Poor payment practices are perceived as one of the biggest challenges facing the construction industry. Since payments are issued according to project contract terms, the project's cash flow is inherently affected by the contract and how parties fulfill their obligations. This research proposes a framework for payment automation in construction projects to achieve smart construction contracts. Payments are automatically issued upon satisfying contract conditions using blockchain. Cryptocurrency is proposed to be utilized in the framework to execute the contract terms with no need for a third party to process project payments. 5D BIM is used to model the geometry of buildings and visualize project progress together with payment status using Autodesk Revit, Navisworks, and Primavera P6. The developed framework has the potential to reduce the consequences of poor payments. An actual case study for a construction project in Cairo, Egypt is worked out to demonstrate the main features of the proposed framework. The results of the case study reveal that project cash flow is secured and payments are instantly issued. Moreover, electronic records of payments are kept on the blockchain.
Cryptocurrencies have emerged as a popular investment option, characterized by their high volatility and potential for significant price fluctuations.The ability to accurately predict cryptocurrency prices is crucial for investors to make informed decisions.In this research paper, we conduct a comprehensive comparative analysis of three widely used forecasting models -Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM), Autoregressive Integrated Moving Average (ARIMA), and Linear Regression -for cryptocurrency price prediction.We evaluate and compare the performance of these models using historical cryptocurrency data, considering various evaluation metrics and scenarios.
Cryptocurrencies have become one of the most traded financial assets in the last decade. The first half of 2022 will not be easily forgotten by the crypto faithful as it shifted investor sentiment after a monster cryptocurrency rally in 2021 that saw bitcoin (BTC) and altcoins scale multiple record peaks. Just as users were getting comfortable with their passive DeFi incomes, Terra and its non-collaterised stablecoin collapsed in a sensational turn of events. Three Arrows Capital (3AC), a crypto hedge fund that managed assets worth about $10bn at its peak, went bankrupt as falling crypto prices forced liquidations of collateralized loans and leveraged trading positions across the industry, aggravating the sell-off. Investor sentiment plummeted as crypto lending platforms like Celsius and Babel suspended withdrawals for clients. Investor sentiment plummeted as crypto lending platforms like Celsius and Babel suspended withdrawals for clients. The future of cryptocurrency still remains unclear. Given all these mess, we would like to know what factors could actually influence consumer adoption of cryptocurrency from here on out.The purpose of this research is to study factors influencing consumer to adopt cryptocurrency. These factors include seven independent variables: Convenience (CV), Popularity (PL), Usefulness (UF), Credibility (CD), Recommendations (RC), Price Stability (PS) and Risk (RK) and one dependent variable: Crypto Behavior (BH). 400 sample were collected using electronic questionnaire through social media. We used Structural Equation Models (SEM) for data analysis. The result shows that Since the RMSEA, which is an absolute fit index that assesses how far our hypothesized model is from a perfect model, for this model is .047 (<.05) which strongly indicates a โclose fitโ and the Goodness of Fit Index (GFI) value is .934 (>.90), the model seems to fit well according to the descriptive measures of fit. More importantly Popularity (PL), Usefulness (UF), Credibility (CD), Recommendations (RC) and Risk (RK) seem to have significant effects on influencing consumer to adopt cryptocurrency due to their p-values are both less than .05. That means as long as cryptocurrency is becoming more popular, useful, credible and highly recommended by key stakeholders (friends & family, professionals and influencers) with better risk management, consumer will be more welcome to adopt cryptocurrency as both day-to-day currency and investment alternative. One interesting finding is that Price Stability (PS) of cryptocurrency that weโve seen over and over again especially post-covid doesnโt seem to significantly impact much of consumer adoption.
Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) have gained significant popularity as a means of ownership and authentication within the metaverse, a virtual reality space where users interact with each other using avatars.In fact, it has been considered to be the legal tender of the metaverse.As the Metaverse and NFTs continue to revolutionize various industries, their impact on Intellectual Property (IP) rights has raised critical concern especially regarding its effect on IP lawyers.It is against this backdrop that this paper delves into the intersection of NFTs and the metaverse by examining the implications, prospects and challenges faced by IP lawyers in an increasingly digitalized world.It also aims to provide valuable insights into the evolving landscape of IP law in relation to NFTs and the metaverse.
