Andreas Vlachos, Klitos Christodoulou, Elias Iosif
This paper presents the design of a Blockchain Readiness Index (BRI) to be used as a tool for assisting nations to monitor the level of Blockchain maturity according to their suitability on hosting blockchain-based activities, and successfully adopting a blockchain regulatory framework. BRI is a composite index that combines a variety of indicators from a range of sources to a single score. The proposed methodology attempts to fill a knowledge gap by evaluating the relatively unexplored area of blockchain adoption per nation. The index presented in this paper aims to distinguish between the most promising and non-hostile countries, acting as the basis for professional work, decision making and operations of organizations, investors, academics, and other stakeholders within the blockchain space. As the index is updated regularly, all new developments on the fast-changing landscape of blockchain and cryptocurrencies are reflected. In addition, this research aims to go beyond the regulatory environment towards examining several other factors such as local engagement, expertise, investments, and the need for a decentralized provision of services. This paper presents an overview of the landscape of similar attempts on designing such indexes by reviewing and identifying potential gaps and opportunities for improving their methodological design that can lead to more accurate and relevant conclusions. In addition, with this paper we contribute a systematic methodology for building a BRI using techniques from the information retrieval domain to normalize the non-normalized values, and a cosine similarity measure to derive an index ranking consisting of various nations. More specifically the proposed BRI covers a wide range of blockchain readiness indicators which can be organized into the following “pillars”: (1) Government Regulation, (2) Research, (3) Technology, (4) Industry, and (5) User Engagement. An empirical evaluation reports preliminary but promising results of the algorithmic design methodology showing evidence that, the identified indicators are sufficient for developing our index when compared to judgements made by human experts.
The paper contains theoretical considerations on cryptocurrencies in the context of innovation and specifically focuses on the most popular cryptocurrency – bitcoin (BTC). Based on critical analysis of domestic and foreign writings, bitcoin was classified as a modular innovation despite some of its features suggesting the continuous and breakthrough nature of the solution. The conclusion helped positively validate the research hypothesis proposed in this paper according to which cryptocurrencies, despite their characteristics of an incremental and breakthrough innovation, can be treated as modular innovations.
The main research objective is to identify and analyse significant economic sectors subject to potential disruption from the distributed ledger technology (DLT) within the economy of Latvia. The tasks are 1) to identify sectors subject to disruption from DLT in line with global technological developments, business readiness trends and distributed ledger use cases, 2) to identify sectors generating the most significant output within the economy of Latvia, 3) to analyse interconnections of global trends related to DLT and the areas of potential disruptions to the identified sectors within the economy of Latvia. The research concluded that economic sectors with the most significant output within the economy of Latvia are all subject to disruption from distributed ledger use cases and global DLT trends in the short, medium or long term.
The G7 should address new, unprecedented and highly disruptive issues that characterise our complex world, rather than well‐understood international problems that fit into existing categories. We argue that the G7 can do this by playing to its strengths – informality and like‐mindedness in particular – in addressing emerging and transversal issues such as Artificial Intelligence (AI) and cryptocurrencies.
The emergence of blockchain technology has created a debate regarding technologies’ socio-cultural symbolism. Prevailing as alternative or complementary to internet technology, blockchain’s decentralized radical architecture reflects organizational change, enhancement of degrees of freedom, for individual identities and communities, new schemes of distributed trust and privacy, transformation of power relations and social reality perception. The current paper aims to contribute to the ongoing debate, from an organizational and socio-psychological perspective, discussing the key elements of a socially grounded technology, like any other technological product within the history of humanity. Through an evolutionary lens, blockchain technology is examined as a decentralized grassroots organizational movement at birth, influencing and, at the same time, be influenced, by science, culture, as well as by other aspects of individual and collective networked life, apart from the economy. Social sciences and cyber sciences are in a crossroad where society and technology integrate creating a mixed socio-technological or techno-social reality. Therefore, it is of high importance for them, to address the new epistemological challenges by developing new methodologies and tools, independently from any utopian or dystopian predictions.
Distributed Ledger Technologies (DLTs) have become a topic that is being more and more discussed in political, economic and scientific discourses. , also within economic sciences. Their potential to redefine many processes in the economy is growing, and there is a consensus in the scientific community about their revolutionary character. Blockchain is one of the DLTs and one of the breakthrough technologies distinctive for the Fourth Industrial Revolution. The aim of the paper is to draw attention to the potential of blockchain technology for developing countries and how it can contribute to the improvement of quality of life and fighting poverty. Following Schwab's thesis, "the extent to which society embraces technological innovation is a major determinant of progress". Therefore, developing countries should not disregard the potential of blockchain technology that can solve a lot of current problems and provide access to previously unreachable services with a relatively low cost (both implementation and subsequent maintenance cost).
