Smart contracts and blockchain technology have the potential to change tremendously the contractual practices. Together with the development of blockchain-based technology, many well-known companies and other private or public entities such as governments take advantage of smart contracts. On the one hand, there are costs connected with the programming and coding of smart contracts, or training those administering them, on the other hand, however, it seems to be true that smart contracts will bring greater certainty and extra cost saving for those who apply them in their business dealings. During recent years, rapid technological development has resulted in plenty of changes in the way how financial services are conducted. Blockchain technology is predicted to disrupt the current environment of business dealings by enabling the unprecedented ways to cooperate and communicate between the parties of the contract.
Canada has a stable financial system with large national banks that integrate fintech internally to improve operations, products and service. Because of the size and stability of its major banks, Canada has been criticized as lagging globally in consumer fintech adoption rates and fostering new fintech market entrants. The supervisory frameworks for non-bank fintech firms in Canada has some agency fragmentation costs, which can serve as a barrier to entry for new firms. The following report outlines the law of fintech, as it applies in Canada, including the regulatory frameworks for fintech money (e-money, virtual currency and electronic payments); fintech financings (initial coin offerings, peer to peer lending and invoice trading); and fintech financial services (smart contract investing, robo-advisors, algorithmic trading and market automation, artificial intelligence, decentralized autonomous organizations, and crypto hedge funds).
Smart Sukuk structure is the new generation of Sukuk issuances structures. It uses Blockchain technology to allow more investors in both retail and corporate sectors to participate in Sukuk issuances. Through this technology, all financial institutions can issue their Sukuk. All types of documents and information related to the issuance of Sukuk are kept with the issuer's chains and the chains of the Central Registration Institution. Limited research was conducted on the transactions of smart Sukuk structures, such as Sukuk issuance model, traded Sukuk transactions and committed transactions market, from the Sharia compliance perspective and its financing benefits. This paper presents an in-depth study of the AAOIFI Standards, the decisions of Islamic Jurisprudence Academies and Sharia Boards, that related the Sukuk structures, applied in the Islamic bank of the paper's study society and the transactions of smart contracts from Sharia compliance perspective. On the other hand, this paper presents how to apply proposed smart Sukuk structures models that use Blockchain technology and smart contracts, within the largest Islamic bank in Turkey, in order to find out its financing benefits. The research findings indicate that from the Sharia perspective there are some issues in some applicable Sukuk models, such as the issue of capital guarantees. The use of Blockchain technology in smart Sukuk structures reflects several benefits on the financing markets, as it gives more capacity to access to more investors and markets, faster processing capability, transparency, invariance, and low transaction cost.
Gianluca Miscione, Tobias Goerke, Stefan Klein, Gerhard Schwabe · 5 authors
Blockchain technology provides a distributed ledger and is based on a logic of peer to peer authentication. It gained prominence with the rise of cryptocurrencies but provides a much broader field of possible applications. While it has been originally closely linked to a libertarian agenda rejecting organizations, its developments have illustrated that this ideological framing is being reversed in practice. Based on contrastive empirical cases, the purpose of our paper is to discuss blockchain as an organizational technology. Its peculiar mode of governance, which we name âHanseaticâ, needs to mediate between the fluidity typical of Free and Open Source Software development and the immutability that use organizations adopt blockchain for.
In the late 1980s and early 1990s the electronic markets hypothesis offered a prediction about effect of information technology on industrial organisation, and many business writers forecast significant changes to the shape and nature of the firm. However, these changes did not come to pass. This paper provides an economic analysis of why, using the transaction cost economic framework of Ronald Coase and Oliver Williamson. Non-hierarchical corporate organisation struggled against contracting problems in the presence of possible opportunistic behaviour. Technologies of trust offer an institutional mechanism that acts on the margin of trust, suppressing opportunism. The paper concludes that blockchain technology provides an economic infrastructure for the coordination of economic activity and the possible realisation of the electronic markets hypothesis.
