Xiao Fan Liu, Xin-Jian Jiang, Si-Hao Liu, Chi K. Tse
Cryptocurrencies gain trust in users by publicly disclosing the full creation and transaction history. In return, the transaction history faithfully records the whole spectrum of cryptocurrency user behaviors. This article analyzes and summarizes the existing research on knowledge discovery in the cryptocurrency transactions using data mining techniques. Specifically, we classify the existing research into three aspects, i.e., transaction tracings and blockchain address linking, the analyses of collective user behaviors, and the study of individual user behaviors. For each aspect, we present the problems, summarize the methodologies, and discuss major findings in the literature. Furthermore, an enumeration of transaction data parsing and visualization tools and services is also provided. Finally, we outline several future directions in this research area, such as the current rapid development of Decentralized Finance (De-Fi) and digital fiat money.
Article New Zealand: Are Cryptocurrencies Property? — An analysis of eligible entities for property in the light of the first landmark ruling on cryptocurrency was published on October 1, 2020 in the journal Computer Law Review International (volume 21, issue 5).
The terms decentralized organization and distributed organization are often used interchangeably, despite describing two distinct phenomena. I propose distinguishing decentralization , as the dispersion of organizational communications, from distribution , as the dispersion of organizational decision-making. Organizations can be distributed without being decentralized (and vice versa), and having multiple management layers directly affects only distribution – not decentralization. This proposed distinction has implications for understanding the growth of digital platforms (e.g. amazon.com ), which dominate the global economy in the 21 st century. While prominent platforms typically use machine learning as their core technology to transform inputs (e.g. data) into outputs (e.g. matchmaking services), blockchain has emerged as an alternative technological blueprint. I argue that blockchain enables platforms that are both decentralized and distributed (e.g. Bitcoin), whereas machine learning fosters centralized communications and the concentration of decision-making (e.g. Facebook Inc.). This distinction has crucial implications for antitrust policy, which, I contend, should shift both its analysis and its target of action away from the corporate level and focus instead on the data level. Based on this essay’s framework, I make several predictions regarding the future of competition between centralized and decentralized platforms, the evolution of government regulation, and broader implications for managers in the digital economy and for the business schools charged with their education. I conclude with reflections on the opportunity to revive cybernetic thinking for preventing a dystopian future dominated by a handful of platform behemoths.
Blockchain is a relatively new technology that is often described as “creating trust” or “removing intermediaries”. In this paper, we posit that blockchain is a new form of digitally-enabled boundary spanning that allows co-ownership models for the companies in question. Where companies have traditionally employed humans to act as interfaces to the external world, new digital technologies enable a digitised approach to many corporate operations that require interaction towards the external market and environment within which firms must operate. Blockchain is a special subset of digital technologies in this regard, enabling companies to co-operate to control parts of the market and to internalise transaction costs that until now have been a market function; using blockchain companies effectively create a new transaction boundary that means boundary spanning can be deeply embedded in core business, rather than kept to its periphery. This digitally-enabled boundary spanning is a key attribute of the emerging digital economy. Understanding its implications is of critical importance for economics, business and social science literature.
Marcel Müller, Jacek Aleksander Janczura, Peter Ruppel
Current centralized e-commerce platforms have lock-in effects. These platform-binding effects are constructed towards the content creator and the consumer in the process of purchasing digital content. The lock-in effects originate from the situation in which a centralized platform offers a variety of value propositions towards content creators and consumers. In this article, we propose an approach to decentralize the value propositions and distribute them among different actors. Therefore, we develop a decentralized application based on smart contracts and the blockchain technology. With that application as a base, we offer an alternative to the current centralized marketplaces without lock-in effects.
Abstract The article analyzes the problems of the development of modern banking business in Russia in the context of the growing share of large banks in the market. The aim of the work is to determine the need for the introduction of new advanced technologies by small and medium banks in order to increase the efficiency of their activities. The working hypothesis is that against the background of low economic growth in Russia and high competition among state and quasi-state banks, small and medium-sized banks can remain competitive only through cooperation and the introduction of new advanced technologies (artificial intelligence technology and blockchain technology). The article provides a brief overview of theoretical and empirical studies of the introduction of modern information technologies in banking. Briefly describes the international experience in implementing information technology in the financial sector of the economy. The article also provides a qualitative and quantitative analysis of the development of the modern Russian banking system. The analysis of official statistics of the Bank of Russia was carried out, which confirmed the tendency to decrease in the number of banks in the Russian economy, as well as the increase in the degree of monopolization of the banking sector of the Russian economy. Together, these two phenomena lead to increased competition between large banks on the one hand and medium and small banks on the other, in which the latter can only be actively introduced by new information technologies. The study clearly showed that the monopolization of the banking sector leads to the need to look for new development paths for small and medium-sized banks through the introduction of modern technologies.
