The sudden growth of cryptocurrencies has created a set of intricate regulatory and legal issues for the financial and governance system of India. The decentralized nature of digital currencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum challenges the conventional monetary system, giving rise to concerns about their legal status, protection of investors, taxation, and overall financial stability. This paper critically analyzes the regulatory environment in India, especially in the wake of the 2018 circular issued by the Reserve Bank of India and its subsequent strike-down in the case of Internet and Mobile Association of India v. Reserve Bank of India. It also discusses challenges with respect to money laundering under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002, taxation of virtual digital assets, and the lack of a comprehensive statutory regulatory framework for cryptocurrency exchanges. The paper contends that the current stance of India is one of regulatory ambivalence, vacillating between control and tolerance.
DLT and several other technological elements such as smart contracts, digital wallets, oracles, and so on in the context of financial markets, are leading to the emergence of very different phenomena which require, first of all, to be understood and then, inevitably as their importance and volume grow, regulated and supervised, to ensure the stability of the market and the protection of its investors. At the international level, the Financial Stability Board is advancing a global regulatory framework grounded in the principle of ‘same activity, same risk, same regulation’, aiming to ensure consistent and comprehensive regulation of crypto-asset activities and stablecoins relative to the risks they present, while also fostering responsible innovation prompted by technological advancements. The European Union is actively addressing regulatory challenges in the crypto space, employing distinct approaches to different categories of cryptoassets, depending on whether DLT technology is used in the context of non-fully decentralized finance, rather than in DeFi itself, which currently lacks effective regulation within the European Union. Greater problems from a regulatory perspective, however, are posed by the phenomenon of DeFi, which entails a more significant disintermediation. For this reason, even at the European level, this is undoubtedly the area that poses the most significant problems for market and investor protection. Keywords: decentralized ledger technology, crypto-assets, regulation, DeFi, investor protection.
This chapter explores the legal and economic dimensions of Non-Fungible Tokens as instruments of digital scarcity. It examines their technical architecture, legal qualification, and evolving regulatory approaches in the European Union and the United States through a comparative perspective. By contrasting derivative and specific forms of regulation, the analysis highlights the challenges of integrating Non-Fungible Tokens into existing legal frameworks. The chapter concludes by emphasising the need for regulatory frameworks that provide legal certainty while preserving the innovative potential of blockchain technologies, highlighting how the controlled creation of digital scarcity can redefine value and trust in the digital environment. Keywords: NFT, digital scarcity, digital assets, value, comparative law, EU Regulation, US Regulation.
The growing popularity, the exponentially expanding market size, and the volatility of Cryptocurrency are gaining the attention of all, whether it is investors, policymakers, miners, or academicians. So, this paper has used Bibliometric analysis to explore the existing works of literature in the area of Business, Finance, and Economics. We have reviewed and analysed 1344 articles extracted from the Web of Science core collection, Clarivate Analytics of the period from 2011 to mid-2022 using VOSviewer and Biblioshiny (Biblimetrix: R package) analytical tools. This paper has presented citations, publications, and the impact of sources, documents, authors, organizations, countries, etc., along with their relationships with the help of tables, charts, and network diagrams. The analysis shows exponential growth in the last 4-5 years. Bitcoin and Cryptocurrency (or Cryptocurrencies) are the most frequent keywords. With many ups and downs, cryptocurrency is maintaining its pace with a gradual increase in its acceptability worldwide.
The dissertation examines statistical arbitrage methods in the cryptocurrency markets using cointegration analysis on Bitcoin, ethereum, Litecoin, Ripple using daily price data of the cryptocurrencies between January 2022 and October 2024. The research deploys strict econometric procedures, such as the Engle-Granger two-step process and Johansen test, to uncover and take advantage of the mean-reverting relationships between the key cryptocurrencies. Findings indicate that there are strong relationships of cointegration especially between Bitcoin-Ether and Ethereum-Litecoin with the relationship between Bitcoin-Ether and Ethereum being very stable in many market regimes. The statistically arbitrage strategies depending on such cointegrated pairs led to large risk-adjusted returns whose Sharpe ratios of 1.58 to 2.45 were markedly higher than buy-and-hold standards. The Bitcoin-Etherer pairs trading strategy had an annualized return of 16.34 evidenced by a volatility of just 8.45 against the volatility of Bitcoin on buy and hold at 54.67. These strategies had low beta (0.09-0.18), which was an affirmative of their market-neutral qualities and their positive alpha generation of between 11-15% per annum.
