth, in addition to Lilith, the dissertation introduces the Entropy Balance index (EB-index), which aggregates heterogeneous on-chain indicators into a single, interpretable score of economic efficiency. ii As for the first three contributions, we set up the experimental baseline by considering five network topologies (fat-tree, full mesh, hypercube, scale-free, torus) and five industry- grade blockchains (Algorand, Diem, Ethereum Clique, Quorum IBFT, Solana), exercised with transfer transactions and smart-contract workloads (DDoS, FIFA, GAFAM, gaming, PayPal, VISA) across two node-set sizes (10 and 40). In the performance study, the network topology emerges as the primary factor de- termining throughput and latency. Full mesh, hypercube, and torus deliver higher performance under heavy load. The performance of Algorand and Diem is stable with respect to topology changes, while Ethereum is less sensitive but remains slower. In the energy study, fat-tree and full mesh turn out to be the most energy-efficient topologies, especially at high load. Algorand and Diem exhibit the lowest energy per transaction, Ethereum Clique the highest across topologies; Quorum IBFT and Solana become costlier as workload intensity and network size increase. The experimental repeatability and performance predictability study shows low per- formance variance (transactions per second, block latency, energy consumption) for Algorand and Diem and pronounced sensitivity for Solana and Quorum IBFT, especially as workloads, node-set size, and geo-latency conditions vary. The released dataset and the accompanying analysis templates, which are based on clusters instead of public-cloud testing, enable thorough checks that go beyond point estimates by quantifying dispersion and confidence in comparative results. Finally, in the economic study, the EB-index aggregates heterogeneous on-chain indicators – such as user activity (transactions, active addresses), token distribution (balance concentration), and supply turnover/velocity – by using the normalized Shannon entropy and its weighted Beliş-Guiaşu variant. When applied to the capitalization-based leading crypto-assets Bitcoin, Ethereum, Ripple, USD Coin, Dogecoin, and Cardano, the EB-index separates volume-driven bursts from structurally balanced ecosystems and reveals differences that price, total value locked, or raw activity may blur. Overall, this dissertation delivers a topology-aware blockchain benchmarking frame- work, empirical evidence that network structure materially affects performance and energy, a public multi-run dataset together with analysis templates that promote experimental repeatability and performance predictability, and an entropy-based index for assessing economic efficiency.

Mariachiara Restuccia, Achilleas Boukis, Charles Hofacker, Fulya Açikgöz

Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) have become part of the product portfolios of many brands, ranging from individual creators to established firms. Yet, we currently have a limited understanding of how NFTs should be designed, launched, and managed effectively over their lifecycle journey. To fill this gap, we explore the distinctive lifecycle of this novel digital product category. Rather than focusing on the macro-view of the product lifecycle at the aggregate product category level (e.g., introduction, growth, maturity, and decline), our work offers a micro-view of the lifecycle at the individual NFT level, focusing on the relevant decisions to be made and activities to be performed by a creator or a firm. Drawing on the product lifecycle management literature and field exemplars, our proposed NFT lifecycle consists of three main stages: 1. Inception (featuring content creation, minting, and dropping), 2. Circulation (involving experience, trade, and commercial exploitation), and 3. Termination (including timed expiration, regeneration, and retirement decisions). Our conceptual work contributes to the emerging literature on blockchain assets by developing an original and integrative lifecycle framework. It also offers marketers actionable insights into how to manage each of the different lifecycle stages of a decentralized digital offering like NFTs, broadening the focus from short-term activities (e.g., Inception and Circulation) to the long-term ones (e.g., Termination).