The healthcare market demands advanced, flexible, and secure solutions for personal health data sharing. In our paper, we present preliminary work that proposes a distributed infrastructure of negotiating agents for the healthcare domain. This infrastructure will support healthcare stakeholders to share and access patient health data in a secure way, thus providing benefits for patients and their treatment. Distributed ledger technologies and smart contracts can be considered as a basis for negotiations between distributed agents that carry health-related data. We present an overview of related work and outline the research methodology.
ABSTRACT This paper intends to conduct an interdisciplinary, cutting-edge research on the distributed ledger technologies (DLTs), also known as "blockchain" and digital media. DLTs serve as the backbone of the Bitcoin which feature such innovations as shared databases, smart contracts, privacy, and consensus mechanism and provide a new, secure IT infrastructure to digitize value chains of many industries. The setting of the paper is the e-commerce for digital media which have tremendous commercial values but suffered from severe cybersecurity and fraud problems. The case study of this paper on the DLT innovations analyzes a secure and equitable infrastructure for the digital media commerce where the participants can jointly share the increase of values for their ideas and investments. Keywords Blockchain, Digital Media, Digital Transaction, Digital Content
As a tool for human technological advancement, the peer-review system acts as a gateway for ensuring academic paper qualities. However, the system has proven to be slow and expensive. Also, biasedness remains an unsolved problem. Such issues could become a major bottleneck, which can adversely impact research progress and dissemination of knowledge. This paper aims to propose a double-blind paper review system to preserve the authors and reviewers anonymity. This system also addresses issues concerning the reviewers payment, inconsistent review metrics, and biased reviews. The proposed solution utilizes the Hyperledger Fabric blockchain with the InterPlanetary File System (IPFS). The blockchain smart contracts provide a base for financial transactions between paper publishers and the reviewers. Hence, we introduce AcadCoin, a novel cryptocurrency used for supporting said financial transactions. Also, the Hyperledger blockchain provides user access control to achieve double-blindness in reviews. Along with the Hyperledger blockchain, the IPFS is used to store the paper documents, review documents and open metrics documents to reduce the storage requirement of the blockchain. A broad system architecture is constructed to combine the blockchain and the file storage system. This system architecture distributes nodes of the system to related parties. Finally, the blockchain network is implemented and tested using the Hyperledger Composer Playground environment.
In the current copyright law and technology environment, two prominent problems must be considered when enforcing and executing copyrights: (i) the difficulty of proving authorship/ownership of a copyright; and (ii) the difficulty of conducting copyright transactions. The invention of blockchain technology has made it possible to solve these two issues. First, the use of blockchain technology with the InterPlanetary File System (IPFS) is an excellent mechanism for copyright authentication and document preservation. This mechanism allows authors (copyright owners) to prove authorship of their works and copyrights ownership. However, this mechanism for copyright authentication and document preservation may not be applicable in the future primarily because the computer software currently used may be upgraded in the following years. Second, the combination of Ethereum Blockchain and smart contracts can reduce transaction costs and enhance the efficiency of copyright assignments and licensing transactions. However, many legal problems regarding smart contracts have yet to be addressed. These problems include identifying the contracting parties in the anonymous blockchain network, dealing with scenarios where both contracting parties want to amend the implemented smart contracts, explaining code-based smart contracts and setting up an internal dispute resolution mechanism. Unlike the traditional transmission control protocol/Internet protocol network, where any activity is traceable, users on blockchain technology remain anonymous and their activities on the blockchain are hardly traceable. Although the blockchain itself is unlikely to become a hotbed of copyright infringement, the combination of the Ethereum Blockchain, the IPFS and smart contracts may make the entire process a hotbed of copyright infringement. Therefore, this situation poses considerable worries regarding copyright infringement on the blockchain. When the decentralized and anonymized blockchain and peripheral technologies mature, they will have considerable influence on copyright protection. This problem must be addressed by the copyright legal system in the current wave of blockchain technology implementation.