Belen Suarez Lopez, David Issó García, Antonio Vargas Alcaide
This paper has the main purpose to make a critical and balanced analysis about the potential of blockchain technology to face some of the great current socioeconomic challenges, being focus on impact assessment point of view, analyzing the disruptive potential of blockchain to provide solutions at level of different challenges as example, climate change, migrant movements, gender equality, financial inclusion or the cost opportunity of the management of data science. The term blockchain summary a numerous different type of system of distributed ledger, essentially, it is just a record distributed, a ledger of digital events that is distributed or shared among many different parts within an ecosystem (nodes), and chronological in a network. The technology is at an early stage and can be implemented in many ways depending on the objective. The methodological tool for the research is strategic and qualitative SWOT analysis identifying the critical success factors such internal factors (Strengthens and Weakness), and external factors (Opportunities and Threats), summarizes the arguments and counterarguments within the scientific discussion. From the bibliographic review carried out on the finding and disclosure provided by empirical research about business case studies, the research results summarized in the paper confirm that although looks difficulty of give a closed definition to variety of system under the umbrella of blockchain, among the main strengths of technology are its intrinsic characteristics, such as, its ability to store data immutably without relying on a central authority. As weakness, highlight the fact of the need of solve some non-minor inefficiencies as energy consumption and, as result, the difficulty to be scaled. It has the potential to replace the intermediary and central entities or change the way they works, allowing disintermediation and potentially empower people in trade, democratic participation, social interaction and financial inclusion, which represent great opportunities. Although, on the side of threats there is lack of knowledge about the technology, which generates resistance from regulators who are beginning to assess risks and are concerned about how new participants could cannibalize their income models. In addition, it seems clear the importance of assume the fact that the technological changes take time to develop and often require the adaptation of entire ecosystems. Keywords: blockchain, decentralization, democratization, financial inclusion, socioeconomic challenges, tokem traceability, transparency, trust.
The common signs of development and its financing of cryptocurrency, artificial intelligence and basic income were determined. The main tendencies and problems of the development of cryptocurrency and artificial intelligence from their appearance to the present time were considered. The combination of cryptocurrency, artificial intelligence and basic income in a unified system of innovative tools for the creation of a new global financial and technological system was substantiated. These three technologies have the features of combining into one innovative system of interaction at different levels from hardware and software to the level of ultimate practical implementation and application in the future. The perception and consideration of these technologies as a single system makes it possible to significantly simplify the approach to their study, design and implementation.
Ismaila Rimi Abubakar, Abubakar U. Benna, Umar G. Benna
The emergence of digital currencies is substantially influencing the growth of global financial markets and cities. Cryptocurrency entrepreneurs (CEs) are reshaping global cities and regions by transforming the way we live, work and interact. This chapter explores how the entrepreneurs use cryptocurrency assets and their underpinning computing technologies to transform the dysfunctional and evolving global cities. The CEs generate funds and create cutting-edge technologies to meet the challenges faced by cities, including unemployment, inadequate and rundown infrastructure and facilities as well as for new development to meet the needs of massive future urbanization. The chapter is organized in five parts. It first introduces the study and presents a background on the concepts of blockchain technologies and cryptocurrency, their emergence and development trend. It then discusses the rise of global cities and how technology impacts them, followed by the potentials and challenges of CEs in transforming global cities and regions. It ends with conclusion and future research directions.
The technology of BlockChain and cryptocurrency is an actual topic for humanity today. There are different policies regulating cryptocurrencies, but they are still far from perfect. The difficulty of technical regulation of these systems is beyond doubt, many countries are only at the stage of discussing the status of the currencies, some are extremely supportive of them. However, it is undeniable that more and more countries will introduce regulations in the field of cryptocurrencies, focusing, firstly, on the structure of their own economy. Keywords: BlockChain, cryptocurrency, Bitcoin, mining.
Darcy W E Allen, Alastair Berg, Brendan Markey‐Towler
We apply institutional cryptoeconomics to the information problems in global trade, model the incentives under which blockchain-based supply chain infrastructure will be built, and make predictions about the future of supply chains. We argue blockchain may fundamentally change the patterns and dynamics of how, where and what we trade by: (1) facilitating new forms of economic organisation governing supply chain coordination (e.g. the V-form organisation) (2) shifting economic power towards the ends of supply chains (e.g. primary producers) by decreasing information asymmetries (3) de-commoditising goods and disaggregating price signals by changing the dimensions along which goods may be reliably differentiated and (4) lowering reliance on proxies (e.g. production within national borders) for the quality of goods.
The cryptocurrency is a phenomenon of a modern payment system, however it is still unclear whether it is a new kind of currency at all. Most often, there are claims that this is just a financial pyramid. However, such statements do not explain the nature of cryptocurrency. In fact, from technical point of view, the cryptocurrency is simply a data chain, in which the first link contains information about its origin («mining»), and all subsequent ones - on the transition from one owner to another. This means that in the economic sense the cryptocurrency is the «bill of exchange», which is accompanied by a number of «transfer inscriptions» - «endorsements.» Nevertheless, banknotes are simple banker’s bills of exchange too. Therefore, cryptocurrency could become a new global currency if several specific requirements were fulfilled.