ERUM IFTIKHAR

This PhD thesis examines risks, opportunities and socio-technical innovation in blockchain-based financial systems, combining network analysis, empirical market data, and institutional analysis. As the crypto ecosystem and decentralized financial infrastructures continue to expand and interact with traditional monetary systems, understanding how risk propagates across assets, platforms, and institutional designs has become increasingly important for market participants and policymakers. The first two chapters focus on systemic risk in crypto assets (cryptocurrencies and stablecoins) using a network-based approach. The first paper analyzes major crypto assets and constructs dynamic networks based on return co-movements to study the evolution of interconnectedness and contagion risk over time. Network centrality measures (degree, closeness, betweenness, and eigenvector) are used to identify systemically important nodes (cryptocurrencies and stablecoins) and to assess how these measures affect their systemic risk contributions, particularly during market stress episodes. Results showed that the systemic risk contribution of crypto assets decreases over time as their connectedness in the system increases. This impact is more pronounced for cryptocurrencies than for centrally issued, managed, and governed stablecoins. Our findings suggest that pure network interconnectedness plays a diminished role in tail risk propagation in the crypto market. The second paper extends this framework to token pairs traded on centralized and decentralized exchanges (CEXs and DEXs), allowing for a comparison of market structure and risk transmission across trading platforms. By incorporating data from CEXs and DEXs, this chapter highlights differences in network topology and the role of liquidity concentration in shaping systemic risk. Results showed that centrality values significantly impact systemic risk contribution of token pairs listed on centralized exchanges. Conversely, insignificant results were found for all token pairs traded on decentralized exchanges. The token pairs on centralized exchanges exhibited a negative association with centrality values, consistent with the findings reported in the first paper. These findings imply that systemic risk in cryptocurrency markets is not solely driven by interconnectedness, but by how that interconnectedness is structured. In particular, the negative relationship between centrality and systemic risk suggests that higher network integration, supported by transparency and decentralized architectures, may enhance risk sharing and reduce systemic vulnerability. These results highlight the potential of blockchain based financial systems to contribute to more resilient, efficient, and inclusive financial ecosystems, while also offering new insights for the design of risk management and regulatory frameworks. The third paper shifts the focus from market level risk to protocol level risk management in leading Decentralized Finance (DeFi) lending platforms. It examines the determinants of liquidation events and evaluates the effectiveness of protocol design features as risk management tools. Exploiting the transition from earlier to newer protocol versions across different blockchain layers, the empirical analysis employs panel fixed effect regression models to assess how changes in risk control measures 3 affect liquidation dynamics and protocol’s performance. The findings emphasize that protocol level design choices play a critical role in mitigating risk beyond asset price volatility alone. The architectural evolution from v2 to v3, characterized by granular risk parameters, isolation modes, and enhanced risk management mechanisms has systematically improved protocol resilience, with liquidations in v3 serving as positive signals of stability rather than distress. The fourth paper broadens the scope of the thesis by examining blockchain based complementary currencies in comparison with traditional complementary currency systems, with a particular focus on their potential role in universal basic income schemes. It investigates the socio-technical evolution of Complementary Currencies for Basic Income using a data-driven approach to different case studies (Fiat and Blockchain based models). It highlights how technological choices influence scalability, transparency, and risk exposure in social and monetary innovations by employing mix method approach. Finally, based on the trade-offs of each system, a hybrid model for UBI is proposed for financial inclusion and poverty elimination. Taken together, the four papers provide an integrated perspective on risks and opportunities in emerging financial ecosystems, spanning asset markets, trading infrastructure, decentralized protocols, and alternative monetary arrangements. Overall, the results suggest that the core features of blockchain based markets, e.g., decentralization, transparency, accessibility, low transaction costs and automated risk management, are not merely technological innovations but may serve as mechanisms for improving system resilience and inclusive financial architectures. This thesis also contributes to the literature by demonstrating how network structures and institutional design jointly shape systemic risk and resilience in DeFi, offering insights relevant for researchers, protocol designers, and policymakers navigating the evolving digital financial landscape.

Jungsuk Han, Jongsub Lee, Tao Li

Decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs) are entities without central leadership and operate based on a set of decision-making rules encoded into smart contracts using blockchain technology. In this study, we develop a theoretical model of DAO governance featuring strategic token trading under token-based voting to investigate potential conflicts of interest between a large participant (a “whale”) and many small participants. Our results show that ownership concentration has a negative effect on platform growth, but platform size, token illiquidity, and long-term incentives can mitigate this negative effect. We confirm these predictions using novel voting data on major DAOs from 2020 and 2024. This paper has been accepted by Lin William Cong for the Virtual Special Issue on Digital Finance. Funding: J. Han and J. Lee received financial support from the Institute of Management Research at Seoul National University. Supplemental Material: The data files are available at https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2024.07033 .

Tom Barbereau, Ruggero Montalto, Christian Beyer

Current blockchain research and analytics tend to prioritize observable on-chain transactions, obscuring the processes through which cryptocurrencies are created, publicised, retained, and disposed of. In response, this paper considers distributed ledger technologies from records management principles in ISO 15489-1:2016. Setting off by specifying the parallels -- that is transactions as "records", crypto-asset units as "information assets", and blockchains as "aggregations" -- we introduce a seven-stage lifecycle for blockchain data. We apply the framework to Bitcoin, a fungible token, and a non-fungible token. On this basis, we argue that blockchain systems are not merely transactional infrastructures but record management systems with distinctive characteristics. We discuss how the on-chain/off-chain boundary and privacy-enhancing technologies can complicate lifecycle visibility, with particular relevance for crypto-crime research and investigation. As a meta-level framework, the lifecycle perspective enables positioning existing research, decomposing legal, regulatory, technological, and operational challenges by stage, and informing lifecycle-aware approaches to blockchain governance, analytics, and regulation.