В статье анализируются современные подходы к регулированию криптовалют, включая определение их правового статуса, надзор за криптовалютными посредниками и проблемы регулирования децентрализованных финансов, с учетом стандартов FATF и национальной практики. На основе выявленных ограничений предлагается модель международной организации по регулированию криптовалют и оценивается ее влияние на повышение мировой финансовой стабильности. The article analyzes contemporary approaches to cryptocurrency regulation, including the determination of their legal status, oversight of cryptocurrency intermediaries, and the challenges of regulating decentralized finance, taking into account FATF standards and national practices. Based on the identified limitations, the paper proposes a model of an international organization for cryptocurrency regulation and assesses its potential impact on improving global financial stability is being assessed.
In modern conditions, digitalization represents a complex phenomenon that actively encompasses various spheres of social life. This article examines the implementation of smart contracts, which are changing established approaches to transport services in the context of digital transformation. It is concluded that, despite the presence of the term “contract” in the name “smart contract”, it remains, by its legal nature, a computer program.
The modern development of decentralized ledger and blockchain technologies has led to the emergence of smart contracts, which are becoming an important tool in the digital economy, transforming existing understandings of the conclusion and fulfillment of obligations in the digital environment. The authors believe that recognizing the objective multi-paradigmatic nature of this phenomenon will not only facilitate the integration of modern technological advances into the legal system but also stimulate the growth of an innovative economy, increase trust in digital platforms, and ensure their adaptation to the rapidly changing conditions of the digital market. The conclusions include proposals for legislative development based on a multi-paradigmatic approach, which assumes a comprehensive understanding of the legal status of smart contracts, taking into account technological, legal, and socioeconomic aspects. This, according to the authors, will help identify the most promising ways to integrate digital contractual instruments into the modern legal system.
Cryptocurrencies constitute a fast-evolving, disruptive technological development. Their proliferation and mainstreaming are undermining national security in several ways. By exploring emblematic cases, this paper examines how decentralised digital assets challenge sovereign functions, complicate law enforcement efforts, and give rise to security challenges. It explores different state-level responses to these developments by drawing on policy documents, reports, and guidance from multilateral regulatory authorities, alongside literature from finance, security studies, international relations, and technology governance. Strategic considerations spanning areas of illicit finance, sanctions evasion, great power rivalry, and state co-option by means of issuing Central Bank Digital Currencies and establishing cryptocurrency strategic reserves are delineated. A comprehensive mapping of the actual impact of cryptocurrencies across several strategic domains is carried out, synthesising insights from previously siloed technical, legal, and international relations literatures into an integrative national-security analytical lens. Specific recommendations are provided for policymakers and planners to navigate this fast-evolving threat landscape. • Synthesizes siloed literature to elucidate how Cryptocurrencies impact national security. • Cryptocurrencies are reshaping threat landscapes and emerging as a domain for great power competition. • Stablecoins strain monetary policy in fragile economies, while Privacy coins hinder AML/KYC enforcement and counter-terror efforts. • Sovereign actors are already using cryptocurrency to circumvent sanctions, fund weapon programmes and covert operations. • CBDCs seek to harness the benefits of cryptocurrencies while re-asserting sovereignty, reflecting divergent geopolitical strategies.
Huei-Wen Teng, Wolfgang Karl Härdle, Joerg Osterrieder, Daniel Traian Pele · 31 authors
Digital assets (DAs) such as cryptocurrencies, tokenized securities, stablecoins, non-fungible tokens (NFTs), and central bank digital currencies, are transforming financial markets with new business models, investment opportunities, and transaction efficiencies. Underpinned by blockchain, distributed ledger technology, and smart contracts, digital innovations are reshaping the financial ecosystem. However, their rapid growth introduces substantial risks, including fraud, market manipulation, cybersecurity threats, and regulatory uncertainty. This position paper offers an interdisciplinary and empirically grounded analysis of the DA landscape. We define and classify major asset types, trace their evolution from speculative instruments to functional tools, and assess current adoption trends. Additional technological developments (e.g., decentralized finance and NFT expansion) are examined for their role in accelerating this transformation. We also analyze the global regulatory landscape, highlighting jurisdictional differences, classification challenges, and emerging governance frameworks. To address key risks, we derive mitigation strategies via quantitative analysis and case-based evidence. The risks include balancing innovation with investor protection through adaptive regulatory design, promoting cross-border regulatory harmonization to prevent arbitrage and fragmentation, and supporting experimentation through regulatory sandboxes and innovation hubs. By adopting a forward-looking, evidence-based, and collaborative regulatory approaches, stakeholders can harness the benefits of DAs while managing systemic risks and maintaining market integrity.
