This study aimed to determine the effect of behavior factors and social demography on the investment decision in cryptocurrency in the Greater Jakarta area. The method used in this study is partial least square (PLS) using the SmartPLS software application. The behavior factor variables used in this study are overconfidence, herd behavior, subjective norm, and awareness variables. This study also used social demography moderating variables in age, gender, occupation, education, and investment experience on 400 respondents in the Greater Jakarta area. The test results show that only overconfidence and awareness variables have a significant positive effect on decisions to invest in cryptocurrency and subjective norms variables that have no significant positive effect but can be moderated by social demographic factors such as age and investment experience. In addition, other variables have no significant positive effect. They cannot be moderated by social demographic factors such as age, gender, occupation, and investment experience on the decisions of cryptocurrency investors in Greater Jakarta area. Our study contributes to developing knowledge, insight, skills and analyzing researchers, especially regarding the influence of behavioral factors and social demography on investment decisions in cryptocurrency.
With blockchain technology as its foundation, the rise of Web3 and associated token economics promises unprecedented and fundamental changes in areas of ownership, governance, finance and engagement. The power of true ownership of digital assets, immutability and portability across worlds, platforms, and communities is changing how individuals and companies engage. Smart contracts enable new programmable commercial constructs which provide coded guarantees without the notion of a human guarantor. These powerful concepts of immutable record-keeping, true ownership, guaranteed transaction execution lay the foundation of the future of a Decentralized Customer Experience (DCX). This paradigm shift opens-up untapped opportunities and addressable markets in the CX space such as the empowerment of consumers in decentralized autonomous organizations, new business and commercial models, brand managemet & lifetime loyalty (aka. ‘super fan’), community-intrinsic marketing, and enablement & certification. This leads to industry-specific value cases and their monetization in healthcare, insurance, retail, consumer goods, and high-tech and the software industry. This article proposes the definition of a new market category called DCX unlocked by the impact of Web3 and blockchain technology onto the customer experience space and assesses new addressable markets spanning across almost any industry.
Purpose This paper analyzes global interest in Internet information about decentralized finance (DeFi), embedded finance (EmFi), open finance (OpFi), ocean finance (OcFi) and sustainable finance (SuFi) and the relationship among them. Design/methodology/approach The paper used a comparative methodology based on regression and correlation analyses to assess global interest in Internet information about DeFi, EmFi, OpFi, OcFi and SuFi. Findings The findings reveal that global interest in Internet information about EmFi was more popular in Asian and European countries. Global web search for Internet information about OcFi decreased during the financial crisis while global web search for Internet information about OpFi and EmFi increased during financial crisis years. Global web search for Internet information about DeFi, SuFi and EmFi increased during the pandemic years. There is a significant and positive correlation between interest in DeFi, EmFi, OcFi and SuFi. Also, there is a significant and negative correlation between interest in EmFi and interest in OpFi. The regression coefficient matrix shows that OpFi, EmFi, OcFi, DeFi and SuFi are significantly related. Originality/value To the best of the author’s knowledge, this is the first paper that analyses the association between interest in DeFi, EmFi, OpFi, OcFi and SuFi. Thus, this study addressed an important knowledge gap in the literature by exploring people’s interest in Internet information about DeFi, EmFi, OpFi, OcFi and SuFi.
The 2017 cryptocurrency parabolic craze drew significant attention, pushing blockchain projects to differentiate themselves from competitors. Within this scope, the present study employs the personality trait model to theoretically and empirically explore brand personality within the context of digital currencies, investigating its impact on its brand identity through the moderating effect of consumers' personality traits. The analysed data (n=237) were collected from Consensus 2019, which is the world's leading blockchain forum. Results revealed that within the context of cryptocurrencies, brand personality positively relates to brand identification, whereas the five personality traits (openness, agreeableness, conscientiousness, extroversion, and neuroticism) relate differently as moderators. This study is the first to explore brand personality and brand identification within the context of digital currencies. The findings indicate that crypto users link brand personality with brand identification differently depending on certain personality traits.