Mikhail Perepelitsa

This paper presents an open-economy macroeconomic equilibrium model for Proof-of-Stake (PoS) networks with fee-burn mechanics (EIP-1559) that formalizes the strategic interplay between a Kelly-optimizing rational institutional investor and a utility-driven retail consumer. We analyze network dynamics across two behavioral regimes. In The Unbounded Accumulation Model, the consumer purely accumulates tokens, creating an exclusive buy-side pressure that interacts with institutional portfolio rebalancing to fuel an ever-expanding speculative bubble and generate compounding excess returns for investors. Conversely, in The Utility-Consumption Model, the consumer dynamically buys and sells tokens to balance crypto wealth against real-world fiat consumption. Within this framework, we derive an explicit steady-state equilibrium price for ETH, demonstrating how token valuation anchors to a stable fundamental baseline that scales directly with network adoption while completely dissolving the institutional yield premium. Our numerical simulations show that while exogenous traditional finance (TradFi) shocks propagate through portfolio rebalancing to drive high token price volatility, network inflation remains highly stable. Furthermore, we prove that network security is insulated from institutional monopoly by counter-cyclical consumer behavior. Our findings reveal that institutional excess wealth creation in PoS ecosystems is not native to the staking protocol itself, but is strictly driven by the leveraged extraction of the retail consumer's continuous demand for transactional utility.

Jan Gorzny, Martin Derka

No abstract is available for this record.

Louis Rinfret

Strategic alliances have long required their participants to combine the certainty of formal contracts with the adaptive flexibility of relational mechanisms, and the substitutes-complements debate in alliance governance has spent decades trying to clarify how these two qualities can be combined.The recent emergence of blockchain-enabled smart contracts complicates this picture in interesting ways.This article asks how smart contracts interact with the contractual and relational governance mechanisms documented in the strategic alliance literature, what conditions shape this interaction, and what the implications are for alliance theory.Drawing on the alliance governance literature and the blockchain governance literature in roughly equal measure, the paper develops a framework that positions smart contracts as a third governance mechanism alongside contractual and relational forms, producing a hybrid arrangement termed algorithmic-relational governance.Three propositions are derived and illustrated through a case study of Walmart Canada's DL Freight platform, one of the larger production-grade smart contract deployments in a multi-party alliance setting.The findings suggest that smart contracts function primarily as governance complements rather than substitutes, that they alter alliance dynamics in ways transaction cost economics alone cannot predict, and that their effectiveness depends on deliberate architectural design choices that are themselves products of relational negotiation between alliance partners.

Sangtian Guan, Juanjuan Li, Siji Ma, Xiaolong Liang · 6 authors

This paper discusses the technological development from Web 1.0 to Web 3.0, focusing on their corresponding economic models. The study begins by analyzing the Web 1.0 portal economy, followed by an in-depth exploration of the rise of the Web 2.0 platform economy and its associated challenges, including the lemon market, platform monopolies, price discrimination, and algorithmic asymmetries. To address those issues, this study elaborates on the Web 3.0 token economy and emphasizes the crucial role of decentralized technologies like blockchain in bringing new production factors and relationships. This inspires the proposal of the Decentralized Economy (DeEco), a novel user-autonomous economic model that integrates advanced Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies with blockchain. Furthermore, the key techniques for formulating DeEco are analyzed, including Decentralized Autonomous Organizations and Operations (DAOs), Decentralized Value Systems (DVSs), Decentralized Physical Infrastructure Networks (DePIN) and digital humans. This study not only offers a co-evolutionary perspective of web technologies and economic forms but also introduces an innovative economic paradigm to support open, diverse and intelligent societies.

