Fintech business models based on distributed ledgers -- and their smart-contract variants in particular -- offer the prospect of democratizing access to faster, anywhere-accessible, lower cost, reliable-and-secure high-quality financial services. In addition to holding great, economically transformative promise, these business models pose new, little-studied risks and transaction costs. However, these risks and transaction costs are not evident during the demonstration and testing phases of development, when adopters and users are drawn from the community of developers themselves, as well as from among non-programmer fintech evangelists. Hence, when the new risks and transaction costs become manifest -- as the fintech business models are rolled out across the wider economy -- the consequences may also appear to be new and surprising. The present study represents an effort to get ahead of these developments by delineating risks and transaction costs inherent in distributed-ledger- and smart-contracts-based fintech business models. The analysis focuses on code risk and moral-hazard risk, as well as on mixed-economy risks and the unintended consequences of replicating bricks-and-mortar-generation contract forms within the ultra-low transaction-cost environment of fintech.
This paper critiques blockchain-based “smart contracts,” which aim to automatically and securely execute obligations without reliance on a centralized enforcement authority. Though smart contracts do have some features that might serve the goals of social justice and fairness, I suggest that they are based on a thin conception of what law does, and how it does it. Smart contracts focus on the technical form of contract to the exclusion of the social contexts within which contracts operate, and the complex ways in which people use them. In the real world, contractual obligations are enforced through all kinds of social mechanisms other than formal adjudication—and contracts serve many functions that are not explicitly legal in nature, or even designed to be formally enforced. I describe three categories of contracting practices in which people engage (the inclusion of facially unenforceable terms, the inclusion of purposefully underspecified terms, and willful nonenforcement of enforceable terms) to illustrate how contracts actually “work.” The technology of smart contracts neglects the fact that people use contracts as social resources to manage their relations. The inflexibility that they introduce, by design, might short-circuit a number of social uses to which law is routinely put. Therefore, I suggest that attention to the social and relational contexts of contracting are essential considerations for the discussion, development, and deployment of smart contracts.
William D. Terando, Bryan Cataldi, Brian E. Mennecke
ABSTRACT IRS Notice 2014-21 provides that virtual convertible currencies, including Bitcoins, be treated as property rather than currency, and the general tax principles applicable to property transactions apply to all related transactions. In this paper, we suggest that the ambiguity created by relying on taxpayer intent/use creates an opportunity for Bitcoin traders to approximate the benefits of foreign currency designation under IRC Section 988 by making the IRC Section 475 mark-to-market (MTM) election. We suggest that the IRC Section 475 MTM election is appropriate for bitcoin traders as it allows them to convert unrealized losses into ordinary deductions and approximate foreign currency tax accounting treatment. We also suggest electing IRC Section 475 provides only marginal benefit to bitcoin dealers by accelerating pre-existing business losses to earlier periods through the mark-to-market adjustment.
Cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin were invented to facilitate instant payment services without the need for a central bank or financial intermediaries executing payments. Using cryptographic functions, any user of the bitcoin system can transfer units of the virtual currency globally on an anonymous basis. However, financial supervisory authorities are about to increase regulation of virtual currencies due to concerns that the anonymous character of the system facilitates money laundering and the financing of illegal transactions. Nevertheless, the underlying blockchain technology, or in broader terms the distributed ledger technology, may revolutionise several industries. This paper illustrates the functioning and recent market developments in the bitcoin industry as well as the disruptive potential of the underlying technologies.
Lynden Griggs, Rod Thomas, Rouhshi Low, James Scheibner
Electronic conveyancing is here. But how will it evolve with the development of blockchains being touted as one means by which fraud in relation to land can be minimised, if not eliminated? With centralised land registries requiring expensive risk minimisation strategies such as a government-funded assurance fund, or the taking out of private title insurance, can blockchains provide a systemic level of security that can improve the land titles system, and lessen the need for other forms of risk minimisation? Advocates of blockchain technology are high on hyperbole with what it can offer to support smart transaction types in a number of fields. For others, blockchains have no great advantage when applied to physical assets such as real property, and are limited in their utility.This article seeks to advance the discussion, particularly in the context of land administration. Against a backdrop of fraud occurring in title by registration systems, the authors explain what blockchain technology is, before testing its validity by outlining four common fraud scenarios within land administration, and asking whether blockchain technology would have eliminated the frauds in question. The findings show that blockchains would have prevented the fraud in two of the scenarios, but not in the remaining two. In addition, the findings note some of the known unknowns that will need to be resolved prior to any enactment of a blockchain solution. The articles conclusion is that where the process leading to registration is in some way unreliable, blockchains may offer some advantages. However, once the entry of the transaction is registered, blockchains can play no role in testing or checking the veracity of that entry. The authors also consider that, in the context of derivative interests in land, such as easements, mortgages and fee simples, blockchain technology is limited in capacity. Similarly, joint ownership of land is routine, yet the security nuances of blockchains may make joint ownership within a blockchain context difficult. These last two limitations restrict the current applicability of blockchains and make its application questionable for existing, soundly established land administration systems.
