Amir Feder, Neil Gandal, JT Hamrick, Tyler Moore · 5 authors
This study examines blockchain technologies and their pivotal role in the evolving Metaverse, shedding light on topics such as how to invest in cryptocurrency, the mechanics behind crypto mining, and strategies to effectively buy and trade cryptocurrencies. Through an interdisciplinary approach, the research transitions from the fundamental principles of fintech investment strategies to the overarching implications of blockchain within the Metaverse. Alongside exploring machine learning potentials in financial sectors and risk assessment methodologies, the study critically assesses whether developed or developing nations are poised to reap greater benefits from these technologies. Moreover, it probes into both enduring and dubious crypto projects, drawing a distinct line between genuine blockchain applications and Ponzi-like schemes. The conclusion resolutely affirms the continuing dominance of blockchain technologies, underlined by a profound exploration of their intrinsic value and a reflective commentary by the author on the potential risks confronting individual investors.
With the rapid development of social media, fast transition of organizational management modes, as well as the increasing security risks caused by human intervention and operations, the existing organizational management systems suffer a severe problem of lowered efficiency and security. This motivates our research. In this paper, we strive to design a new solution to this problem, via instantiating the traditional PDCA cycle theory and using software robots powered by blockchain and smart contracts. In our framework, blockchain and smart contracts can guarantee privacy-protected, traceable, and tamper-resistant data access, and can also help reduce the human intervention. Based on the PDCA cycle theory, we propose the PDCA closed-loop ecological chain on the basis of blockchain. We also validate our work in a real-world scenario, and the results can prove the effectiveness of our model.
This article provides an examination of regulation theory as applied to Bitcoin. Through an examination of the parallels with Ogusâ model for self-regulation, it is demonstrated that several unique features inherent to cryptocurrencies offer the benefits of regulatory oversight without the drawbacks. The article also provides a broader socio-regulatory analysis of Bitcoin in an attempt to better understand the benefits of competitive self-regulation for platform users. Finally, this article examines whether cryptocurrencies should be regulated by way of traditional State-based models and, if so, which of these approaches (if any) ought to be used to regulate the platform.
Tim Weingaertner, Rahul Rao, Jasmin Ettlin, Patrick Suter · 5 authors
This research addresses the issue that in-depth programming knowhow is needed to read and write smart contracts. The goal was making the creation of smart contracts accessible to non-computer experts by the use of a graphical programming language (Blockly). We used modularization to capture the complexity of legal contracts and developed a mapping process to transform the graphical representation to the smart contract programming language Solidity. We applied our approach to legal purchase agreements and proved the practicality of our solution and explored its limitations. A prototype was built to show the feasibility of our approach. Our industry partner challenged the prototype by applying it to the contract creation process. We consider our work as the first step towards an application of smart contracts in the non-IT world and outside the today's expert shaped ecosystem of blockchain specialists. Several continuative research questions have been derived from our finding and are listed at the end of this paper.
One of the distinguishing features of blockchain-based Distributed Autonomous Organizations(DAO) is lack of a central authority. Changes to blockchain data is achieved through consensus amongst blockchain network participants, rather than through a central node's authoritative decision. Similarly, governance, i.e., changes to features and underlying source code, is achieved through a decentralized mechanism. As adoption of blockchain has increased, the need to evolve and adopt new features has grown. These changes highlight the mechanism by which the network, rather than a central node, makes decisions. One change in particular, proposed increases to the block size to address scalability limitations, has been particularly demonstrative of the governance mechanisms employed by disparate blockchains. For example, two digital currency projects, Bitcoin and Dash, employ significantly different governance mechanisms: the Dash Decentralized Governance By Blockchain (DGBB) process, and the Bitcoin Improvement Proposal (BIP) process, to decide what changes to make to their blockchains. Dash governance was able to decide to alter the block size in a matter of hours, while Bitcoin governance took several years to make the same decision. This paper evaluates the governance mechanisms of blockchain projects using the change in block size as an exemplar. Two prominent governance mechanisms are described, compared, and assessed based upon how effective they came to consensus and made the decision to change to support the disparate needs of stakeholders.
