Blockchain Papers

Akash Suresh Patil, Bayu Adhi Tama, Youngho Park, Kyung-Hyune Rhee

No abstract is available for this record.

Jan Veuger

Purpose The real estate world finds itself at a tipping point of a transition: a dramatic and irreversible shift in (real estate) systems in society. This paper is a State of the art of Disruption, Blockchain and Real Estate in the Netherlands and international. Design/methodology/approach The following questions were asked to all those involved: What do you think is the essence of Blockchain for real estate? What is the most current situation with respect to Blockchain and real estate from your perspective? Which publications are important from your perspective? What do you expect with respect to the impact of Blockchain on real estate for (social) real estate? What are questions for the future for real estate and Blockchain? In addition, interviews, exploratory conversations and correspondence took place, and the content was peer reviewed. Findings Changes in value concepts affect the valuation of real estate and the thinking about it. The orientation of changing users and owners of real estate affects innovativeness, values and flexibility in managing that property. Orientation on disruption must be seen as proof that the real estate world is able to actually innovate the accumulated assets and consolidate this. The financial and real estate markets are markets that exaggerate through irrational behaviour. Fear of “eat or be eaten” determines people’s behaviour. Financial and thus real estate markets are always unstable and must always be regulated by people and organizations. Research limitations/implications The question that remains is whether it is important to look at disruptive innovations in existing markets or newcomers in the real estate market and Blockchain. The question is whether Blockchain is only a technological disruption, or a real game changer, and whether the entire value chain of the real estate market will embrace it. No two disruptions are the same. Trust in Blockchain is a prerequisite for guiding the predictable form of that disruption where start-up companies use new technology to offer cheaper and inferior alternatives to real estate in the market. You could also talk about anti-fragile value: “Some things benefit from shocks; they thrive and grow when exposed to volatility, randomness, disorder, and stressors and love adventure, risk, and uncertainty. Yet, in spite of the ubiquity of the phenomenon, there is no word for the exact opposite of fragile. Let us call it antifragile” (Taleb, 2012), in other words: attention to disruption and Blockchain creates a viable real estate economy. Practical implications The true meaning of the Blockchain technology for real estate still needs to be investigated. The author is still curious to understand and clarify the value of Blockchain for real estate processes. Doubt continues to exist and is therefore a feeding ground for further research, because we do not know what we have not seen. Social implications Looking at the impact of Blockchain on real estate, a number of conclusions can be drawn. First of all, the relationship between Blockchain and real estate has not yet been proven in practice. It is expected to develop further in the form of registering transaction processes and the DNA passport of a real estate object. Secondly, completeness and transparency are the basic ingredients for trust in the system. Third, real estate wants to remain viable. For this reason, taking the offense is necessary for real estate and management to connect with social demand. Behaviour also leads to new earnings models of the social and economic spin-off of disruptive real estate. If the Dutch real estate sector embraces Blockchain and is able to realize innovations, there are opportunities for real estate entrepreneurs to exploit the disruptive character to provide those new services. Originality/value The way in which disruption, Blockchain and real estate will develop in the coming years are not the only obvious characteristics of a particular era but also its social impact and user behaviour. This also applies to how this real estate transition can best be tracked, guided and utilized in society at the international, national and regional level. Disruptive organizations clearly respond to the viability of the (built) environment and therefore determine competitive strength. This affects the current and future valuation of real estate.

Toan Luu Duc Huynh, Sang Phu Nguyen, Duy Duong

This paper examines the movement of cryptocurrencies’ return based on price. This volatility can spread to others of the same kind. Currently, the more cryptocurrencies are traded in market, the more chances are available for investors. The author wonders whether contagion risk among these cryptocurrencies happens or not in the event of crashing. We also introduce one empirical evidence of the mutual influence on these cryptocurrencies using Copulas approach. The findings show that all pairs have the structure dependence with Kendall-plots, particularly strong left tail dependence with Chi-plots. It also means the existence of contagion risk among these cryptocurrencies. The three methodologies namely Kendall-plots, Chi-plots and Copulas estimation produce consistent results. Therefore, the investors should carefully perform portfolio diversification to avoid contagious phenomenon.

