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1,898 results · page 66 of 80
Priyanka Kumar, G. A. Dhanush, D. Srivatsa, A. Nithin · 5 authors
No abstract is available for this record.
Nikhil Malik, Manmohan Aseri, Param Vir Singh, Kannan Srinivasan
Bitcoin falls dramatically short of the scale provided by banks for payments. Currently, its ledger grows by the addition of blocks of ∼2,000 transactions every 10 minutes. Intuitively, one would expect that increasing the block capacity would solve this scaling problem. However, we show that increasing the block capacity would be futile. We analyze strategic interactions of miners, who are heterogeneous in their power over block addition, and users, who are heterogeneous in the value of their transactions, using a game-theoretic model. We show that a capacity increase can facilitate large miners to tacitly collude—artificially reversing back the capacity via strategically adding partially filled blocks in order to extract economic rents. This strategic partial filling crowds out low-value payments. Collusion is sustained if the smallest colluding miner has a share of block addition power above a lower bound. We provide empirical evidence of such strategic partial filling of blocks by large miners of Bitcoin. We show that a protocol design intervention can breach the lower bound and eliminate collusion. However, this also makes the system less secure. On the one hand, collusion crowds out low-value payments; on the other hand, if collusion is suppressed, security threatens high-value payments. As a result, it is untenable to include a range of payments with vastly different outside options, willingness to bear security risk, and delay onto a single chain. Thus, we show economic limits to the scalability of Bitcoin. Under these economic limits, collusive rent extraction acts as an effective mechanism to invest in platform security and build responsiveness to demand shocks. These traits are otherwise hard to attain in a disintermediated setting owing to the high cost of consensus. This paper was accepted by Kartik Hosanagar, information systems.
Sven Riva
Building on the architecture of smart contracts, new forms of entities similar to companies are now emerging from the blockchain environment, called Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs). DAOs let participants manage resources in a decentralized manner through predefined governance rules inscribed on a series of smart contracts deployed on a blockchain. Taking the Swiss legal order as a framework, the author has attempted to determine whether the activities of a DAO have legal effects in Switzerland. The answer to this question depends on their recognition in the Swiss legal order. While the recognition of foreign DAOs governed by the laws of a State does not raise particular legal issues, DAOs that live on the Internet independently from any jurisdiction upset existing legal principles, which generates legal uncertainty. Legal scholars have traditionally dealt with the issue of the recognition of DAOs by attempting to transform them into known legal concepts, either as a form of company of Swiss substantive law, or as a set of contractual relationships. The author suggests that DAOs should instead be recognized as foreign companies through private international law. This preferred pathway could possibly let DAOs exist in their present construct, while recognizing their legal effects within the Swiss legal order. However, a strict interpretation of the private international law Act (PILA) leads to a dead-end for a majority of DAOs as, under the law, a company must be validly constituted under the law of the State it is governed by in order to exist in Switzerland. Building on the functional equivalence theory, the author introduces the concept of an online jurisdiction ruled by its code as a means to grant legal existence to DAOs living exclusively on the Internet. This new legal construct recognizes the code of a DAO as its governing law and the online space as its jurisdiction. As such, DAOs could be recognized in Switzerland as foreign companies and be subjects of rights and obligations.
Gregor Schmitt, Andreas Mladenow, Christine Strauß, Michaela Schaffhauser‐Linzatti
The spread and success of Internet of Things (IoT) is based on the rapidly growing number of applications, and smart contracts may play a pivotal role in IoT. In this paper, we (i) identify the key-determinants of smart contracts in IoT, and (ii) analyze the opportunities and challenges from a management viewpoint. We performed a qualitative content analysis, and used the structure of the Technology-Organization-Environment framework as categorization scheme. Out of four expert-interviews we were able to extract 84 statements, which provided the basis for the identification of 13 key-determinants for the integration of smart contracts and IoT. Furthermore, the findings revealed that the combination of the two technological concepts promises significant opportunities, however, some technical and environmental challenges need to be overcome.
Jiri Chod, Evgeny Lyandres
No abstract is available for this record.
Ha Xuan Son, Minh Ha Hoang, Nguyen Ngoc, Hai Trieu · 8 authors
In emerging economies, with the explosion of e-commerce, payment methods have increasingly enhanced security. However, Cash-on-Delivery (COD) payment method still prevails in cash-based economies. Although COD allows consumers to be more proactive in making payments, it still appears to be vulnerable by the appearance of a third party (shipping companies). In this paper, we proposed a payment system based on “smart contract” implemented on top of blockchain technology to minimize risks for parties. The platform consists of a set of rules that each party must follow including specific delivery time and place, cost of delivery, mortgage money; thereby, forcing parties to be responsible for their tasks in order to complete the contract. We also provided a detailed implementation to illustrate the efficiency of our model.
Joshua R. Hendrickson, William J. Luther
No abstract is available for this record.
Michael Fröwis, Rainer Böhme
Efficient transfers to many recipients present a host of issues on Ethereum. First, accounts are identified by long and incompressible constants. Second, these constants have to be stored and communicated for each payment. Third, the standard interface for token transfers does not support lists of recipients, adding repeated communication to the overhead. Since Ethereum charges resource usage, even small optimizations translate to cost savings. Airdrops, a popular marketing tool used to boost coin uptake, present a relevant example for the value of optimizing bulk transfers. Therefore, we review technical solutions for airdrops of Ethereum-based tokens, discuss features and prerequisites, and compare the operational costs by simulating 35 scenarios. We find that cost savings of factor two are possible, but require specific provisions in the smart contract implementing the token system. Pull-based approaches, which use on-chain interaction with the recipients, promise moderate savings for the distributor while imposing a disproportional cost on each recipient. Total costs are broadly linear in the number of recipients independent of the technical approach. We publish the code of the simulation framework for reproducibility, to support future airdrop decisions, and to benchmark innovative bulk payment solutions.