With the Internet of Things (IoT), Things are expected to live in different âdomainsâ and âcontextsâ during their lifetime. Information generated by and associated with Things should be manageable by multiple, diverse stakeholders accordingly. Moreover, the scope of the information related to Things can range from private and confidential to public and auditable. Identification, security, and interoperability in this vivid environment are expected to be challenging. In this paper we discuss how smart contracts and blockchain technologies create the potential for a viable solution. To this end, we present smart contract-based solutions that improve security and information management, we identify new opportunities and challenges, and we provide security recommendations and guidelines.
Applications of Distributed Ledger Technologies (DLTs) in IoT and Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS) are rapidly emerging. However, developing correct and resilient smart contracts for these use cases is even less understood than it is for cryptocurrency-based contracts. This paper presents an initial approach for generating smart contracts for coordinating the usage of cyber-physical system elements from UML statecharts. While the current target platform is Ethereum, our approach can easily be extended to other blockchain platforms.
With the rapid development of cryptocurrency and its underlying blockchain technologies, platforms such as Ethereum and Hyperledger began to support various types of smart contracts. Smart contracts are computer protocols intended to digitally facilitate, verify, or enforce the negotiation or performance of a contract. Smart contracts have broad range of applications, such as financial services, prediction markets and Internet of Things (IoT), etc. However, there are still many challenges such as security issues and privacy disclosure that await future research. In this paper, we present a comprehensive overview on blockchain powered smart contracts. First, we give a systematic introduction for smart contracts, including the basic framework, operating mechanisms, platforms and programming languages. Second, application scenarios and existing challenges are discussed. Finally, we describe the recent advances of smart contract and present its future development trends, e.g., parallel blockchain. This paper is aimed at providing helpful guidance and reference for future research efforts.
This Policy Contribution tries to answer two main questions: can cryptocurrencies acquire the role of money? And what are the implications for central banks and monetary policy? Money is a social institution that serves as a unit of account, a medium of exchange and a store of value. With the emergence of decentralised ledger technology (DLT), cryptocurrencies represent a new form of money: privately issued, digital and enabling peer-to-peer transactions. Historically, currencies fulfil their main functions successfully when their value is stable and their user network sufficiently large. So far, cryptocurrencies are arguably falling short against these criteria. They resemble speculative assets rather than money. Primarily this is because of their inherent volatility, which is the by-product of their inelastic supply, and which limits their widespread use as a medium of exchange. Cryptocurrency protocols could theoretically evolve to limit their volatility and correct their current deficiencies. If successful, this could lead to an increase in their popularity as an alternative to official currencies. A successful alternative to official currencies could put pressure on those who manage official currencies to provide better policies. But the widespread substitution of central bank currency for cryptocurrencies would effectively create parallel currencies. This by itself could create risks to the effectiveness of monetary policy, to financial stability and ultimately to growth. Nevertheless, the risks of cryptocurrencies becoming serious contenders remain small as long as fiat currencies issued by the world's major central banks continue to deliver effectively the three traditional functions of money. It would take a deep crisis of trust in official currencies for their widespread substitution by cryptocurrencies to materialise. For cryptocurrencies to replace official currencies they would have to overcome a triple challenge. First, the supply of cryptocurrency would need to act as an instrument (or identify a different instrument) that affects the economy. Second, in the presence of fractional reserve banking, the supply would need to respond to liquidity crises and act as a lender of last resort in order to safeguard financial stability. Third, there would need to be a system of checks and balances to keep the agent, ie the cryptocurrency issuer, accountable to the principal, ie society, which is not possible because cryptocurrencies are automatically and privately-issued. For these reasons, official currencies controlled by inflation-targeting independent central banks still appear to be a far superior technology than cryptocurrencies to provide the money functions.
Abstract Initial coin offerings (ICOs) have emerged as a new mechanism for entrepreneurial finance, with parallels to initial public offerings, venture capital, and presale crowdfunding. In a sample of more than 1,500 ICOs that collectively raise ${\$}$12.9 billion, we examine which issuer and ICO characteristics predict successful real outcomes (increasing issuer employment and avoiding enterprise failure). Success is associated with disclosure, credible commitment to the project, and quality signals. An instrumental variables analysis finds that ICO token exchange listing causes higher future employment, indicating that access to token liquidity has important real consequences for the enterprise. Authors have furnished an Internet Appendix, which is available on the Oxford University Press Web site next to the link to the final published paper online.