Antonio Giannino, Damiano Di Maio, Andrea Vianelli
This paper analyses the regulatory approach currently adopted both at European Union (EU) level (in particular, making reference to the guidelines, opinions and consultations issued by the European Supervisory Authorities [ESAs]), and at national level, focusing on the sole jurisdiction, which, so far, has created a bespoke regime for distributed ledger technology (DLT)-based services and/or products. After having briefly outlined the concept of DLT and crypto-assets and their potential applications within the financial services industry, this paper looks at the current approach developed by the ESAs with respect to DLT-based services and products. The paper then focuses focus on the recent framework introduced by Malta, the first EU jurisdiction regulating DLT-based services and products in a comprehensive manner. In particular, this paper analyses, adopting a pragmatic approach, the main features of the aforesaid bespoke regime. In conclusion the paper analyses whether a harmonised approach, adopted at EU level, should be preferred to a series of nation-wide regimes, which, given the cross-national nature of financial services, might lead to harmful regulatory arbitrage across the continent.
Disposition is one of the consequences of the appraisal archival function. Although appraisal writ large is a function that no technology could execute, disposition has been already supported by different tools. In this paper, we propose a blockchain-based application for disposition, a smart contract called ArchContract, using two different repositories. We discuss appraisal and disposition on blockchain systems, the use of smart contracts as a disposition tool and present the model of ArchContract. We conclude that blockchain and smart contracts have the potential to support some of the records management functions such as disposition.
Smart contract technology is increasingly being seen as a way for the derivatives industry to realise operational efficiencies and cut costs. With this new technology potentially transforming how derivatives are executed and managed through the entire life cycle, it seems the derivatives market is on the cusp of significant modernisation. But this technology is at the relatively early stage of development, and there is still a lack of agreement on what a smart contract is, what role it can play in the derivatives market and how it might interact with existing legal standards and documentation. This paper analyses whether a smart contract could ultimately replace an existing legal contract in its entirety, or whether it will only automate the execution of certain actions specified within the contract?
Shaofu Lin, Jingwen Li, Xiaofeng Jia, Jingqiu Gong
Rights confirmation is the prerequisite and a major problem in the sharing of government data resources. In the traditional sharing model, some problems restrict the sharing and opening of government data, such as unclear rights and responsibilities, unclear boundaries of ownership and use rights, artificial manipulation and so on. Based on the underlying platform of block chain, this paper uses the smart contract technology to ensure the unique data source of government data resources and the separation of the data ownership and data use rights, so as to solve the problem of confirming the rights of government data from the source of data flow.
Sana Sabah Sabry, Nada Mahdi Kaittan, Israa Majeed
As the Bitcoin keeps increasing in value compared to other cryptocurrencies, more attention has been given to Blockchain Technology (BT) which is the infrastructure behind the Bitcoin, especially on its role in addressing the problems of the classical centralized system. As a digital currency, Bitcoin is dependent on the decentralized cryptographic tools and peer-to-peer system. The digital currency implements a distributed ledger using Blockchain when verifying any type of transaction. In this paper, the aim is to describe how digital currency networks such as Bitcoin provides a âtrust-lessâ platform for users to embark on money transfers without necessarily depending on any central trusted establishments such as payment services or financial institutions. Furthermore, this work comprehensively overviewed the basic principle that underly BT, such as transaction, consensus algorithms, and hashing. This study also provided a novel classification for blockchain types according to their system architecture and consensus strategy. For each type, our contribution was provided with an example which clearly describes the blockchain features and the transaction steps. Our classification intended to help researchers understand and choose the blockchain for their application. The paper ends with the discussion of the differences between each type
Han Qiu, Xiao Wu, Shuyi Zhang, Victor C. M. Leung · 5 authors
Blockchain has become novel solutions for many traditional issues in computer science and finance. Recently, with the release of Libra blockchain from Facebook, the decentralized finance concepts have another huge development. However, there are already many different blockchain systems existing now and the development of blockchain systems have become more and more complicated since each kind of blockchain development environment will consume time to be built. To make the programming on different blockchain systems more easily, we propose a novel cloud-based solution, namely ChainIDE, for the development of blockchain-based smart contracts on multiple kinds of blockchain systems. With chainIDE, cross-chain developing of smart contracts on different blockchain systems can be easily done without any time consumed by building the environment. Based on the operation statistics in this paper, we served more than 310,000 compilations in the past 30 days which makes us the most popular cloud-based cross-chain development platform in the world.