Marijana Srećković, Josef Windsperger
No abstract is available for this record.
Namita Nair, Ankit Kumar Dalal, Abhishek Chhabra, Nupur Giri
This paper introduces a use case for blockchain in the field of education. The concept of a social networking DApp (Decentralised App) Edu-Coin that uses the concept of giving the control of their data back to the users, reward them for sharing their skills and using the platform. This idea uses the Tendermint core for blockchain, a framework in which individuals can make peer-to-peer transactions without needing to trust a third party, a blockchain that is based on the Proof of Stake. In Edu-Coin, working professionals can ensure that their skills are validated by an unbiased majority, called validators. It also assesses the Emotional Quotient of an individual. Validators whose responses get accepted to the blockchain are able to earn Edu-Coin, which can be utilized for making different purchases on the site. The platform makes use of one tradable token (Edu-Coin) and one internal accounting token (ERP) that serves as an evaluation of the users on the respective skill sets. This rating can be useful in the evaluation process of educational institutes as well as for professional grading of employees and job applicants.
Sebastien Meunier, Danni Zhao-Meunier
No abstract is available for this record.
Wei-Meng Lee
In the previous chapters, you have learned the basics of Smart Contracts and how to deploy them onto the blockchain. So far, all interactions with the Smart Contracts have been through the Remix IDE. While the Remix IDE provides an easy way for developers to test their Smart Contracts, it is not suitable for use by end users. To allow end users to interact with your Smart Contracts, you need to build front end that hides the complexity of interacting with the Smart Contracts in the back end. For this purpose, you need an API.
Jiri Chod, Nikolaos Trichakis, S. Alex Yang
No abstract is available for this record.
Wolfgang Ahrendt, Richard Bubel, Joshua Ellul, Gordon J. Pace · 7 authors
No abstract is available for this record.
Thibault Schrepel
Blockchain may transform transactions the same way the Internet altered the dissemination and nature of information. If that were to be the case, all relationships between companies would change, including prohibited ones such as collusive agreements. For that reason, the stakes are crucial and the absence of academic studies entirely dedicated to this issue must be remedied. To this end, this article introduces the first taxonomy of collusion on blockchain. The discussion then moves on to explore their functioning, their robustness and their limits through the three fundamental stages of the existence of collusive agreements: their birth, life and death. The article further highlights how companies may use smart contracts and sophisticated algorithms to collude in the blockchain environment, thus contributing to the literature solely focused on algorithms. Using empirical studies, economic analyses and existing case law, we draw legal conclusions that we extend beyond the sole blockchain technology. Along the way, we propose methods of action for antitrust and competition agencies.
Florian Daniel, Luca Guida
Smart contracts turn blockchains into distributed computing platforms. This paper studies whether smart contracts as implemented by a state-of-the-art blockchain technology may serve as a component technology for a computing paradigm like service-oriented computing in the blockchain, in order to foster reuse and increase cost-effectiveness.
Dingli Xi, Timothy Ian O’Brien, Elnaz Irannezhad
This article investigates the socio-demographic characteristics that individual cryptocurrency investors exhibit and the factors that go into their investment decisions in different Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs). We conducted a web-based revealed preference survey among Australian and Chinese blockchain and cryptocurrency followers, and applied a Multinomial Logit model to inferentially analyze the characteristics of cryptocurrency investors and the determinants of their choice of investment in “cryptocurrency coins” versus other types of ICO tokens. The results showed differences in the determinant of these two choices among Australian and Chinese cryptocurrency folks. The significant factors of these two choices included age, gender, education, occupation, and investment experience, and they aligned well with the behavioral literature. Furthermore, in addition to differences in how they ranked the attributes of ICOs, there was further variance between how Chinese and Australian investors ranked deterrence factors and investment strategies. <b>TOPICS:</b>Currency, emerging markets, in markets <b>Key Findings</b> • The significant factors of the choice of investment in cryptocurrency include age, gender, education, occupation, and previous investment experience. • Chinese and Australian investors rank the ICO attributes differently. • The deterrence factors and investment strategies vary between Chinese and Australians investors.
Friedhelm Victor, Bianca Katharina Lüders
No abstract is available for this record.
Hossein Nabilou
Abstract Bitcoin is a distributed system. The dilemma it poses to the legal systems is that it is hardly possible to regulate a distributed network in a centralized fashion, as decentralized cryptocurrencies are antithetical to the existing centralized structure of monetary and financial regulation. This article proposes a more nuanced policy recommendation for regulatory intervention in the cryptocurrency ecosystem, which relies on a decentralized regulatory architecture built upon the existing regulatory infrastructure and makes use of the existing and emerging middlemen. It argues that instead of regulating the technology or the cryptocurrencies at the code or protocol layer, the regulation should target their use-cases. Such a regulatory strategy can be implemented through directing the edicts of regulation towards the middlemen and can be enforced by the existing financial market participants and traditional gatekeepers such as banks, payment service providers and exchanges, as well as large and centralized node operators and miners.
Maik Lange, Steven Chris Leiter, Rainer Alt
No abstract is available for this record.
Geert Poels, Fadime Kaya, Michaël Verdonck, Jaap Gordijn
No abstract is available for this record.
Rainer Lenz
No abstract is available for this record.
Tommy Koens, Erik Poll
No abstract is available for this record.
Daniel Burkhardt, Patrick Frey, Simon Hiller, Alexander Andreas Neff · 5 authors
No abstract is available for this record.