This manuscript presents a conceptual and ideological-social framework for a cryptocurrency token denoted as $Rupert (or $Rupert), positioned as an innovative fusion of decentralized finance (DeFi) mechanisms and political advocacy aligned with the policy agenda of British politician Rupert Lowe MP and his associated movement, Restore Britain.
The development of blockchain technology has led to the emergence of a novel form of collaborative organization, known as Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs), which rely on internet-based communication and cryptographic mechanisms. The economic significance of DAOs has prompted legislators to consider appropriate legal frameworks. This article analyzes the legal status of DAOs in the European Union and the Republic of Armenia. While the EU adopted the Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCA), it refrained from recognizing DAOs as distinct legal entities, despite preliminary considerations during the legislative process. Similarly, Armenia, through the Law on Crypto-Assets (HO-159-N), inspired by MiCA, does not explicitly address DAOs. Consequently, both jurisdictions exhibit a regulatory gap. The article demonstrates that, even in the absence of dedicated legislation, interpretative cues within these legal instruments can provide guidance on how DAOs may be treated under EU and Armenian law. By examining these frameworks, the study contributes to understanding the potential legal recognition and regulation of DAOs in different legal systems.
<p class="MsoNormal" align="justify">The latest technology Non-Fungible Token (NFT) supports ownership of objects on the internet; everyone wants to reap the maximum of this opportunity. The price of the NFT shot up overnight, creating a market with trading volumes of millions worth, but there seem to be issues related to the legitimacy of this technology. Some countries define the legality of NFTs, cryptocurrencies, and cryptocurrency-based smart contracts, but they are just a handful of them; there requires the assessment of standards in NFT for full-fledged expansion throughout the world. The majority of the problems are related to the security of the users, price volatility of NFTs, and copyright issues. In this research, the evaluation is achieved by applying methods to identify the standards present in the current NFT ecosystem. The methods acquire quantitative and qualitative information to analyze it by designing models based on Correlation and Total Connectedness Index formulas to give the perspective of the inter relation between NFTs and other financial assets and deeply examine the technology's compliance with the regulations like KYC requirements and copyright registrations. The research uses numerical and non-numerical data from various sources, which are familiar with the crypto community. The results manifest the standards of NFTs, stabilization measures to the NFT market, and it guides investors, developers, and entrepreneurs. May be there is a prerequisite for the design change, viewpoint for alternative replacements for establishing smart contracts between the parties engaged in NFT ventures. Contemplating the level of centralization required on NFTs for protection of the stakeholders in the financial market.</p>
Marcus Smith, Nico Leslie, Gillian Hughes, Rachael Mulheron
Abstract This chapter explores the complex relationship between money, cryptocurrencies, and negotiable instruments in law. It begins by defining money and discussing its legal tender status, highlighting its role as a store of value and its legal character. The chapter then examines cryptocurrencies, focusing on their nature, their status as property, and the legal debates surrounding their classification as money due to the absence of state backing. It distinguishes between pure intangibles and documentary intangibles, such as negotiable instruments. Finally, the chapter addresses the implications of technological advancements like dematerialization, which may redefine the understanding and transfer of documentary intangibles in the future.
Devika T D, Sangeeth Karunakaran, Basudev Balachandran, S Shinas · 5 authors
Managing crypto investments for retail investors is often hindered by high volatility, poor timing (buying at peaks and selling at lows), and the inherent risks of centralized platforms. This project introduces a decentralized, automated SIP model for crypto investments, offering a non-custodial and multi-asset investment protocol to limit these challenges. The system automates crypto investing like a Systematic Investment Plan (SIP). All SIP rules (amount, frequency, maturity) are enforced automatically by smart contracts, ensuring trustless and transparent execution. Users maintain full custody of their funds in non-custodial wallets like MetaMask, and investments are made directly using stablecoins (USDT/USDC) into crypto pools (BTC, ETH, SOL, BNB). The purchased assets are stored in a smart contract vault until maturity, promoting structured long-term investing and verifiable on-chain transparency. By leveraging smart contracts and dynamic frequency validation, the system provides a consistent, reliable, and non-custodial solution for long-term wealth building in the decentralized Web3 space.