International Journal of Computer Sciences and Engineering (A UGC Approved and indexed with DOI, ICI and Approved, DPI Digital Library) is one of the leading and growing open access, peer-reviewed, monthly, and scientific research journal for scientists, engineers, research scholars, and academicians, which gains a foothold in Asia and opens to the world, aims to publish original, theoretical and practical advances in Computer Science,Information Technology, Engineering (Software, Mechanical, Civil, Electronics & Electrical), and all interdisciplinary streams of Computing Sciences. It intends to disseminate original, scientific, theoretical or applied research in the field of Computer Sciences and allied fields. It provides a platform for publishing results and research with a strong empirical component. It aims to bridge the significant gap between research and practice by promoting the publication of original, novel, industry-relevant research.
Blockchain Technology is considered as a general-purpose technology with far reaching effects. As can be seen from the discussions on blockchain applications, both practitioners and researchers struggle to get to the core of blockchain technology consequences. Especially practitioners in the governmental sector explore adequate responses to this new technology. Therefore, our aim is to provide a conceptualization of the consequences of blockchain systems from an institutional perspective, and to use this conceptualization to provide insights into the governance of blockchain systems.
The blockchain technology has evolved beyond traditional payment solutions in the finance sector and offers a potential for transforming many sectors including the public sector. The novel integration of technology and economy that open public block-chains have brought represents both challenges to and opportunities for enhancing digital public services. So far, the public sector has lagged behind other sectors in both research and exploration of this technology, but pilot cases show that there is a great potential for reforming and even transforming public service delivery.
In the past few years, researchers and practitioners have highlighted the potential of Blockchain (BC) and distributed ledger technology to revolutionize government processes. Blockchain technology enables distributed power and embedded security. As such, Blockchain is regarded as an innovative, general purpose technology, offering new ways of organization in many domains, including e-government for transactions and information exchange. However, due to its very characteristics of peer to peer information exchange, its distributed nature, the still developing technology, the involvement of new actors, roles, etc., the implementation of blockchain applications raise issues that need governance attention. BC initiatives have implications for citizen trust, privacy, inclusion and participation. Governmental organizations need a thorough understanding of the BC design principles, the possible applications in the domain of e-government and the exploration of governance mechanisms to deal with the limitations and challenges of the BC technology when used in a myriad of sectors, ranging from the financial and business sector to the social domains of healthcare and education. In this panel we explore the impact of block chain technology on all levels of government and create an awareness of effects or applications in society that raise governance issues.
Rodrigo Couto de Souza, Edimara Mezzomo Luciano, Guilherme Costa Wiedenhöft
The increasing demands for more transparency in public administration worldwide ask for open data, and the establishing of other mechanisms as well as keep using the contributions of new technologies to increment the management capacity, focusing on better controls and governance mechanisms. One of the new technologies that presents potential to be used to protect organizations from corruption is Blockchain. An important point when dealing with corruption perpetrated by frauds is the use of technology to avoid wrongdoing or to reduce its impact. Contracts are a very complex subject provided they are the main way governments transfer money to other organizations, including private ones. This document presents a study proposal about the use of Smart Contracts technology in Blockchain environments as a way to face corruption in governmental instances. Smart Contracts can be used to all government payments as a way to increase transactions transparency, as well as to avoid overbilling, provided that contracts and bids are typical ways to exert frauds and money misappropriation. As future researches it is important to verify barriers to Blockchain adoption as well as its main vulnerabilities.
The ability of blockchain technology to record transactions on distributed ledgers offers new opportunities for governments to improve transparency, prevent fraud, and establish trust in the public sector. However, blockchain adoption and use in the context of e-Government is rather unexplored in academic literature. In this paper, we systematically review relevant research to understand the current research topics, challenges and future directions regarding blockchain adoption for e-Government. The results show that the adoption of blockchain-based applications in e-Government is still very limited and there is a lack of empirical evidence. The main challenges faced in blockchain adoption are predominantly presented as technological aspects such as security, scalability and flexibility. From an organizational point of view, the issues of acceptability and the need of new governance models are presented as the main barriers to adoption. Moreover, the lack of legal and regulatory support is identified as the main environmental barrier of adoption. Based on the challenges presented in the literature, we propose future research questions that need to be addressed to inform how the public sector should approach the blockchain technology adoption.