Alok Jaiswal, Sheetal Chandel, Ajit Muzumdar, G. M. Madhu · 6 authors
Blockchain has transformed business processes from centralized to decentralized. It can better help in making food grain supply chain fully decentralized with peer to peer (P2P) business by removing intermediaries, and thus reducing the overall cost at end user side with better returns to farmers. In this paper, we explore a blockchain technology and the required smart contracts for trustworthy and incentivized P2P trading of food grains. We propose different smart contracts such as food grain supply, bidding, trading and utilization, which are deployed on ethereum blockchain for the decentralized trading of food grains. We use Vickrey-Clarkegrove (Vickrey auction) method for achieving the incentivized trading for both farmers and end users. The proposed framework offers P2P trading, security of food grain data, data transparency, user's anonymity and incentives in the trading process. The performance of the proposed framework is evaluated and analyzed in terms of fulfilling the requirements of food grain supply management.
M. Ruslianoor Maika, Fidiana Fidiana, Irwan Alnarus Kautsar
Cryptocurrency is predicted to have a bright future as a new form of \nmoney becomes more popular. This research analyses the \npotential disruption of cryptocurrency from an Islamic perspective. \nHowever, this promising Islamic cryptocurrency has shifted from \nnon-asset backed to physical asset- backed of cryptocurrencies. We \nproposed design implementation the most straightforward way of the \ntransaction with cashless wireless payments using one device \nthrough Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) of blockchain \ntechnology. We use digital currency with underlying asset Dinar and \nDirham for a commercial transaction. However, the disruption of \ncryptocurrencies may adapt Dinar and Dirham tokenization in \nexchanging services in the conversion of fiat money into \ncryptocurrency that complies with Islamic. Except comply with \nIslam, it also needs a Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) as a party who \nguarantees the existence of assets. It concludes that the \nintermediation function of third parties such a bank will be disrupted \nin the profound shift of digital money based on Islamic \ncryptocurrency
This paper proposes to analyze the agent behavior by means of big data extracted from the search engine « Google trends » and Twitter API to visualize the emotions and the manner of thinking about « Bitcoin » in the Islamic context. Two kinds of sentiment measures are constructed. The first is based on the search query of the word « Bitcoin » with religious connotation all over the world from 14/04/2017 to 14/04/2018 in weekly frequency. The second is built on twitter data from 03/04/2018 to 13/04/2018, by using a Bayesian machine learning device exploiting deep natural language processing modules to assign emotions and sentiment orientations. In the next step, the Granger causality analysis is used to investigate the hypothesis that this sentiment causes the volatility and the returns of « Bitcoin ». The results show that, at a first-level that twitter users of the word « Islamic Bitcoin » improve positive sentiment. Secondly, the Twitter sentiment measure has a significant effect on lagged Bitcoin returns and volatility. Furthermore, this sentimental variable Granger causes Bitcoin returns and volatility. This study contributes to the literature by studying the influence of the doctrinal view towards Bitcoin on his prices dynamics. Knowing that Bitcoin is a new financial asset and there is a large debate on his compliance with shariah
Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine the operational and regulatory positions of the employment of Blockchain in the insurance industry. Blockchain technology has attracted wide interest from various stakeholders. Many theorists are predicting that this technology will disrupt financial services, including insurance. As stated that the development of blockchain is dependent on regulatory acceptance of this technology, it is essential to establish the current state of play with regard to the application and use of blockchain from a commercial and regulatory standpoints. Design/methodology/approach This review encompasses a number of approaches to view the current status of Blockchain applications. From a commercial approach, this research lists the current applications of blockchain within the insurance industry. From a regulatory point of view, the current positions of the EU and national regulatory bodies are enquired upon to establish how they are examining FinTech and Blockchain technologies within their regulatory processes. Findings This review illustrates a number of Blockchain applications in situ from a commercial point of view. From a regulatory setting and following a call from international and EU levels, it appears that various regulatory bodies have begun the process of formulating testing processes for FinTech applications. There are two predominant types in operation, while others are forming points of contact for advice for FinTechs and a small amount who have not begun the process at all. Research limitations/implications This review illustrates the current state of play of blockchain in insurance from a commercial and regulatory point of view. While this has been observational, this review pulls together information from various sources to encapsulate the regulatory positioning of evaluating FinTech and Blockchain technologies for academia, regulatory and industry audiences. Originality/value This review offers a central resource of information with regard to the current state of blockchain technologies in operation and regulatory approaches to this and other FinTech developments.