Stefan Kitzler

Decentralized Finance (DeFi) represents an emerging financial ecosystem that offers services such as lending, investing, and trading without traditional intermediaries like banks or financial institutions. Unlike conventional financial systems, users interact directly with software programs called smart contracts that encode financial logic and automate service delivery. This novel ecosystem promises transparency through public blockchain ledgers that make all transactions visible and inclusion through open access that eliminates traditional barriers to financial participation. Additionally, DeFi enables decentralized governance where users participate in protocol decision-making, and smart contracts facilitate advanced financial engineering through compositional service integration. However, despite these technical innovations, DeFi introduces significant challenges related to transaction complexity, governance concentration, and cybersecurity vulnerabilities that undermine its foundational promises. This thesis develops computational methods to systematically investigate these challenges in Decentralized Finance through empirical analysis of blockchain data. First, to address the complexity of DeFi compositions, we developed an algorithm that extracts fundamental building blocks from individual transactions, revealing recurring patterns and hidden interdependencies between financial services and assets that manual analysis cannot capture at scale. Second, we applied network analysis techniques and introduced novel measurements to examine the governance structures of decentralized applications, focusing on contributors with development and administrative roles. Our analysis revealed common voting patterns and centralized decision-making that contradict claims of decentralized governance. Third, we adapted a difference-in-differences statistical framework to quantify the economic impact of cybercrime on governance tokens, demonstrating that indirect effects on prices and trading volumes significantly exceed the direct losses suffered by immediate victims. These computational methods collectively provide the first systematic, large-scale analytical framework for empirically investigating DeFi ecosystems, revealing fundamental gaps between theoretical promises of transparency and inclusion and practical realities. The findings have significant implications for researchers, policymakers, and practitioners by establishing evidence-based approaches to measuring decentralization claims and systemic risks in blockchain-based financial systems.

Nirdosh Bhatnagar

Certain game-theoretic models of blockchains are discussed in this chapter. These models provide a critical insight into the workings of the blockchain technology. A simple Bitcoin mining contest is described in the next section. This is followed by a Proof-of-Work mining game. A Bitcoin mining game with pooling is next described. An Algorand-like scheme is also examined. Finally a game-theoretic model of the Proof-of-Stake consensus protocol is analyzed. Interpretations and implications of these games are also outlined in their respective sections.

Andry Alamsyah, Nanda Salsabila

Purpose This paper aims to examine decentralized finance (DeFi) as a Web 3.0 information system, not solely as a financial innovation. It synthesizes how DeFi mechanisms are structured across architectural, functional and governance dimensions and clarifies how they reshape trust, coordination, transparency and accountability in decentralized digital environments. Design/methodology/approach The study adopts a state-of-the-art survey based on a structured review of academic, industry and regulatory literature. The reviewed sources are analyzed to identify major system components, including decentralized applications, smart contracts, blockchain-based execution layers, oracle-based data integration, governance protocols and interoperability mechanisms. Expert interviews provide supplementary interpretive context on adoption barriers and governance tensions. Findings DeFi operates as a web-native information system composed of interconnected service layers supporting exchange, lending, payments, insurance, asset management and protocol governance. These mechanisms increase programmability, automation and accessibility while introducing persistent challenges related to governance concentration, security vulnerabilities, scalability constraints, usability barriers, oracle dependence and regulatory fragmentation. Originality/value While prior DeFi surveys have characterized mechanisms, business models or regulatory arrangements, this paper is the first to read DeFi as a layered Web 3.0 information system, integrating distributed execution, data coordination, service composition and decentralized governance. It offers a structured synthesis and a system-oriented perspective relevant to researchers and practitioners interested in decentralized applications, blockchain-based web services and digital financial infrastructure design.

Zishan Ashraf Mohammad, Nick Harkiolakis, Saman Sarbazvatan

Although there has been a massive increase in the size and complexity of the cryptocurrency ecosystem, most of the academic research into the relationship between token design parameters and the long-term value of a given token is still very much in its infancy. Most of the research in tokenomics is theoretical in nature, based upon frameworks for understanding, or is focused solely on observing a specific time frame. The authors of this paper address the above mentioned void by studying the statistically significant relationships between five on-chain tokenomic variables--transaction gas fees, total value locked (TVL), token unlocks, tokens burned, and governance concentration (as measured using the Gini coefficient) -- and the market price of Ether (ETH) during a 52 months observation window that began in August 2021 and ended in September 2025. The data for the study consisted of bi-weekly observations (n = 108) which allowed researchers to use three different analytical methods--Spearman correlation analysis, log-linear multiple regression analysis, and an error correction model (ECM) after conducting Johansen cointegration and unit root tests. A cointegrating equation among the variables was established through Johansen Trace Testing, indicating that all of these variables do indeed exhibit a long-run equilibrium relationship. The ECM revealed that the total amount of funds “locked” into smart contracts (“total value locked”) was the strongest single predictor of the price of Ether in both the long run (beta = 0.8, p < 0.001) and short run (beta = 1.18, p < 0.001) specifications. Additionally, it was found that token unlocks have a negative relationship with price (beta = −0.22, p < 0.001). Gas Fees (beta = 0.2, p = 0.021) and tokens burned (beta = 0.15, p = 0.039) had positive coefficients at the 0.01 level in the long-run specification; however, both exhibited extremely high levels of multicolinearity (Variance Inflation Factor>28,000), likely due to their technical/operational linkages under EIP-1559. Voting power did not demonstrate a statistically significant relationship to price (rho =0.143, p > 0.05).