In 2008 Satoshi Nakamoto released a White Paper introducing the cryptocurrency âbitcoinâ to the public. Intended to revolutionise the payments process, bitcoin is a peer-to-peer (and therefore distributed) âelectronic cash systemâ that facilitates relatively fast online payments with low transaction costs and âwithout going through a financial institutionâ. As a currency, it is perhaps not surprising that bitcoin has been met with both scepticism from the public and resistance from traditional financial institutions. In contrast, as a platform, the distributed ledger technology (DLT) that underpins bitcoin (known as the blockchain) is now witnessing mainstream adoption by major financial institutions. This transition comes as banks and other financial institutions are recognising the blockchainâs significant potential to âradically transformâ the financial services industry, resulting in what some are calling the âfourth industrial revolutionâ. As a consequence, it is becoming increasingly clear that DLTs have the potential to similarly disrupt the shadow banking sector as they enable innovative business models to be adopted by both banks (acting outside of the traditional regulated realm) and non-bank institutions (to conduct financial services activities).
Amir Kafshdar Goharshady, Ali Behrouz, Krishnendu Chatteriee
We present a secure approach for maintaining and reporting credit history records on the Blockchain. Our approach removes third-parties such as credit reporting agencies from the lending process and replaces them with smart contracts. This allows customers to interact directly with the lenders or banks while ensuring the integrity, unmalleability and privacy of their credit data. Most importantly, each customer is given full control over complete or selective disclosure of her credit records, eliminating the risk of privacy violations or data breaches such as the one that happened to Equifax in 2017. Moreover, our approach provides strong guarantees for the lenders as well. A lender can check both correctness and completeness of the credit data disclosed to her. This is the first approach that is able to perform all real-world credit reporting tasks without a central authority or changing the financial mechanisms.
With widespread smart contract implementation on the horizon, there is much conversation about how to regulate this new technology. Noting the failure of contract law to address the inequities of standardised contracts in the digital environment can help prevent them from being codified further into smart contracts.
The financial sector has grown ever more interested in crypto-currencies and the innovative Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) that underpins them. For central banks, in their role as providers of currency and critical payments infrastructure, a key area of interest is whether DLTs could be used to enhance existing payment processes. This article gives a high-level explanation of how different DLTs can change payments processes. The answer depends on what form the distributed ledger takes. We identify four binary elements that determine the different properties of distributed ledgers and use case studies to evaluate how these elements can improve on, or fall short of, existing payments infrastructure. We find that Blockchain â the most well-known DLT that underpins Bitcoin â brings benefits in terms of the speed of cross-border settlement and improves security by removing the single point of failure, but has drawbacks in terms of slowing the speed and increasing the cost of smaller domestic transactions, and being energy intensive. Some central banks have experimented with other forms of DLTs that try to capture some of the benefits of Blockchain while minimising the costs, but so far these DLTs have tended to mimic existing payment processes and have not demonstrated many additional benefits.
A new legal field is emerging around blockchain platforms and automated transactions. Understanding the relationships between law, legal enforcement, and these technological systems has become critical for scaling blockchain applications. Because âsmart contractsâ do not themselves constitute agreements, the first necessary âlegalâ development for transacting with these technologies involves linking computational transactions to natural language contracts. Various groups have accordingly begun building libraries of machine readable transaction modules that correspond to natural language contracting elements. In doing so, they are creating the building blocks for ever more complex transactions that will ultimately define the entire envelope of computational legal conduct in these environments, and likely standardise the field. However, also critical to emerging blockchain âlegalitiesâ, is the capacity for dispute resolution and legal enforcement. Beyond the performance of parties, or the quality of goods and services transacted, new mechanisms are also needed to address the performance of the computational transaction systems themselves. These are necessary to address the reality that smart contracts cannot be forced to perform actions beyond the parameters of their coding, even by a judicial order. Legal tools, both technological and institutional, are thus being developed to âsoftenâ the effects of self-executing transactions. In this article we treat these developments as law-making practices that are constitutive of an emerging legal field. Legal engineering exercises of this kind are not novel, and by drawing on historic examples from the common law and international arbitration, we gain insights into the competitive dynamics likely to be shaping legal engagements on the blockchain.