Taylor C. Nelms, Bill Maurer, Lana Swartz, Scott Mainwaring

The payments industry – the business of transferring value through public and corporate infrastructures – is undergoing rapid transformation. New business models and regulatory environments disrupt more traditional fee-based strategies, and new entrants seek to displace legacy players by leveraging new mobile platforms and new sources of data. In this increasingly diversified industry landscape, start-ups and established players are attempting to embed payment in ‘social’ experience through novel technologies of accounting for trust. This imagination of the social, however, is being materialized in gated platforms for payment, accounting, and exchange. This paper explores the ambiguous politics of such experiments, specifically those, like Bitcoin or the on-demand sharing economy, that delineate an economic imaginary of ‘just us’ – a closed and closely guarded community of peers operating under the illusion that there are no mediating institutions undergirding that community. This provokes questions about the intersection of payment and publics. Payment innovators’ attenuated understanding of the social may, we suggest, evacuate the nitty-gritty of politics.

Paulina Jo Pesch, Christian Sillaber

The authors discuss the application of the EU General Data Protection Regulation’s transparency requirements to distributed ledger (DL) systems. In Section II. the relevant characteristics of DL systems are outlined. Section III. deals with the question of the applicability of the GDPR to DL systems. In Section IV., the authors discuss whether DL system participants can be considered controllers or even joint controllers that are obliged to determine their responsibilities in an arrangement pursuant to Art. 26 paras. 1, 2 GDPR. The conclusion in Section V. includes an outlook to possible approaches to improving transparency in DL systems.

Chris Berg

A blockchain is an institutional technology—a protocol—that allows for economic coordination between agents separated by boundaries of possible mistrust. Blockchains are not the only technology in history to have these characteristics. The paper looks at the role of the diplomatic protocol at the very beginning of human civilisation in the ancient near east. These two protocols—diplomatic and blockchain—have significant similarities. They were created to address to similar economic problems using similar mechanisms: a permanent record of past dealings, public and ritualistic verification of transactions, and game-theoretic mechanisms of reciprocity. The development of the diplomatic protocol allowed for the creation of the first international community and facilitated patterns of peaceful trade and exchange. Some questions about a generalised ‘protocol economics’ are drawn.

I. Purdon, Emre Erturk

Blockchain ledgers and the Cloud are a perfect match. On the one hand, there is an inherent requirement for multiple separate authentication nodes to validate every Blockchain transaction with each node requiring substantial encryption calculation capability. On the other hand, massive economies of scale can bring down the cost per transaction, and provide service continuity. Additionally, the Cloud provides a perfect incubator for proof-of-concept projects. This paper considers the future implications of Blockchain, as the concept of disintermediated trustless ledgers stimulates the imagination of computer scientists and innovators. The Cloud’s role in implementing this new paradigm is also highlighted, as a new decentralized P2P-Cloud model. Finally, this paper discusses how Blockchain may be integrated into the university level computer science and information technology curriculum.

Yuke Anggun Pranata, Ahmad Rifai, Prayitno Basuki

This research aims to provide empirical proof that (a) unconditional transfer influence the regional finance capability and local expenditure, (b) flypaper effect occurred in fiscal decentralization policy at west nusa tenggara municipalities. Transfer of funds encourage the increase in the expenditure of local goverment. Using secondary data from the local government budget realization covering the period 2001-2015, we analyzing the contributions of unconditional transfer and regional finance capability to local expenditure. The results of this research by using partial least square showed unconditional transfer has significant effect to the regional finance capability and local expenditure. Other result indicate occurrence of flypaper effect, unconditional transfer have positif and significant effect on local expenditure more than regional capability. These indicated that local government still depend on unconditional transfer to realize number of local expenditure and regional capability. The implication of this research can use as the base of local government decision making on local own revenue and intergovernmental revenue management for local expenditure on public need, as well as base judgement on financial performance of local government (agen) and public (principal).

Maxwell Crabson

No abstract is available for this record.

Gunnar Stefánsson, Jamie Lentin

This paper describes a cryptocurrency to reward students for their studies. The currency bears the apt name Smileycoin or SMLY and is used within the tutor-web online learning platform. In order to make the SMLY attractive to students several approaches have been used, including support from companies whose services can be purchased for SMLY. The paper describes the use of the SMLY as a reward mechanism in a large undergraduate calculus course, including student adoption, student use of SMLY, coinbase use for education in low-income areas, and response to abuse.

Joan Hope

Secure, verifiable, learner‐owned credentials: Many registrars envision a future where those are the norm. The Registrar's Office at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has become the first to issue digital diplomas through the blockchain, the technology that enables bitcoin. The goal was to provide a secure service to students who become stewards of their own record, said Mary Callahan, registrar and senior associate dean for undergraduate education.