Personality Traits and Psychology
Digital Marketing and Social Media
Consumer Behavior in Brand Consumption and Identification
Brett Martin, Polymeros Chrysochou, Carolyn Strong, Di Wang · 5 authors
Markets for cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin have experienced tremendous growth. Yet little research has examined why people want to buy cryptocurrencies that are risky investments. The present research studies a subset of people interested in cryptocurrencies. Specifically, we examine the effect of Dark Tetrad traits (Machiavellianism, subclinical narcissism, subclinical psychopathy, and subclinical sadism) on a person's crypto attitude and buying intention. The following mediators were examined as reasons for people buying crypto: (1) conspiracy beliefs (e.g., distrust of government), (2) positivity and (3) fear of missing out (FoMO). Importantly, we are not suggesting all crypto buyers exhibit Dark Tetrad traits. Based on a pre-registered survey of the main research question rather than hypotheses (N = 566), it was found that narcissism was positively associated with crypto attitude which was mediated by positivity. Machiavellianism was associated with buying intention which was mediated by conspiracy beliefs. Machiavellians were more distrustful of government which was associated with a greater desire to buy crypto. Psychopathy affected crypto judgments through FoMO and a negative effect on positivity. Sadism is associated with FoMO and a lack of positivity which affects crypto judgments.
E-commerce has developed greatly in recent years, as such, its regulations have become one of the most important research areas in order to implement a sustainable market. The analysis of a large amount of reviews data generated in the shopping process can be used to facilitate regulation: since the review data is short text and it is easy to extract the features through deep learning methods. Through these features, the sentiment analysis of the review data can be carried out to obtain the users’ emotional tendency for a specific product. Regulators can formulate reasonable regulation strategies based on the analysis results. However, the data has many issues such as poor reliability and easy tampering at present, which greatly affects the outcome and can lead regulators to make some unreasonable regulatory decisions according to these results. Blockchain provides the possibility of solving these problems due to its trustfulness, transparency and unmodifiable features. Based on these, the blockchain can be applied for data storage, and the Long short-term memory (LSTM) network can be employed to mine reviews data for emotional tendencies analysis. In order to improve the accuracy of the results, we designed a method to make LSTM better understand text data such as reviews containing idioms. In order to prove the effectiveness of the proposed method, different experiments were used for verification, with all results showing that the proposed method can achieve a good outcome in the sentiment analysis leading to regulators making better decisions.
Inessa Tyan, Mariemma I. Yagüe, Antonio Jesús Guevara Plaza
This study aims to move forward a blockchain tourism research and add understanding regarding blockchain adoption in the tourism industry. Grounded theory method based literature review was applied as a research methodology. Based on the literature review, the authors developed a conceptual model of blockchain adoption in tourism by defining casual, context, intervening conditions that affect blockchain adoption and outlining the consequences of blockchain adoption on the tourism sector. This research will contribute to the blockchain adoption literature as well as will give answers to the industry practitioners on how this innovative technology can be adopted and whether it worth investments or not.
The rapidly growing importance of blockchain technology has taken many scholars and industry professionals by surprise. Its emergence has sparked a multitude of innovative, yet largely untested use cases and business models that have the potential to substantially transform the marketing landscape. More specifically, blockchain as the base technology in combination with tokenization has the potential to fundamentally transform marketing communication by changing the ways in which companies and their customers interact. While academic research still ponders how blockchain can be best incorporated into existing research streams, the industry tests numerous ideas on a trial-and-error basis. Blockchains comprise a diverse array of complex and rapidly developing technological building blocks, which makes them hard to understand and integrate into existing marketing frameworks, models, and theories. In contrast, a specific focus on tokens facilitates understanding and classification. In this paper, we clarify the terminology surrounding the emerging token ecosystem from a marketing perspective, illustrate how tokens can potentially impact the marketing profession, and recommend approaches for their integration into academic research.
Blockchain Technology Applications and Security
Digital Marketing and Social Media
Consumer Behavior in Brand Consumption and Identification
The specific purposes of this study are (1) to analyze whether there is a difference in the recognition of tourists in the functions of currency according to the type of currency spent by tourists before and after COVID-19; (2) to identify why tourists employ Bitcoin among the functions of currency; and (3) to identify tourists’ intentions to continue to using Bitcoin according to the degree of recognition of the function of virtual currency in Korea. Both quantitative and qualitative methods, including a one-way analysis of variance, a paired t-test, a simple regression analysis, and an in-depth interview, were employed. One of the conclusions implies that tourists in a tourism destination still prefer paying with cash rather than paying with card or virtual currency. Moreover, the study discovered that tourists count more on virtual currency and prepare for a future with virtual currency when a factor that has an unstable impact on social economy, such as COVID-19, happens. As to the functions of Bitcoin, tourists appeared to place a great importance on its storage, value, satisfaction, convenience, and investment. Additionally, the study showed that tourists intend to continue using Bitcoin due to the same satisfaction, convenience, and investment attributed to Bitcoin. More discussion and implications were provided.
