This study examines changes in the value of Bitcoin after the BREXIT and US Presidential elections in 2016 to determine whether it and other cryptocurrencies experienced value changes associated with the vote outcomes. For comparative purposes, Bitcoin is also compared to currencies such as the Great Britain Pound, Mexican Peso and Special Drawing Rights to determine whether Bitcoin values change like currencies. Some evidence showed changes in the value of Bitcoin were weakly similar to store-of-wealth commodities like gold and silver. Overall, the election-window volatility of cryptocurrencies was much higher than the preceding one-year average for the BREXIT vote but less volatile than the one-year average for the US election vote.
Israel Barrutia Barreto, José Antonio Urquizo Maggia, Samuel Isaías Acevedo Torres
La pobreza en América Latina y el Caribe sigue siendo un problema sin aparente solución. Se propone en este artículo el uso de las criptomonedas y la tecnología de blockchain como una herramienta para reducir la pobreza en la región mediante actividades económicas provenientes del turismo. Para ello se efectuó un análisis detallado de las potencialidades que recogen en conjunto el turismo, las criptomonedas y la tecnología blockchain. Dada las capacidades turísticas de las regiones latinoamericana y caribeña se debe concretar un conjunto de esfuerzos por parte de los gobiernos y empresas privadas en implementar el desarrollo turístico en regiones y localidades con gran biodiversidad y recursos naturales y culturales aún sin explorar. La relativa facilidad de acceso a cuentas bitcoin mediante teléfonos inteligentes hace que las transacciones financieras mediante criptomonedas se encuentran al alcance pequeños comerciantes que, normalmente, no tienen acceso a cuentas bancarias tradicionales. Por otro lado debe fortalecerse aún más el acceso a internet vía telefonía móvil para facilitar los sistemas de pago y para que las tecnologías basadas en blockchain puedan desarrollarse a su máxima capacidad. Se concluye que para lograr una significativa reducción de la pobreza es necesario la confluencia de una adecuada regulación de las criptomonedas por parte de los Gobiernos así como también el desarrollo una infraestructura adecuada que permita la creación y/o recuperación de microempresas potenciadas por la “Oferta Inicial de Monedas”.
Yoon-Chow Yeong, Khairul Shafee Kalid, Savita K. Sugathan
Dated back in 2008, the first blockchain-powered cryptocurrency-Bitcoin was introduced by Satoshi Nakamoto. Over the years, the types of cryptocurrencies available in the market amounted to more than 2,000. With the disruptive potential to revolutionize the traditional financial services, cryptocurrencies become a topic of interest among scholars, global regulators, investors, business operators, information technology enthusiasts and consumers. Nevertheless, the negative activities associated with cryptocurrencies such as money laundering and illicit trading, have resulted in the legality of cryptocurrencies remain controversial in the global context.As the worldwide regulators expressed different stance towards cryptocurrency acceptance and adoption, this study sought to gauge the individual’s behavioral intention to use cryptocurrency. Recognizing the dearth of study in Asian countries, especially the developing country, this study addresses the literature gap by focusing the case of Malaysian individuals. Specifically, this study investigated the effects of age, education level and income level differences in an individual’s behavioral intention to use cryptocurrency.The sample is made up of 176 Malaysian individuals who are equipped with cryptocurrency knowledge. The empirical data were gathered using online survey questionnaire via Google form. Subsequently, the data were analyzed using one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) to understand the demographics effect on the intention to adopt cryptocurrency.Finally, the results revealed that the role of age, education and income level are not significant in influencing an individual’s behavior towards cryptocurrency adoption.
Blockchain technology, born as a tool to support Bitcoins (the most popular and controversial cryptocurrency in the world) has set itself in a very short time as a disruptive technology able not only to revolutionize existing businesses but also to create new ones. This work illustrates the main characteristics of the blockchain and its functioning, and then focuses on the potential applications that can be implemented for developing countries. More specifically, the work, considers the case of financial inclusion in Africa, on the basis of the Global Findex 2017 data, the World Bank Survey on financial inclusion. The empirical analysis identifies the weaknesses in the current financial system in Africa and constitues the basis to discuss potential blockchain solutions to reduce the current level of financial exclusion and pursue sustainable development for African countries.
Blockchain technology has a potential to address many of the food safety challenges facing the world today. Some of the most promising blockchain applications developed to data have been in the food supply chains.