Edward Lehner, Dylan Hunzeker, John R. Ziegler

Scientific funding within the academy is an often complicated affair involving disparate and competing interests. Private universities, for instance, are vastly outpacing public institutions in garnering large, prestigious, science-related grants and external research investment. Inequities also extend to the types of research funded, with government, corporate, and even military interests privileging certain types of inquiry. This article proposes an innovative type of science research fund using cryptocurrencies, a fast-growing asset class. Although not a total funding solution, staking coins, specifically, can be strategically invested in to yield compound interest. These coins use masternode technologies to collateralize the network and speed transaction pace and may pay dividends to masternode holders, allowing institutions that purchase these types of central hubs to potentially engage in a lucrative form of dividend reinvestment. Using cryptocurrencies as a new funding stream may garner large amounts of capital and creation of nonprofit institutes to support the future of funding scientific research within educational institutions.

Yonghong Jiang, He Nie, Weihua Ruan

No abstract is available for this record.

Shaen Corbet, Brian M. Lucey, Larisa Yarovaya

No abstract is available for this record.

César A. Del Río

This paper reviews what stage the central banks of the world’s leading economies are at in their study and adoption of distributed ledger technology (DLT) to reengineer their various systems and functions. A brief description of DLT will be given, followed by an analysis of central banks’ publications and pronouncements to determine what each central bank is doing on their journey to DLT adoption. It was found that of the central banks for which information was available, all of them have expressed interest in DLT and have evaluated it to some extent. Nevertheless, no central bank has an operational DLT-based system at this point. This is because some issues remain regarding the speed, cost of processing, security, transparency and privacy, legal settlement finality, scalability and network effects of the technology. As DLT matures, the expectation is that these issues will begin to be resolved.

Nigel Dodd

This paper challenges the notion that Bitcoin is ‘trust-free’ money by highlighting the social practices, organizational structures and utopian ambitions that sustain it. At the paper's heart is the paradox that if Bitcoin succeeds in its own terms as an ideology, it will fail in practical terms as a form of money. The main reason for this is that the new currency is premised on the idea of money as a ‘thing’ that must be abstracted from social life in order for it to be protected from manipulation by bank intermediaries and political authorities. The image is of a fully mechanized currency that operates over and above social life. In practice, however, the currency has generated a thriving community around its political ideals, relies on a high degree of social organization in order to be produced, has a discernible social structure, and is characterized by asymmetries of wealth and power that are not dissimilar from the mainstream financial system. Unwittingly, then, Bitcoin serves as a powerful demonstration of the relational character of money.

Cüneyt Dirican, İsmail Canöz

Purpose -Aiming to discover whether Bitcoin prices have an effect on investor decisions in stock market transactions sounds exciting. Therefore, among investment, money, payment system functionalities of the cryptocurrencies which are very popular on economic and financial agenda nowadays, only the investment function regarding to the market volume of Bitcoin (which is very popular) is taken into consideration in this study. Methodology -In the scope of the study, because similar analyses between cryptocurrencies and stock market indices do not exist in the literature, cointegration relation between them are examined. Thus, the cointegration between Bitcoin (since there are many cryptocurrencies and Bitcoin is very popular and has the highest proportion in all terms in general) and selected stock indices can be investigated by the ARDL boundary test method. Since the analysis method gives meaningful information in terms of different time periods, the price and index data of these variables have been analysed. Findings-Cointegration relationship between Bitcoin prices and leading US and Chinese stock market indices is observed. Within this context, it can be told that investors in these stock markets could be influenced by Bitcoin prices in their long-term investment decision process. Any relationship was not found with BIST100, FTSE100 and NIKKEI225 indices. Conclusion -Necessity to examine the relation among Bitcoin, cryptocurrencies and other investment instruments with payment systems, money, e-commerce figures and macroeconomic indicators in the light of the arguments and the results found in our analysis would add more value to the literature. In addition, other dimensions of this topic should be regulated and be analysed by new studies within the scope of other technological developments in the 4 th Industrial Revolution. It is also decided to analyse relationship among related Istanbul Stock Exchange sub-indices, the Turkish Lira, gold, money supply and other cryptocurrencies in the following/future studies.

Gaetano Mondelli

----------------------------------------------------------- Blockchain a business solution in the Bitcoin Era. La tesi verra svolta presso l'University College of London nel centro CBT (Centre for Blockchain Technology) La tesi analizzera punti di forza e opportunita basate sulla tecnologia Blockchain. Saranno approfondite le conseguenze di questa tecnologia in ambito finanziario, legale e soprattutto tecnologico Saranno valutati gli aspetti relativi all'implementazione di una blockchain e confrontati con le soluzioni offerte dai framework esistenti. Saranno analizzati i limiti e in modo particolare la tesi presentera il limiti della estendibilita, intercomunicabilita e i fattori di scala.