In the first half of 2020, the average sales volume of gallery operators declined due to the COVID-19 pandemic and art galleries faced a crisis relating to their sustainable operation. However, crypto art finance, which combines online sales with blockchain, is attracting a considerable amount of attention. Can the use of blockchain solve the problems encountered in today’s art trading market? Is it considered acceptable by participants in the art trading market? What factors affect the behavioral intentions of blockchain technology users? In this study, we discussed the relationship between perceived risks and the three external variables of trust, government support, and auction house initiative, as well as their impacts on user attitudes and behavioral intentions regarding blockchain. The results of this study verified key factors that will help to increase the use of blockchain and solve existing market issues. It will also promote the sustainable operation and development of art enterprises and the market.
Purpose Based on the concepts confined in Ajzen's theory of planned behavior (TPB), this study investigates users' attitudes towards adoption of a blockchain-based framework in the esports industry that proposes a scheme of rewarding stakeholders for their invested attention along with blockchain technology's inherent protocols. Design/methodology/approach The present study uses RStudio (Version 1.3.1093) package RedditExtractoR for scraping and analysis of the discussion referring to the keyword “Verasity” on the Reddit website. The final corpus of 1,913 user comments was considered for the study. Sentiment analysis was initially conducted to explore the semantic orientation of the users concerning Verasity. This was followed by generalized equation modeling to analyze the impact of social media attributed to the users' commenting behavior. Findings The study found that Redditors, in general, have a positive attitude towards the adoption of a blockchain-based esports platform. This was validated through the empirical findings. The regression model states that there is a significant positive impact of the positivity in the comments over the Redditors' attitude and in their commenting behavior. Originality/value This study offers a new understanding of key contributing attributes of sentiment formation over social media concerning a blockchain-based esports framework. The study also establishes an empirical relationship between the social media attributes and the commenting behavior of Redditors. Finally, the current study offers valuable insights into social media engagements and the selection of highly influential Redditors for practicing marketing managers.
The agriculture industry is being transformed by disruptive technologies, which is resulting in a rise in the Smart agriculture environment. In developing economies, blockchain is required to progress the traditional agriculture system, just as it is in developed countries. The purpose of this study is to look at the major constructs that influences an individual decision to adopt blockchain for agriculture firms. The proposed model uses structural equation modelling and is based on Unified theory of acceptance and use of technology (UTAUT). All factors were shown to have significant impact during the blockchain adoption expect (social influence on behavioral intention), according to the findings from a study of 917 specialists working in the Pakistan agriculture firms. The study findings are used to examine the managerial consequences, albeit there are some limitations.
Abstract This study aims to demonstrate that technological innovation in tourism represents a paradigm shift in law and is also changing the competition between tourist destinations. Technological innovation in the tourism sector is increasing the volume of data processing and calls for greater and more consistent (detailed) legal protection to combat dangers to private life, such as exclusion from ‘digital life’. The topics covered by the study include data processing in hospitality contracts, the enrichment of guest profiles, newsletter marketing, guest passes or discount cards in travel package contracts, and the question of whether data processing is necessary for fulfilling smart tourism contracts. The theoretical framework is based on contract and data protection law principles relating to purpose, data avoidance and transparency, the privacy rule by design and by default. The methodological approach is based on a careful balancing and weighing of the legal goods and values, and an assessment of the normative parameters. This research is responding to the need to develop appropriate policies on transformative innovations and is addressing different concerns relating to the adoption and diffusion of technological trends in tourism.