Moritz Platt, Francesco Pierangeli, Giacomo Livan, Simone Righi
This article discusses a protocol to facilitate decentralised exchanges on an order-driven market through a consortium of market services operators. We discuss whether this hybrid protocol combining a centralised initiation phase with a decentralised execution phase outperforms fully centralised exchanges with regards to efficiency and security. Here, a fully efficient and fully secure protocol is defined as one where traders incur no trading costs or opportunity costs and counterparty risk is absent. We devise a protocol addressing the main downsides in the decentralised exchange process that uses a facilitating distributed ledger, maintains an order book and monitors the order status in real-time to provide accurate exchange rate information and performance scoring of participants. We show how performance ratings can lower opportunity costs and how a rolling benchmark rate of verifiable trades can be used to establish a trustworthy exchange rate between cryptocurrencies. The formal validation of the proposed technical mechanisms is the subject of future work.
Karoline Busse, Mohammad Tahaei, Katharina Krombholz, Emanuel von Zezschwitz · 7 authors
Payment cultures around the globe are diverse and have significant implications on security, privacy and trust. We study usable security aspects of payment cultures in four culturally distinct societies. Based on a qualitative study in Germany and Iran, we developed an online survey and deployed it in Germany, Iran, China, and the United States. The results reveal significant differences between the studied countries. For example, we found that participants from Iran and China are more comfortable with credential sharing and German participants were most accepting towards cryptocurrencies. We suggest these kinds of differences in payment culture need to be considered in the context of HCI research when evaluating current payment mechanisms or designing new ones.
Trevor Clohessy, Horst Treiblmaier, Thomas Acton, Nichola Rogers
Abstract Important technological, organizational, environmental, individual, and task‐related blockchain considerations are identified and discussed. The framework combines five salient adoption considerations and presents cases of the most important antecedents of organizational blockchain adoption. Further, it provides the theoretical foundation of blockchain adoption by integrating existing frameworks and applying them to a novel technology.
Blockchain technology, beyond cryptocurrencies, is called to be the new information exchange ecosystem due to its unique properties, such as immutability and transparency. The main objective of this work is to introduce the design of a decentralized rental system, which leverages smart contracts and the Ethereum public blockchain. The work started from an exhaustive investigation on the Ethereum platform, emphasizing the aspect of cryptography and all the technology behind this platform. In order to test the proposed scheme in a realistic use, the implementation of a web application for the rental of vehicles has been carried out. The application covers the entire vehicle rental process offered in traditional web applications, adding more autonomy and ease of use to users. Following Ethereum application development guidelines, all business logic is located in the smart contracts implemented in the Ethereum network, where these contracts control the entire vehicle rental system of customers. While this is a work in progress, the results obtained in the first proof of concept have been very promising.
Youssef Faqir-Rhazoui, Javier Arroyo, Samer Hassan
Blockchain technology has emerged as a new paradigm to build decentralized systems which do not require a central authority. It is most popular for enabling Bitcoin and other crypto-currencies. However, blockchain applications span beyond Finance, and recently it has been applied to decentralized governance. Blockchain-enabled "Decentralized Autonomous Organizations" (DAOs) have emerged as a new form of collective governance, in which communities may organize themselves relying on decentralized infrastructure. In this article, we introduce the concept of DAO and review the main software platforms that offer DAO creation as a service, which simplifies the use of DAOs to non-blockchain experts; namely: Aragon, DAOstack, DAOhaus and Colony. These platforms will be compared by showing their key features. Finally, we will review the available visualisation tools for DAOs, and we will introduce our open-source tool to plot DAOs activity, DAO-Analyzer. We will illustrate its potential with the case of the DAO Genesis Alpha, which is the main DAO of the DAOstack project.
The market proposed in this book is introduced in terms of its bifurcated nature. The argument in favour of networking, as opposed to linking, in order to connect diverse pricing schemes is set out; then the technology proposed to facilitate networking is introduced and that technology application is examined in terms of specific characteristics, including the requirements of the Paris Agreement, providing a rationale for the application of the technology.