Purpose The purpose of this study is to investigate consumersโ cryptocurrency adoption through the unified theory of acceptance and use of technology (UTAUT) and complexity theory. Design/methodology/approach By using a purposive sampling method, a configurational model was developed and a questionnaire-based survey was conducted to gather responses from a Malaysian sample. A total of 223 responses were obtained. Partial least square structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) and fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) were adopted to analyze the data. Findings The PLS-SEM indicated that performance expectancy, effort expectancy, social influence and affinity for technology interaction were positive cryptocurrency adoption predictors, whereas regulation was a negative predictor. Based on the fsQCA, cryptocurrency adoption could be explained by six configurational paths, which comprised combinations of the proposed causal conditions: the UTAUT factors (performance expectancy, effort expectancy, facilitating condition and social influence), environmental factor (regulation) and individual factors (financial knowledge and affinity for technology interaction). Research limitations/implications This study offers contributions to the theoretical body of knowledge by articulating the relevance of extended UTAUT and extending the established UTAUT model by integrating external environment and personal factors, also showing the linear and nonlinear interplays of performance expectancy, effort expectancy, facilitating conditions, social influence, regulation, financial knowledge and affinity for technology interaction. Practical implications The findings facilitated practitionersโ (cryptocurrency brokers, governments and businesses) fostering of cryptocurrency adoption through the joint consideration of different factors. The factors spanned technological attributes and individual characteristics to regulation. Practitioners should acknowledge that different combinations of the aforementioned antecedents can be equally effective to increase cryptocurrency adoption. The findings suggested that these causal conditions should be considered holistically and that there is no best predictor. Social implications In social terms, the research is expected to contribute to the dissemination of cryptocurrencies and help governments and central banks to develop, regulate and supervise digital currencies, as well as in the implementation of a digital currency ecosystem aligned with sustainable development goals. Economically, the results might foster a high cryptocurrency adoption rate and stimulate crypto-token-based business models and investment opportunities that present new means of revenue generation at individual, organizational and national levels. Originality/value This study offers unique perspectives for the body of knowledge and practice in the cryptocurrency domain, using both symmetric and asymmetric methodologies, by delineating the configurational logic involving technological capabilities, social influences, regulation and individual characteristics in facilitating more efficacious dissemination of cryptocurrencies.
Buying and selling real estate is time consuming and labor intensive, requires many intermediaries, and incurs high fees. Blockchain technology provides the real estate industry with a reliable means of tracking transactions and increases trust between the parties involved. Despite the benefits of blockchain, its adoption in the real estate industry is still in its infancy. Therefore, we investigate the factors that influence the acceptance of blockchain technology by buyers and sellers of real estate. A research model was designed based on the combined strengths of the unified theory of technology acceptance and use model and the technology readiness index model. Data were collected from 301 real estate buyers and sellers and analyzed using the partial least squares method. The study found that real estate stakeholders should focus on psychological factors rather than technological factors when adopting blockchain. This study adds to the existing body of knowledge and provides valuable insights to real estate stakeholders on how to implement blockchain technology.
Shen Su, Yuntian Tan, Yue Xue, Chao Wang ยท 8 authors
The metaverse virtual assets are carried by smart contract, thus detecting the potential smart contract vulnerabilities and malicious intension is critical to protect the metaverse digital assets and the investorsโ confidence. However, existing research mainly focus on the Ethereum address features, which can hardly reveal the characteristics of the entire smart contract project. In this paper, we take the first step to detect smart contract anomalies on the granularity of smart contract project, and propose a method to identify the smart contract projectโs subordinate addresses, and a model network which takes the runtime features of the smart contract project. We further apply our method on our dataset collected from projects deployed on Ethereum, and prove that our method could effectively recognize the similarity of smart contract projects, and identify the malicious transactions which trigger smart contract project anomalies.
ฤฐbrahim Yitmen, Sepehr Alizadehsalehi, Muhammed Ernur Akฤฑner, ฤฐlknur Akฤฑner
The Metaverse is the post-reality universe, a perpetual and persistent multiuser environment merging physical reality with digital virtuality. It is based on the convergence of technologies that enable multisensory interactions with virtual environments, digital objects, and people, such as virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR), and mixed reality (MR). Due to the "Internet of Everything&s;s" paradigm shift from big data to decentralized small data, blockchain technology will be critical in achieving the metaverse at mobile edge networks. On the other hand, combining Artificial Intelligence (AI) and blockchain with the metaverse poses significant research hurdles as of the characteristics of digital commodities and marketplaces, transaction volumes in metaverse systems are substantially greater compared to the physical world. This chapter discusses the integration of Digital Twin (DT), Blockchain, and AI into the Metaverse, emphasizing enabling technologies and difficulties. It enables seamless embodied user communication in real-time and dynamic interactions with digital artifacts.