Purpose This study aims to blockchain facilitate information sharing among different players in the food industry, such as farmers, food suppliers and investors, enabling an effective decision-making process where the information about goods is traceable without any inherent risk. Although blockchain technology is emerging, its use in the food industry needs to be explored from different angles, such as organizations’ policy, adoption strategies and potential technology innovations which could positively impact business processes. Design/methodology/approach For this purpose, the authors survey 84 organizations in the food industry. Further, the authors conducted in-depth- interviews with three organizations that applied blockchain technology in the production phase to address the pros and cons of this adaption and discuss how the technology could be improved based on the challenges they faced. Moreover, an overview of current and potential digital transformation uses cases of blockchain technology in the food industry has been provided. Findings The results suggested that perceived efficiency, transparency, standardization and platform development and traceability factors positively influenced intention to use (ITU). Practical implications The adoption of the blockchain cloud solution is neither time-consuming nor expensive; organizations may attempt to predict how regulations or standards will be developed to create a blockchain solution compatible with them. Originality/value This study is among the primary studies investigating the role of blockchain technology in the food sector from the organizations’ viewpoint, highlighting the factors influencing the ITU.
Recently, the cryptocurrency market has been overgrowing, many investors from the global stock market entered the cryptocurrency business. Users interact and manage their investments and transactions through the cryptocurrency wallet, which is the gateway to buying, selling, sending, receiving, and trading. Studies and statistics show sixfold growth in cryptocurrency wallet accounts over the past 4 years (2017–2020). However, the rate of inactive trading that occurs during the same period causes market sluggishness. This paper examines the reasons behind the high adoption and low usage rate of cryptocurrency wallets, highlighting the factors impacting the utilization of cryptocurrency wallets. We aim to testify the impact of user experience (UX) on the usage level and the impact of trust on wallet usage. We designed a new model to understand the actual users' behavior on using the cryptocurrency wallets. This model combined User Experience Questionnaire (UEQ) with usability to comprehend UX and add trust as a significant construct to understand the impact of user trust in cryptocurrency wallets. The examination was performed with an actual user on an online survey. The data were analyzed using Smart-PLS. The results show good outcomes that contribute to developing and enhancing the implementation of cryptocurrency wallets. Highlighting the importance of UEQ, Usability, and Trust in a blockchain-based application and showed vital signs affecting wallet users. These results could be applied to enhance cryptocurrency wallet utilization and improving the adoption of blockchain applications.
Purpose The authors examine cryptocurrency market behavior using a hidden Markov model (HMM). Under the assumption that the cryptocurrency market has unobserved heterogeneity, an HMM allows us to study (1) the extent to which cryptocurrency markets shift due to interactions with social sentiment during a bull or bear market and (2) the heterogeneous pattern of cryptocurrency market behavior under these two market conditions. Design/methodology/approach The authors advance the HMM model based on two six-month datasets (from November 2017 to April 2018 for a bull market and from December 2018 to May 2019 for a bear market) collected from Google, Twitter, the stock market and cryptocurrency trading platforms in South Korea. Social sentiment data were collected by crawling Bitcoin-related posts on Twitter. Findings The authors highlight the reaction of the cryptocurrency market to social sentiment under a bull and a bear market and in two hidden states (an upward and a downward trend). They find: (1) social sentiment is relatively relevant during a bull compared to a bear market. (2) The cryptocurrency market in a downward state, that is, with a local decreasing trend, tends to be more responsive to positive social sentiment. (3) The market in an upward state, that is, with a local increasing trend, tends to better interact with negative social sentiment. Originality/value The proposed HMM model contributes to a theoretically grounded understanding of how cryptocurrency markets respond to social sentiment in bull and bear markets through varied sequences adjusted for cryptocurrency market heterogeneity.
Δαμιανός Π. Σακάς, Nikolaos T. Giannakopoulos, Dimitrios P. Reklitis, Thomas K. Dasaklis
In future years, airline companies will be leaning more and more towards cryptocurrencies to implement their digital marketing strategies as leaders seek to gain an understanding of the factors affecting airlines’ visibility parameters. Cryptocurrency investment websites are currently experiencing rising demand, making them an appropriate site for paid advertisements. The above factors suggest the need for airlines to harvest cryptocurrency investment and platform users in their favour. To this end, it can be beneficial for airlines’ web promotions to link certain web analytics metrics to cryptocurrency trading site metrics. For research purposes, web analytics data were monitored and gathered for 2 consecutive years from 10 globally leading cryptocurrency trading companies and 10 airline websites. A three-stage model was adopted by the authors. In the first stage, statistical analysis was implemented using cryptocurrency and airline metrics, followed by fuzzy cognitive mapping and agent-based modelling stages. The findings of the study indicate that engagement with cryptocurrency trading websites has a positive impact on airline websites’ global ranking and visibility parameters. The outcomes of this research provide noteworthy digital marketing strategies which can be addressed by airline companies to increase their website visitors and optimise visibility parameters with the assistance of cryptocurrency trading websites.