The emergence of a decentralized peer-to-peer platform that matches lending and borrowing without collateral requirements has called the bank lending and balance-sheet channels for monetary transmission into question. Via a standard New Keynesian macroeconomic model expanded with two-sided platform and group identity, we put forward a novel platform density channel of monetary transmission, which could overshadow the conventional channels. An increase in policy rate, for instance, would instigate a shift toward platform borrowing. Increasing borrowers’ density attracts participation in platform deposits, which in turn further enhances borrowers’ benefit of joining the platform, making liquidity available at decreasing platform loan rates. Business investment and hence the inflation rate gets lifted despite monetary tightening. The implication of platform density channel diminishes, however, when platform borrowings complement bank borrowings, and pose nontrivial risk of default.
Feng Guo, Stephanie Walton, Patrick Wheeler, Yiyang Zhang
ABSTRACT This study examines factors that influence a public firm's decision to early-adopt blockchain technology. Blockchain technology has the potential to disrupt how firms collect, process, and maintain information about a wide range of firm activities including transactions and supply chain interactions. We examine several determinants of early blockchain adoption including patented technology, agency costs, complexity, and external monitoring. Our results suggest that blockchain early adoption involves opportunistic managerial behavior. Further, firms with greater technology innovations, proxied by number of patents, are more likely to disclose early adoption, possibly to overcome productivity concerns or attract inter-firm opportunities. We also examine the consequences of early adoption using a market-based approach. Our results suggest that blockchain adoption could be a lengthy and costly process. Our study provides evidence on why firms adopt this disruptive technology and informs regulators and policy makers on how managers can influence the blockchain early adoption decision.
This paper proposes a smart contract based approach enabling Internet of Things devices to exchange data in a secure and automatic way. This leads to new digital business models as pay-per-use establishing the vision of the Economy of Things. By using a blockchain there is no need for a trusted third party to secure transactions. We propose a novel use of smart contracts for assurance of data integrity, encryption key provision and payment. Thereby, a three layer architecture consisting of physical layer, on-chain layer and off-chain layer is designed. Proof of concept is based on an Ethereum Blockchain using Bosch XDK devices.
Blockchain is a catch-all term for a combination of three technologies: distributed ledger, cryptology and network protocols. The first enables storing the same info in different places, the second allows secure transactions to be recorded and then encrypted on the distributed ledger. The third element governs the network and verifies transactions across the network automatically and independently. Considered by many as “the biggest technological innovation since the Internet”1, blockchain is a decentralized, more secure and transparent model for transactions that operates on an encrypted peer-to-peer basis. This model makes trust between parties superfluous by instead placing trust in the underlying technological platform. This would effectively remove the need for intermediaries whose business has been to make up for the lack of trust; these include banks, brokers, governments, internet platforms, law firms etc. While reducing the costs of contract enforcement and thus facilitating trade, blockchain technology may have significant implications for antitrust law. As decentralized organizations such as blockchain are not recognized as legal persons, this raises questionsabout whether anticompetitive practices and their perpetrators can be identified. For example, can a non-entity hold a dominant position? Can blockchain create a “monopoly without a monopolist”? Finally, if a blockchain is dominant, which users and/or entities hold that dominant position? This article intends to highlight the challenges that blockchain presents to the analyses of unilateral anticompetitive practices.
Purpose This paper aims to provide a systematic review of the literature addressing blockchain technology (BT) in general management and economics (GME). Design/methodology/approach A systematic literature review methodology is used to collect and analyze the literature. Findings Three clusters of research are identified, namely, law, economy and innovation. The use of BT in law areas fosters the registration of intellectual property (IP) rights, although conflict between some of BT applications and regulatory frameworks is present. Research on cryptocurrencies is of high interest to the economy today. In the innovation cluster, BT improves security, traceability and transparency in operations over supply chains. However, BT has many technical imperfections that hinder its wide adoption. Furthermore, the need for the full commitment of all business actors complicates its implementation. Research on BT is still at a nascent stage. Conceptual papers dominate the literature (18 theories are discussed). Eight main future research directions are described. For example, the relationship between the use of BT in supply chains and competitive advantage is not established; and quality standards for BT platforms are not developed. Research limitations/implications The review is restricted to academic journals in the fields of GME, which limits the extent of the conclusions. Originality/value The paper synthesizes 47 studies published in academic journals, avoiding misleading claims and inaccurate information insofar as possible; and provides a spectrum of descriptive statistics and qualitative meta-synthesis analysis of the current literature.