This chapter talks about the metaverse and what it means for aviation and travel in combination with artificial intelligence (AI) and blockchain. In this chapter, metaverse is discussed as follows. First, the concepts, principles, and what gave rise to the metaverse are explored, and which use cases have already been adopted. Next, the chapter reviews use cases in the context of technology stacks such as fusing AI on blockchain in metaverse and business model opportunities it creates in the airline, airport, and travel industry. Specific examples and illustrations are provided, which conclude with new opportunities that can be explored and which benefits they will bring.
With the increasing demand of virtual currency, cryptocurrencies are gaining popularity throughout the world for transactions be it legal or illegal. The yields returned from investment in crypto currency these days are huge but their existence and reliability has always been questioned. A cryptocurrency uses cryptography for implementing security. In spite of several problems in crypto currencies, the growing success of Bitcoin since its launch has emerged in a number of organizations coming forward with substitute cryptocurrencies .This study tries to present a comparison of six famous cryptocurrencies - Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin, Dash, Monero and IOTA in the light of their volatility and strengths in present times and also discusses their current trends. A thorough study of literature showed that no paper has been presented keeping in mind only these six currencies, so this article is the first of its kind to present a comparison of technicalities of these cryptocurrencies.
This article explores the concept of blockchain and its applications in customs operations, focusing on its ability to enhance efficiency, security, and transparency. The key features of blockchain, including decentralization, transparency, security, and immutability, are highlighted. The applications of blockchain in customs are discussed, including supply chain traceability, smart contracts, trade finance and payments, risk management and compliance, and intellectual property rights protection. The abstract concludes by emphasizing the transformative potential of blockchain in streamlining customs processes, mitigating risks, combating fraud, and fostering international trade with greater trust and efficiency
The investment world today is vying for profit from investing in cryptocurrencies, so this encourages young people, especially students, to invest in cryptocurrencies, but financial literacy, herding behavior, and risk perception are things that influence investment decisions. The aim of this study was to identify the factors that influence studentsโ decisions to invest in cryptocurrencies. The research method used is quantitative, using questionnaires distributed to students in Bali; the sample in this study was active students currently studying at universities in Bali, Indonesia, totaling 179 samples; questionnaires were distributed using the Google form and analyzed using Warp PLS. The results show that investment decisions, herding behavior, and risk perception are all significantly and positively influenced by financial literacy. Perceived risk and herding behavior have a significant influence on investment decisions. Perceived risk and herding behavior can partially mediate financial literacy on investment decisions. The influence of financial literacy on investment decisions will be stronger if it is through perceived risk with a coefficient value of 0.412 and herding behavior with a coefficient value of 0.422. Based on the studyโs conclusion, it is important for investors, especially students, to prioritize improving their financial literacy before investing in cryptocurrencies. Additionally, investors should be aware of the potential impact of herding behavior and perceived risk on their investment decisions and take steps to mitigate their influence.
Martin Spraggon Hernandez, Ilham Sentosa, Francis Gaudreault, Ian Davison ยท 5 authors
The world is witnessing a paradigm shift towards digital blockchain transformation; disrupting businesses, industries, governments, institutions, cultures and nations. Breakthrough developments in the fields of machine learning, artificial intelligence (AI), intelligent data, virtual and augmented reality, and the internet of things, many others as well, have driven the extraordinary rise of the so-called a "digital economy." The Metaverse is anticipated to thrive when the distributed ledger economy transitions into digital technology. But as it grows, it presents ecological sustainability with both fresh possibilities and difficulties. In this paper, we use the Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) model to analyse these potential and constraints. The metaphysical phenomena was critically analysed using an organised study of literature and the ESG system, which aims to illustrate community, energy, and governance problems in order to ensure a sustainable future. For the objective of choosing, evaluating, and synthesising pertinent papers on the topic, resources such as EBSCO, Scholar by Google, Scopus, Web of Science, and Sciences Direct were used. Our analysis shows that organizations engaged in the Metaverse blockchainphenomena are more likely to achieve higher levels of sustainability when they adopt solid governance practices in relation to the ESG framework. While the Metaverse holds the promise of significant sustainability benefits in the social, environmental, and governance arenas, several challenges and concerns on these dimensions ought to be acknowledged and addressed by decision makers. Adopting the ESG framework to the Metaverse phenomena allows stakeholders to better understand how to manage challenges and risks pivoting around sustainability matters.