Vladimir Kovšca, Zrinka Lacković Vincek, Suzana Keglević Kozjak

Prior research on cryptoasset valuation has largely adapted discounted cash flow (DCF) models by treating staking rewards and transaction fees as productive cash flows, while insufficiently accounting for monetary characteristics and strategic flexibility inherent to decentralized platforms. This study investigates whether such cashflow based approaches systematically undervalue Ethereum. The central hypothesis is that Ethereum’s intrinsic value cannot be adequately explained by DCF valuation alone, and that monetary premium and technological optionality constitute economically significant components of value. To examine this hypothesis, a multi-layer valuation framework is applied using network and market data from 2022–2025, combining a DCF model, a monetary premium benchmarked against gold based on relative scarcity and adoption, and a real option uplift reflecting future expansion potential. Monte Carlo simulation is employed to test the robustness of the results. The findings indicate that while DCF-based valuations remain relatively stable, total intrinsic value is highly sensitive to assumptions regarding monetary adoption and strategic optionality. These results underline the importance of layered valuation frameworks for decentralized platforms.

Iqbal Ramadhani Mukhlis, Nambi Sembilu, Iswanda F. Satibi, Kusuma Mukti Dewantoro

This conceptual paper explores the profound impact and pivotal role of information systems (IS) within the rapidly evolving landscape of Decentralized Finance (DeFi). Emerging from the advancements in blockchain technology, DeFi represents a paradigm shift in financial management, offering an ecosystem that is more inclusive, transparent, and efficient by removing centralized intermediaries through smart contracts. This paper analyzes how IS principles are fundamental to the design, management, and security of DeFi protocols, contrasting them with traditional financial systems. It delves into core DeFi applications such as Decentralized Exchanges (DEXs), lending/borrowing protocols, stablecoins, and yield farming, emphasizing their underlying IS architectures and the challenges related to user experience (UX/UI). Furthermore, the paper discusses critical IS aspects in DeFi, including security management, automation via smart contracts, blockchain-based analytics for risk management and anomaly detection, and the unique governance mechanisms through Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs). Finally, it outlines the future trajectory of DeFi, considering its integration with emerging technologies like Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Web3, and its evolving relationship with global financial systems and regulations. This work contributes to understanding the complex interplay between technology and finance, highlighting how robust information systems are indispensable for DeFi's sustained growth and its potential to reshape the digital financial ecosystem.

Craig S Wright

This online appendix accompanies the main paper of the same title. It contains thefull proofs of the propositions stated in the main paper, the multi-regime Jacobian andbifurcation analysis, the notation table, and the code-and-data documentation for theempirical execution. Section and equation references that appear in this document referto the main paper unless explicitly prefixed by OA-.

Wang Qingsheng, Runping Wu, su Zhanguo

Introduction, Sports science data governance is characterized by persistent tensions between data sharing, stakeholder incentives, and regulatory constraints. These challenges are amplified by fragmented data infrastructures and competing interests among stakeholders, limiting the effective use of data in performance optimization and research. Objective, This study aims to develop and theoretically ground a decentralized autonomous organization (DAO)-based governance framework for sports science data ecosystems, focusing on how decentralized mechanisms can enhance coordination, participation, and compliance. Methodology, A multi-method research design is employed, integrating conceptual case analysis, agent-based modeling (ABM), and survey-based empirical analysis. Structural equation modeling (SEM) is used to examine the relationships between governance perceptions, incentives, and data-sharing intentions. Results, The findings indicate that DAO-based mechanisms can support more distributed and transparent data-sharing processes. Simulation results suggest that participation dynamics follow non-linear patterns, with incentive and reputation mechanisms contributing to system stabilization. Empirical results identify technical usability, perceived regulatory compliance, and incentive structures as significant predictors of stakeholder participation. Discussion, The study contributes to platform governance and institutional theory by conceptualizing a hybrid decentralized governance model for data-intensive environments. The findings highlight the importance of aligning technological design with usability and regulatory requirements. However, limitations related to model assumptions, perception-based data, and interoperability challenges remain. Future research should focus on real-world implementation and the development of standardized governance frameworks.