Arus Reka Prasetia, Primanola Perdananti, Ikaputera Waspada, Maya Macia Sari
Agency conflicts remain a persistent challenge in corporate governance because information asymmetry and misaligned incentives can weaken monitoring and accountability. This systematic literature review synthesizes international empirical evidence on how blockchain and smart contracts relate to agency conflict mitigation and governance outcomes, and it clarifies boundary conditions and implications for Agency Theory. We followed PRISMA reporting guidance and searched Scopus for English journal articles published between 2018 and 2025. After title, abstract, and full-text screening, 13 empirical studies were included for quality appraisal and thematic narrative synthesis. Across contexts, blockchain adoption or innovation intensity is most consistently associated with improved information environments, including higher transparency and reporting quality and lower opportunism related proxies, and it is also associated with improved investment efficiency and selected compliance and risk outcomes. Evidence on smart contracts is substantially thinner. Smart contracts are explicitly analysed in one case study and they are discussed secondarily in one additional study, while none of the large sample quantitative studies operationalises smart contract use as a distinct construct. The synthesis indicates that governance benefits depend on data integrity supported by internal controls, external monitoring and assurance capacity, and regulatory and legal alignment that enables auditability and enforceability. Overall, blockchain-enabled corporate governance is best interpreted as governance by system design that complements conventional mechanisms and motivates future research on measurable smart contract use cases and stronger causal identification.
La tesi analizza in modo sistematico la fiscalità dei Non-Fungible Token (NFT), affrontandone la natura giuridica e le implicazioni tributarie dirette e indirette, nel contesto del diritto italiano, europeo e internazionale. Gli NFT, certificati digitali unici basati su tecnologia blockchain, pongono questioni di qualificazione che incidono sui principi costituzionali di legalità e capacità contributiva. L’assenza di una disciplina normativa espressa ha generato incertezze applicative e un ricorso eccessivo a interpretazioni analogiche, con il rischio di violare la riserva di legge in materia fiscale. La ricerca propone un inquadramento organico degli NFT, fondato sul principio di prevalenza della sostanza sulla forma, valorizzando la funzione economico-giuridica del token. Dopo aver esaminato la disciplina dell’imposizione diretta e indiretta, la fiscalità dei marketplace e i profili comparati (OCSE, MiCA, DAC8, CARF), la tesi giunge a sostenere la necessità di un intervento legislativo che distingua gli NFT dalle criptovalute, introducendo una normativa specifica capace di garantire certezza del diritto, neutralità fiscale e coerenza sistematica nell’era digitale.
This research is motivated by the considerable amount of attention given to cryptocurrencies, and more importantly for music, non-fungible tokens (NFTs) as a vehicle for transforming the music business. Based on two surveys, applying ordinal logit models, this research investigates variables possibly associated of awareness of NFTs across countries of the European Union as well as the in the five largest European countries, i.e., France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and the U.K. An ordered logit approach is applied to the separate and pooled E.U. data sets and to the data for the “Big Five” E.U. countries. Particularly given the troublesome events in digital assets markets in 2022, it is reasonably clear that there are issues of asymmetry and lack of transparency in these markets suggesting that there is a pressing need for marketers, issuers, and purchasers of digital assets to enhance their crypto literacy.
This article examines the legal nature of smart contracts and their compatibility with the legal system of the Republic of Azerbaijan. Smart contracts are defined as a hybrid legal mechanism arising from the convergence of classical contract law and blockchain technology. The author argues that automated execution of contractual obligations significantly reshapes traditional legal concepts of consent and performance. The study provides a comparative analysis of international regulatory approaches to smart contracts, focusing on the United States, the European Union, and selected Asian countries. Key principles such as technological neutrality, functional equivalence, and human oversight are assessed. This comparative perspective highlights the growing role of smart contracts beyond purely commercial transactions. The article evaluates Azerbaijani legislation, including the Civil Code, the Law on Electronic Signature and Electronic Document, and the Digital Development Concept, as a normative foundation for smart contracts. It concludes that the existing legal framework offers sufficient grounds for recognizing smart contracts as legally valid electronic agreements. The author emphasizes the potential application of smart contracts in digital government, e-services, and public procurement as part of Azerbaijan’s broader digital transformation agenda
Lina Bautista López, Edgar Esaul Vite Gómez, Lizet Manzo Martínez
This article offers a multidisciplinary approach to the study of cryptocurrencies through the analysis of different academic documents. Analysis is an effort to address the issue of such digital assets from an overview rather than a particular one. The objective is that cryptocurrencies are understood in their concept, origin and operation by those interested in the subject who are not immersed in it. Therefore, two theories that are the monetary theory and the economic theory of the law are considered to support the research in its several aspects such as the economic, legal, social, among others. The analysis makes it possible to identify common trends in the authors without departing from their own opinion of cryptocurrencies considering their discipline.