Healthcare facilities have seen major modifications in the last 20 years. With the aid of IoT-enabled devices, monitoring and analyzing patient diagnostic parameters is substantially facilitated. A paradigm change in healthcare technology is represented by IoMT. However, issues with patientsโ right to privacy and data security continue to exist. Blockchain has permeated several scientific fields and is expected to grow dramatically. Blockchain smart contracts can eliminate intermediaries and increase contract execution. Blockchain and smart contracts in IoMT e-healthcare are discussed in this paper. The study analyses how decentralisation and smart contracts will affect the IoMT in e-healthcare, suggests a new architecture, and discusses the benefits, drawbacks, and future trends of integrating all three. The suggested architecture outperforms standard techniques in packet delivery ratio, latency, and energy efficiency.
Cryptocurrencies and financial systems have become prominent in recent years.Artificial Intelligence is needed to decrease investing risk, and anticipate price, trend, portfolio creation, and fraud.The paper highlights current AI research on Bitcoin, the most prominent cryptocurrency.The article reviews AI and IoT approaches related to cryptocurrencies and Bitcoin.In addition, a number of potential study possibilities and areas for improving the effectiveness of the findings were noted.AI and cybersecurity have grown rapidly in recent years.Its adoption has greatly benefited finance, institutions, markets, and law.AI simulates intelligent human-like devices.Finance AI is altering money communication.It optimizes credit judgements, marketing, quantitative analysis, as well as economic risk management for the financial business.This study examined artificial intelligence's current effects.It's about AI's attractiveness, conflict, possibilities, and career impact.The research study utilizes AI to help banks produce funds and deliver excellent customer service.The rising Indonesian banking sector-BRI, BNI, Mandiri, etc. has digitally incorporated chat-bots that help clients.
The aim of the article is to present a snapshot in time, of the current state in cryptocurrencies, the values and risks associated to blockchains. With emergence of over 20,000 crypto projects, the first objective of this article is to present the stage as it is in 2023, with historical overview since Satoshi presented the first paper on decentralised blockchains, until today. Second objective of the article is to review the values and risks associated to cryptocurrencies, and to clarify the differences between cryptocurrencies from blockchain technologies. The research questions that drive this article are related determining if the blockchain technology an innovation or its already obsolete technology? Are there any significant risks from cryptocurrencies? And are the potential values to society and economy worth pursuing? Would developed or developing countries benefit more from these technologies? And which blockchain projects will survive in the long run? In other words, where is the money and is there money or just hype. The review discusses the high probability that some crypto projects will fail, and given the vast number of cryptos, the article acknowledges that many of these projects are nothing more than ponzies. These are discussed and acknowledged, then the focus is shifted to the real-world use cases of blockchain projects.
Bousselham El haddaoui, Raddouane Chiheb, Rdouan Faizi, Abdellatif El Afia
Decentralized Web (Web3) and Finance (DeFi) have become the main discussion topic in research and industry fields.Cryptocurrencies, as an essential part of DeFi, enjoyed the interest of many stakeholders such as companies, professionals, researchers, and even common citizens eager to benefit from the proposed ecosystems.Although previous research studies focused on establishing price prediction systems using Sentiment Analysis (SA) techniques, the main focus of these studies was the performance of the predictive system rather than the accuracy and efficiency of the used models.In our work, we address two research questions; the predictability of cryptocurrency price based on past social and technical information, and the effect of social features on cryptocurrency price fluctuations using an SA and a Time Series approach.A combination of selected social and technical features was processed and reframed as a prediction problem, then studied to assess the ability of our model to predict the desired price.We noted that there is both an explicit correlation for some considered features and implicit for others, also social features including overall positive and neutral sentiment, and community engagement improved the performance of our model.
Blockchain is most used for trading purposes related to cryptocurrency in the form of bitcoins. This chapter seeks to highlight the broader perspective on using blockchain technology. It is mainly to elucidate the concept of blockchain and cryptography-related security and how these two can provide helpful solutions to trust problems about data. The chapter describes how blockchain technology can help in tracking the medical supplies of infected individuals. The research work consists of a theoretical elucidation of major concepts about blockchain technology and its applications. The adoption of Blockchain by Fintech companies has redefined itself in many ways over the years. The investment in blockchain technology is directly linked to the various sectors that see lucrative business opportunities because of deploying distributed ledger technology. Fintech Companies have emerged as the major service providers who refine the experience of their clients by leveraging upon the knowledge pool and resources available to them.