MSMEs in Indonesia are expected to be able to face competition in the era of industrial revolution 4.0. However, there are many problems and obstacles in competitiveness, especially facing global competition, including access to capital, access to information and technology, access to organization and management, and access to business networks and partnerships. Besides, it is often difficult for them to get additional capital through banks or other lenders to increase their business scale. Moreover, a lack of financial and digital literacy causes the low validity of MSMEs' data to lenders. The adoption of blockchain technology is one of the considerations to minimize these MSMEs problems. Meanwhile, this technology is still relatively new to be applied to MSMEs but positively impacts the future. This study aims to measure and analyze MSMEs' readiness in using blockchain technology on a business scale with the TRAM model. This model integrates the Technology Readiness Index (TRI) and Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) models. This study aims to test several variables, including TRI, perceive ease of use, perceive ease of usefulness, attitude toward, and intense use of blockchain technology. Data processing uses the partial least square path modelling (PLS-PM) method. The results showed that TRI was significant on perceived ease of usefulness and perceived ease of usefulness. Then, perceive ease of use is significant towards perceive ease of usefulness and intention to use. Besides, perceive ease of usefulness is significant for attitude. The attitude toward variable is significant for the intention to use in the acceptance of blockchain technology.
Atif Naseer, Enrique Nava Baro, Sultan Daud Khan, Y. Vila · 5 authors
In recent years, cryptocurrency has become gradually more significant in economic regions worldwide. In cryptocurrencies, records are stored using a cryptographic algorithm. The main aim of this research was to develop an optimal solution for predicting the price of cryptocurrencies based on user opinions from social media. Twitter is used as a marketing tool for cryptoanalysis owing to the unrestricted conversations on cryptocurrencies that take place on social media channels. Therefore, this work focuses on extracting Tweets and gathering data from different sources to classify them into positive, negative, and neutral categories, and further examining the correlations between cryptocurrency movements and Tweet sentiments. This paper proposes an optimized method using a deep learning algorithm and convolution neural network for cryptocurrency prediction; this method is used to predict the prices of four cryptocurrencies, namely, Litecoin, Monero, Bitcoin, and Ethereum. The results of analyses demonstrate that the proposed method forecasts prices with a high accuracy of about 98.75%. The method is validated by comparison with existing methods using visualization tools.
Sihem Ben Saad, Aida Allaya, Fayda Taârit, Rafla Hchaichi
A cryptocurrency is a digital medium of exchange that operates independent of the central bank. It relies on cryptography to secure financial transactions and to check asset transfer. Several studies have shown that several factors play a role in inhibiting cryptocurrency spread, such as national culture, variables related to consumer psychology as well as factors related to regulation and monetary policy. Despite all the technological innovations, the inclusion of cryptocurrencies has become a challenge to governments and central banks since cryptocurrencies are often disfavored by rigorous regulation and monetary policy. On the other hand, psychological levels such as the need for human interaction, the organizational and functional barriers and many other variables related to power distance and uncertainty avoidance are the hindering factors for cryptocurrency adoption. In this chapter, we study the phenomenon of resistance to the spread of cryptocurrency. This study aims to explain how economic and psychological factors could discourage the consumer to use cryptocurrency.
Mauro Sciarelli, Anna Prisco, Mohamed Hani Gheith, Valerio Muto
Purpose The present research aims to identify the determinants for users' behavioral adoption of Blockchain, exploring the relationships among these variables and investigating whether the proposed model can provide a more comprehensive manner to understand the adoption of Blockchain technology. Design/methodology/approach This study adopts the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) approach and extends it with external constructs: “reduced cost” and “efficiency and security”. This paper used a quantitative and exploratory approach through the collection and analysis of data from a total of 108 Italian innovative SME. We have used the Partial Least Squares Structural Equation modeling (PLS-SEM) approach using SmartPLS for model evaluation. Findings The results show that “efficiency and security” is an important driver of firms' decision-making process to adopt Blockchain. Moreover, the results show that perceived usefulness is a strong predictor of the intention to use Blockchain in business processes. Originality/value This research advances the literature on technology adoption in business processes, focusing on a particular technology: Blockchain. The field has been strengthened by investigating the determinants of technology adoption, adding new perspectives; both reduced cost and efficiency, and security.