Barbara S. White, Chula G. King, Jonathon Holladay
Abstract A blockchain is an Internetâbased peerâtoâpeer system that forms a network of independent and connected computers that simultaneously record and verify transactions. This peerâtoâpeer system focuses on who owns the information and how that information is transferred. Blockchains offer significant advantages over traditional databases where users can delete, modify, and change records. The advantages include improved efficiencies, lower costs, enhanced transparency, and an immutable audit history of all transactions. The advantages, however, are not without significant risks. The risks include technological risks, data security risks, interoperability risks, and thirdâparty vendor risks. Because of the inherent advantages in blockchains, auditors are being called upon to provide assurance services to clients who use blockchains and to advise clients on blockchain technology. Therefore, auditors must be equipped with the knowledge and expertise of not only blockchain technology, but also the assessment of risks inherent in blockchain technology.
The focus of this chapter will be on how this blockchain technology should be appropriately implemented in the financial services industry. Once widely overlooked by many due to its association with the controversial digital currency Bitcoin, the underlying technology, the blockchain, has since become a large area of focus for most major financial institutions. At its core, the blockchain serves as an immutable, secure, distributed ledger shared among the participants connected to it. The primary attributes of the blockchain, including transparency, speed of settlement, security, and automation, have the potential to significantly change the way financial institutions operate today. This chapter will also address the implications of moving towards a blockchain general ledger and the hurdles that must be overcome.
Over the years, blockchain has developed a strong relationship with the financial industry. In fact, the first mention of blockchain dates back to 2008, where it appeared in Satoshi Nakamotoâs white paper âBitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash Systemâ, which aimed to lay the basis for âa purely peer-to-peer version of electronic cash [that] would allow online payments to be sent directly from one party to another without going through a financial institutionâ. At the core of Bitcoin system was in fact the blockchain technology. Blockchain is an innovative and decentralized technological architecture, which allows transactions to take place under a common and verified protocol. Since its inception, blockchain has experienced impressive growth and has expanded beyond its initial close ties with Bitcoin. Moreover, it has clearly demonstrated its ability to operate as an autonomous technological innovation in the eyes of both investors and institutions. One of the areas in which blockchain has emerged as a particularly important player is that of initial coin offerings (ICOs). ICOs offer an innovative new way of raising capital for companies based on the emission of âdigital tokensâ through blockchain-based platforms. This shift in market practice, together with the development and widespread adoption of innovative finance-related tools and services (commonly identified as âFinTechâ), has prompted global regulators and national supervisory authorities to play a more prominent regulatory role. This is a significant change from the soft regulatory approach (that can be traced back to the âDo no harm approachâ pursued by the US Commodity Future Trading Commission) that was averse to stifling the FinTech-related stream of innovation. It is now clear, however, that a more sophisticated regulatory approach will look towards designing comprehensive regulatory frameworks that guarantee investor protection and market integrity. In summary, this chapter will provide a contextual background of blockchain technology in the financial industry, as well as an overview of the ICO regulatory frameworks and of the developments concerning the recent trend of launching security token offerings, by analyzing how regulators from different countries decided to handle the phenomenon.