Muhammad Ali Nasir, Toan Luu Duc Huynh, Sang Phu Nguyen, Duy Duong
In the context of the debate on the role of cryptocurrencies in the economy as well as their dynamics and forecasting, this brief study analyzes the predictability of Bitcoin volume and returns using Google search values. We employed a rich set of established empirical approaches, including a VAR framework, a copulas approach, and non-parametric drawings, to capture a dependence structure. Using a weekly dataset from 2013 to 2017, our key results suggest that the frequency of Google searches leads to positive returns and a surge in Bitcoin trading volume. Shocks to search values have a positive effect, which persisted for at least a week. Our findings contribute to the debate on cryptocurrencies/Bitcoins and have profound implications in terms of understanding their dynamics, which are of special interest to investors and economic policymakers.
Agriculture is responsible for feeding the whole population and farmers are its main stakeholder. However, the socio-economic condition of farmers in most countries is not good and India is not an exception. This could be seen in terms of very low per capita income of Indian farmers. Farmers often face various issues in practicing their profession which affect their status quo. To this effect, this paper identifies fourteen such issues using exhaustive literature search and Delphi Technique. These issues are categorized under four head namely lack of proper information, beneficiaries schemes, low price of agricultural produce and lack of transparency and traceability in agri-business. Further to handle these select issues; a blockchain based information system is proposed.
Jan 1, 2019·Proceedings of the ... Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences/Proceedings of the Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences
How to keep customers motivated in participative behaviors remains one major challenge in extant loyalty program (LP) studies. While some companies have initiated efforts to utilize blockchain-based distributed ledgers and smart contract capabilities to enhance customer experience and improve LP efficiencies, academic assessment of blockchain application in the LP context remains scarce. This research attempts to establish a theoretical overview of how the key natures of blockchain influence customers’ varying motivations (economy, autonomy, competence and relatedness) and perceived value, which consequently induce participative behaviors in a loyalty points context. Then, using an exploratory case study of Bubichain in China, we verify that the blockchain-enabled loyalty points scheme not only improves customers’ economic perceived value by meeting their economic motives, as the traditional one does, but also enhances their social interaction and psychological self-fulfillment value perception by meeting their intrinsic motivations, thus increasing customers’ experience and participation behaviors.
Georgios A. Panos, Tatja Kärkkäinen, Adèle Atkinson
We examine the relationship between financial literacy and attitudes to cryptocurrencies, using microdata from 15 countries. Our financial literacy proxy exerts a large negative effect on the probability of currently owning cryptocurrencies. The financially literate are also more likely to be aware of cryptocurrencies, and more likely to report that they do not intend to own them. We confirm the external validity of our financial literacy proxy and findings using data from a second novel survey of retail investors in 3 Asian countries. More financially literate retail investors are more likely not to have held any cryptocurrencies. We show that the relationship between financial literacy and attitudes to cryptocurrencies is moderated by a different perception of the financial risk involved in cryptocurrencies versus alternative instruments by the more financially literate. Our findings shed light on the demand for cryptocurrencies among the general population and suggest that it is largely driven by unsophisticated users.
This study investigates the relationship between blockchain technology and the financial market. The US and China are used as case studies for the 2008–2016 period using fully modified least square and Toda-Yamamoto causality technique. The estimates show that blockchain technology has positive and significant relationship with the financial market in the US and China. In other words, the higher the levels of blockchain innovation in these countries, the more developed the financial markets. This suggests that the presence of blockchain innovation in financial markets spurs financial development. Blockchain innovation is therefore a positive significant factor for well-developed financial markets. The findings also indicate that macroeconomic factors such as lagged financial development, GDP per capita, the growth rate of GDP, FDI and trade openness have significant and positive relationship with financial development in the two countries. Among the institutional variables, government effectiveness has significant and positive effects only in the US.
This thesis analyzes whether inflation rates, government bonds and corruption levels have an impact on the difference between local prices of bitcoin and prices on the most liquid exchanges globally. Bitcoin may act as a preferred alternative to local currencies in countries with high levels of financial uncertainty, hence people who live in these countries might be willing to pay a premium to purchase bitcoin as they reduce the risk related to the future value of their own fiat currency. Daily average prices on bitcoin, in 15 different fiat currencies, are downloaded from LocalBitcoins and converted to USD at official exchange rates. The data covers the period of Jan.2015-Dec.2017. By calculating daily deviations from the BNC Liquid Index and aggregating to monthly observations, we consider three different panel data models: the static- and dynamic fixed effects and a within-between random effects model. The results suggest that countries with higher average inflation rates has a higher premium, while a within increase in monthly inflation has a negative impact. If the premium on 10Y government bonds increases, the premium increases significantly, but when comparing across countries, the average bond rate is not significant, but positive. A within increase in corruption levels has a positive impact on the premium, but surprisingly we get a negative relationship at country level. Countries with poor economic performance and high levels of uncertainty seems to be willing to pay a premium to acquire Bitcoins