Yolanda Duque Camargo, Fabian Alejandro Sanabria Agudelo

La globalizacion, se ha convertido en un aspecto de suma importancia e interes general para el mundo; anteriormente se veia a la globalizacion como una oportunidad de integrar actividades de comercio, pero ahora se ha llevado a otros planos como la comunicacion, la macro economia y la necesidad de hacer una verdadera apertura de las fronteras. Articulado con ese interes por parte de los gobiernos en desarrollar estrategias basadas en el crecimiento globalizado, se han integrado al escenario algunas divisas importantes como el dolar y el euro las cuyas monedas han garantizado en cierta medida la estabilidad de la economia mundial unificando asi mismo el lenguaje de los negocios, sin embargo, la crisis sufrida a finales del 2008 debido a la burbuja financiera en estados Unidos, hizo visible la inestabilidad de los manejos de la economia mundial actual dando paso a la necesidad de crear una divisa que crecio y se establecio en el panorama mundial conocida como Bitcoin y cuya estructura se dio de manera virtual careciendo de un marco regulador debido justamente a ese crecimiento acelerado y a ese auge que obtuvo en el mercado sin que las autoridades pudieran controlarlo.

Martina Steber

No abstract is available for this record.

Supriya Thakur, Vrushali Kulkarni

Blockchain is being termed as the fifth disruptive innovation in computing. In simplest words, it is a distributed ledger of records that is immutable and verifiable. Since its advent in 2008, blockchain as a concept has been used in various ways. The largest impact or application is seen as a multitude of cryptocurrencies that have sprung up. However, with time, it has become clear that blockchain as a technology is likely to have an impact much wider than just the cryptocurrency domain and much deeper than simple distributed ledger storage. This detailed survey intends to bring together all the key developments so far in terms of putting blockchain to practice. While the most common adoption of blockchain is in finance and banking domain, there are experiments being conducted by many big players in various other domains. This paper will explore the various domains where blockchain has had an impact and where future implementations may be expected.

Mike Thelwall

SteemIt is a Reddit-like social news site that pays members for posting and curating content. It uses micropayments backed by a tradeable currency, exploiting the Bitcoin cryptocurrency generation model to finance content provision in conjunction with advertising. If successful, this paradigm might change the way in which volunteer-based sites operate. This article investigates 925,092 new members’ first posts for insights into what drives financial success in the site. Initial blog posts on average received US$0.01, although the maximum accrued was US$20,680.83. Longer, more sentiment-rich or more positive comments with personal information received the greatest financial reward in contrast to more informational or topical content. Thus, there is a clear financial value in starting with a friendly introduction rather than immediately attempting to provide useful content, despite the latter being the ultimate site goal. Follow-up posts also tended to be more successful when more personal, suggesting that interpersonal communication rather than quality content provision has driven the site so far. It remains to be seen whether the model of small typical rewards and the possibility that a post might generate substantially more are enough to incentivise long-term participation or a greater focus on informational posts in the long term.

Shaen Corbet, Grace McHugh, Andrew Meegan

The emergence of Bitcoin in 2009 has received considerable attention surrounding the validity of cryptocurrencies as a viable and, in some jurisdictions, a legal currency alternative. Despite widespread concern that these cryptocurrencies are fostering the environment within which a substantial bubble can occur, it is important to analyze whether these new assets are behaving similarly to major international currencies. This paper investigates the effects of international monetary policy changes on bitcoin returns using a GARCH (1.1) estimation model. The results indicate that monetary policy decisions based on interest rates taken by the Federal Open Market Committee in the United States significantly impact upon bitcoin returns. After controlling for international effects, we find significant evidence of volatility effects driven by United States, European Union, United Kingdom and Japanese quantitative easing announcements. These results show that, despite its nature and ideals, bitcoin seems to be subject to the same economic factors as traditional fiat currencies, and is not entirely unaffected by government policies. This result has implications for investors using bitcoin as a hedging or diversification tool. In addition, we contribute to the existing debate regarding the classification of bitcoin as an asset class, by illustrating that bitcoin volatility exhibits various reactions that bear resemblance to both currency pairs and store-of-value assets.

Aviral Kumar Tiwari, Rabin K. Jana, Debojyoti Das, David Roubaud

No abstract is available for this record.