NFT, or non-fungible tokens, are online certificates of ownership that can be traded based on data units stored in digital ledgers belonging to blockchain technology.This is non-fungible, meaning that it cannot be exchanged and is unique.NFT has been around since 2014.But now, it is increasingly being considered as a practical method for trading digital artwork or art.To buy NFT assets, you require special coins in the form of NFT coins, which consist of various types, such as mana coins, sand, axes, and other NFT coins.The NFT coins are used to process NFT purchase transactions.The movement of NFT coins over time is relatively erratic and uncertain.This NFT coin price prediction will be very useful for investors to know how the investment flow of each price works because the price of each NFT coin will change from time to time.through the literature study stage, interviews, and viewing daily NFT coin price data where the attributes used are date, open, high, low, close, and volume.The method used in this research is k-Nearest Neighbours.Dataset collection through the website www.coinmarketcap.comfor the period January 1, 2019 to December 31, 2021.Then the data processing is carried out.An accurate NFT coin price prediction model can help investors in considering transaction decisions because NFT coin prices, which tend to be non-linear, will allow investors to make predictions.This study aims to obtain the predicted value of NFT coins using the k-Nearest Neighbours algorithm.
Businesses are keen to implement new technologies like virtual reality, artificial intelligence (AI), augmented reality, big data, etc. as they see profitable business applications. The supply chain and the larger business community have been paying attention to Metaverse as one of the technology disruptions. The metaverse is being enhanced by several variables, including mobile-based always-on access and virtual currency linkage with reality. Additionally, the growth of the Metaverse and Non-Fungible Tokens (NFT) has taken the metaverse to a new level. This paper performs a comprehensive analysis of the metaverse's attributes, uses, and prospects in global supply chains. The current metaverse-focused study discloses the state of the research and outlines future research goals by reviewing and analysing recent articles that reveal metaverse uses across multiple supply chain activities. It has been demonstrated that the metaverse has several features that help businesses improve supply chain efficiency and customer engagement, including increased visibility into operations, facilities, inventory, and capacity. These characteristics fuelling the metaverse's application in supply chain management and logistics operations. The study further found that metaverse-related research has been extremely growing in the areas of healthcare, retail, and infrastructure, while there is still scope for study in the field of supply chain security and traceability. Finally, it is emphasized that metaverse-related research in logistics, supply chain operations, and agriculture supply chains has the potential to be explored.
The study we present aims to explore several factors pertaining to Consumer Acceptance of business technology as it related to Blockchain. Identifying and developing the relevant measures is of importance to business technology managers and software development managers today. We ask the important question of โwhat measures best represent the established constructs of the technology acceptance model?โ In order to address this issue, it is important to identify the key measurements that help us to understand the proposed constructs as they relate to blockchain technology as well as confirm their validity in isolation and in combination with each other. In this study, the factors we explore are perceived reputation, risk, and usefulness and transaction intentions. A survey was used whereby the methodology adapted previous measurements from related works and new measurements pertaining to usefulness and risk were developed in order to adhere to blockchainโs consumer acceptance framework. 268 students completed the questionnaire and an exploratory factor analysis was used in order to analyze the constructs and their measurements. Through the results we were able to identify and validate the relevant measurements as well as the proposed constructs
In the world of cryptocurrency, the word โtokenโ simply refers to digital assets owned by individuals. Although, contextually, it can have different meanings, the term token usually refers to cryptocurrency denominations. Tokens utilise other blockchains, which are not native cryptocurrency. Consider ERC-20 as an example. ERC-20 utilises the Ethereum blockchains but it is not Ethereumโs native cryptocurrency. Tokens have multiple use-cases like in the form of governance tokens, in decentralised financial (DeFi) sector, as NFTs and many more. Ethereum, being the first programmable blockchain and the second largest cryptocurrency, has the most popular tokens used by millions everyday be it for DeFi, governance, or in the form of NFTs. Since the tokens are built upon the robust and decentralised infrastructure of blockchain, they are automatically secure and privacy-oriented. Through this paper, we present a detailed and structured study on classification of these standard Ethereum tokens.
As a highly disruptive digital technology, blockchain provides new solutions for reshaping corporate governance mechanisms and improving resource allocation. We empirically examine the relationship between blockchain and corporate investment inefficiency. We find that blockchain can help improve corporate investment efficiency, and this result is valid after a series of robustness tests. Blockchain can not only significantly restrain overinvestment but also alleviate underinvestment. Reducing financing costs and alleviating agency conflicts are the two channels through which blockchain is associated with corporate investment efficiency, and financial reporting quality is the condition on which the channels depend. When the CEO holds few shares or the trade credit environment in the region where the company is located is poor, the effect of blockchain is more prominent than it is otherwise. Investment efficiency cannot be improved by blockchain for companies providing blockchain products or services to customers, only for those promoting their own operations and management with blockchain. Ultimately, blockchain can enhance companiesโ value by alleviating inefficient investment. We reveal the role of blockchain in corporate investment efficiency, furnish microeconomic evidence for the integration of digital technology and the real economy and provide implications for China to promote digital technology to drive high-quality company development.