Blockchain technology is increasingly being seen as a general purpose technology with far reaching (institutional) effects. However, the ongoing empirical blockchain discussions on these effects are unstructured, due to high complexities. Both practitioners and researchers therefore struggle to get to the core of blockchain technology consequences. We use a Grounded Theory approach to map the ongoing blockchain discussion, which leads to our empirical core category that explains the core of the blockchain discussions: the disintermediation of trust in environments with highly institutionalized values. Blockchain technology is thus often related to trust in our empirical data. However, following the conceptualization of Reliance – Trust and Control by Nooteboom, we show that blockchain technology should be more related to control, instead of trust. Futhermore, we argue that complete control is not always possible in blockchain- systems due to inherent character of decentralized decision making and thus, trust is still a factor in some blockchain environments. We conclude that blockchain technology is a technology that increases control over counterparties in a transaction, but decreases control from a systems-perspective. A transfer of power in the system therefore takes place in blockchain environments. We therefore present our final core category as: power transfer in environments with highly institutionalized values. This strong conceptualization of blockchain technology helps actors understand and discuss the essence of blockchain technology, and provides a much- needed empirical basis for further scientific research. Further development of this conceptualization of trust and control is needed to structure the ongoing blockchain discussions in both scientific literature and practice.
The preceding steps uncovered the relation between trust, integrity, purely distributed peer-to-peer systems, and the blockchain. As a result, you now have a good understanding of what the blockchain is, why it is needed, and what problem it solves. However, you still do not know how the blockchain works internally. This step provides a first impression of how the blockchain works by explaining the general application scenario that will guide you through the succeeding steps. It also highlights the major tasks in designing a blockchain for managing ownership and provides an overview of its major concepts.
Industries and old ways of doing business have been reshaped or become entirely obsolete due to the new digitalization trends. The current technology to truly revolutionize and disrupt especially industries that rely on trust, such as the financial sector, is the blockchain technology. The core idea of this technol-ogy is that it is a public, shared and tamperproof ledger that allows people who do not know or even trust in each other to share information in a trustworthy ledger, where any sorts of immaterial infor-mation of value can be stored. This thesis is a literature review that provides a theoretical framework to examine how the blockchain technology affects particularly the financial sector. As this thesis acknowledges, the blockchain technology has the ability to enhance efficiency, increase transparency, reduce risks when less assets are tied up during transactions and reduce expenditures, such as transaction costs in the financial sector. One of the most ambitious application of the blockchain technology is smart contracts, but there are other applications as well that can benefit the financial sec-tor. The technology has great potential to disrupt the current financial system, but since the technology is still in its initial stage of development, it is too early to say what the blockchain technology will exactly enable. The most extreme hypothesis is that the blockchain technology makes banks unnecessary. How-ever, this thesis argues that the financial institutions are more likely to take advantage of the blockchain technology than to become obsolete because of it.
This technical note explains what blockchain is, what it allows, as well as discusses its advantages and potential issues to consider further. It also provides an example of an application in which blockchain technology is used and describes regulatory and governance considerations. It can be used in a financial institutions or fintech course along with a case on digital currencies. Excerpt UVA-F-1810 Rev. Dec. 7, 2017 An Introduction to Blockchain I love this stuff—bitcoin, blockchain technology—and what the future holds…huge new markets and products will be built on these platforms. Abby Johnson, CEO of Fidelity Introduction . . .
Securities regulators in the world do not actively regulate cryptocurrency yet. For an effective, active securities regulation, I introduce four novel propositions for the regulators. First, the cryptocurrency technology and its peer-to-peer network are meaningless without the activities of the involved people. Second, the private key of cryptocurrency should be utilized as an identification tool. Third, the active regulation should include a mandatory reporting provision of cryptocurrency transactions and balance. Fourth, the transaction size and ledger length of cryptocurrency should be used as regulatory risk measures. My propositions are founded on a combined analysis of law, finance, math, and technology. Then, I discuss a possible unification of currencies across the globe, with the potential to establish an international cryptocurrency authority.
A book introducing Ethereum and Solidity would not be complete without mention of the nascent cult of personality forming around Vitalik Buterin, the inventor of Ethereum and a collaborator on a handful of other high-profile blockchain projects. These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.
In December 2013 the People's Bank of China announced the restriction of Bitcoin from being involved in any services offered by financial institutions in China, fearing that the speculative risks inherent in Bitcoin is too new for Chinese investors and may endanger the national financial system. This article reviews the Bitcoin's evolvement both as currency and as investment asset around the world. Also, the regulatory treatment for Bitcoin in America is discussed. Then I used detrended ratios to compare the volatility of Bitcoin market and China's stock market, concluding that the risks inherent in Bitcoin are not unacceptable for Chinese investors. Moreover, I searched into the relationship between Bitcoin return and some fundamental economic variables, finding that Bitcoin doesn't have enough correlation with the national economic system to depress investors further during an economic downturn and that Bitcoin actually has excellent diversification benefit as portfolio component.