Hisham Mohamed Hassan Al Hammadi, Muhammad Hafiz bin Badarulzaman, Abdulaziz Fahmi Omar Faqera
The regulatory architecture governing cryptocurrencies and virtual assets in the United Arab Emirates has expanded markedly through Federal Decree-Law No. 20 of 2018, Cabinet Decision No. 10 of 2019, Federal Decree-Law No. 46 of 2021, and Dubai Law No. 4 of 2022, reflecting the state’s ambition to position itself as a leading digital finance hub while addressing money laundering risks. Notwithstanding this legislative progress, significant challenges persist, stemming from the decentralized and pseudonymous nature of cryptocurrencies, fragmented institutional oversight across federal and emirate-level authorities, and constrained supervisory capacity for real-time monitoring. Existing scholarship has largely overlooked the interaction between legal design and institutional enforcement dynamics within the UAE’s cryptocurrency regime, creating a critical gap this study addresses. The study critically evaluates the legal and institutional frameworks governing cryptocurrencies, examines enforcement and compliance vulnerabilities within AML mechanisms, and assesses regulatory risks associated with cryptocurrency market adoption. Employing an exploratory qualitative doctrinal methodology, the analysis systematically examines primary legislation alongside secondary sources drawn from high-impact journals, authoritative monographs, and institutional reports, subjected to rigorous thematic analysis. Guided by Institutional Theory, the findings demonstrate that while the UAE’s framework is normatively comprehensive, enforcement effectiveness is undermined by coordination deficits and technological constraints. The study advances targeted recommendations to enhance regulatory coherence, institutional integration, and risk-based supervision, contributing to legal, financial regulation, international governance, and digital risk studies, while identifying directions for future comparative inquiry.
The emergence of cryptocurrencies was supposed to threaten established traditional currencies backed by the state. The discourse around them made them represent a critique of the operation of the monetary systems. The article analyzes cryptocurrencies development from its origin, adopting a Polanyian perspective, specifically the concepts of double movement and embeddedness. If the cryptocurrency project is successful, i.e. it is considered along with other monies, it would be disembedded from society since it would be ruled exclusively by the market. The complete commodification of money accompanies this process since cryptocurrencies are produced and sold only for profit. Because of their design, cryptocurrencies cannot be considered all-purpose money but only special-purpose money since they only fulfill, at best, one of the functions of money; they have also become crypto-assets characterized by the rapid growth in their market capitalization and the violent changes in their value. The state’s reaction to the development of cryptocurrencies can be interpreted as a symptom of society trying to defend itself from the pernicious effects of the free market. By issuing initiatives and warnings to regulate or even ban cryptocurrencies, especially by financial institutions and other private entities, it tried to limit their pernicious effects on the financial system and the economy. Also, the Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) projects can be interpreted as a way for the state to protect society from the disembeddedness of money since these instruments could take away some of the private institutions’ power. In this way, the article offers the hypothesis that the appearance of cryptocurrencies and the state’s reaction conform to the Polanyian double movement.
This study examines whether Ethereum’s market-wide influence strengthened relative to Bitcoin following the Ethereum Berlin upgrade in April 2021. Using one-minute Binance spot data for Bitcoin, Ethereum, and major large-cap cryptocurrencies, we estimate Granger-causality tests and vector autoregressions around the upgrade. The results suggest that Bitcoin retained its benchmark role, but Ethereum’s marginal contribution to short-horizon price discovery increased after Berlin. This shift is especially evident in high-liquidity states, where lagged Ethereum returns became stronger predictors of Bitcoin and other large-cap cryptocurrency returns. The evidence indicates that protocol-level developments may alter the hierarchy of information transmission in crypto markets at the margin, without overturning Bitcoin’s broader benchmark status.