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The innovation of cryptography technique and blockchain has made cryptocurrency an alternative medium of exchange due to its safety, transparency and cost effectiveness. But its main feature cannot be separated from the users who use cryptocurrency for their illegal transactions. There are several arguments related to the legality of cryptocurrency. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the nature of cryptocurrency based on characteristics of money, legal perspective, economic perspective and Sharia perspective.

In this study, the methodology used is descriptive with a qualitative approach. The object of this research is cryptocurrency. The data are secondary data obtained from peer-reviewed journal articles, conference papers review, working paper and Sharia consultant reports addressing the legality of cryptocurrency. The literature review analysis includes the following steps: material collection, descriptive analysis, discussion with people in Sharia competency and intuitive-subjective material evaluation.

Regarding the characteristic of money, cryptocurrency is acceptable. But in terms of the legal perspectives, cryptocurrency does not meet the criteria as currency. From the economic perspective, cryptocurrency does not fully meet the characteristic currency due to high price volatility, and from the Sharia perspective, cryptocurrency can be considered property (mal) but not as a monetary value (thamanniyah).

The research findings are based on the journal articles, working paper and Sharia consultant report, and it may lack Sharia’s opinion. Any further discussion related to Sharia perspectives will be a great input to enrich the study.

This study also includes the implications related to the opportunities and the risks of cryptocurrency that can be discussed for the development of the cryptocurrency in the future.

This study includes the implication cryptocurrency is using as nature of money and not as speculative instrument.

This study argued the legality of cryptocurrency in four perspectives such as the nature of money, legal, economy and Sharia perspective.

This paper aims to shed light into money laundering using bitcoin. Digital payment methods are increasingly used by criminals to launder money obtained through cybercrime. As many forms of cybercrime are motivated by profit, a solid cash-out strategy is required to ensure that crime proceeds end up with the criminals themselves without an incriminating money trail. The authors examine how cybercrime proceeds can be laundered using services that are offered on the Dark Web.

Focusing on service-percentages and reputation-mechanisms in underground bitcoin laundering services, this paper presents the results of a cash-out experiment in which five mixing and five exchange services are included.

Some of the examined services provide an excellent, professional and well-reviewed service at competitive cost. Whereas others turned out to be scams, accepting bitcoin but returning nothing in return.

The authors discuss what these findings mean to law enforcement, and how bitcoin laundering chains could be disrupted.

These cash-out strategies are increasingly facilitated by cryptocurrencies, mainly bitcoin. Bitcoins are already relatively anonymous, but with the rise of specialised bitcoin money laundering services on the Dark Web, laundering money in the form of bitcoins becomes available to a wider audience.

This study aims to explain how cryptocurrency is leveraged for illicit purposes across the global financial system. Specifically, it establishes how cryptocurrency has been changing the nature of transnational and domestic money laundering (ML). It then assesses the effectiveness of conventional anti-money laundering (AML) policy and legislation against the proliferation of crypto laundering, using Canada as a critical case study.

Data was collected from court cases and secondary sources to build cross-case trends of cryptocurrency use in ML. Illicit International Political Economy forms the theoretical foundation for this study, whose contribution is situated in the current literature on crypto-ML.

This study finds that Bitcoin is common among crypto-money launderers, though most also use some form of alt-coin, and that the use of third-party currency exchanges is a prevalent method to create illicit funds and conceal proceeds of crime. The findings validate two hypotheses that illicit use of crypto is prevalent in the first two stages of ML, and that crypto is most often used in conjunction with other fiat currencies. Although law enforcement is improving on monitoring and understanding popular cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, alt-coins pose a significant challenge for criminal intelligence. New regulations for third-party currency exchanges are having a positive impact on curtailing crypto-laundering but are shown to be insufficient per se to contain the use of crypto in criminal activity.

This study contributes to a more robust understanding of the use of virtual currency in transnational and domestic ML. It contributes to an emerging body of literature on the role of technological change in enabling the global flow of illicit funds. It also informs public policy on virtual currency in general, and on AML regulation in Canada in particular.

(1) A concern often expressed in relation to cryptocurrencies is the environmental impact associated with increasing energy consumption and mining pollution. Controversy remains regarding how environmental attention and public concerns adversely affect cryptocurrency prices. Therefore, the paper aims to introduce the index of cryptocurrency environmental attention (ICEA), which aims to capture the relative extent of media discussions surrounding the environmental impact of cryptocurrencies. (2) The impacts of cryptocurrency environmental attention on long-term macro-financial markets and economic development remain part of undeveloped research fields. Based on these factors, the paper will further examine the effects of the ICEA on financial markets or economic developments.

(1) The paper introduces a new index to capture cryptocurrency environmental attention in terms of the cryptocurrency response to major related events through gathering a large amount of news stories around cryptocurrency environmental concerns – i.e. >778.2 million news items from the LexisNexis News & Business database, which can be considered as Big Data – and analysing that rich dataset using variety of quantitative techniques. (2) The vector error correction model (VECM) and structural VECM (SVECM) [impulse response function (IRF), forecast error variance decomposition (FEVD) and historical decomposition (HD)] are useful for characterising the dynamic relationships between ICEA and aggregate economic activities.

(1) The paper has developed a new measure of attention to sustainability concerns of cryptocurrency markets' growth, ICEA. (2) ICEA has a significantly positive relationship with the UCRY indices, volatility index (VIX), Brent crude oil (BCO) and Bitcoin. (3) ICEA has a significantly negative relationship with the global economic policy uncertainty (GlobalEPU) and global temperature uncertainty (GTU). Moreover, ICEA has a significantly positive relationship with the industrial production (IP) in the short term, whilst having a significantly negative relationship in the long term. (4) The HD of the ICEA displays higher linkages between environmental attention, Bitcoin and UCRY indices around key events that significantly change the prices of digital assets.

The ICEA is significant in the analysis of whether cryptocurrency markets are sustainable regarding energy consumption requirements and negative contributions to climate change. Understanding of the broader impacts of cryptocurrency environmental concerns on cryptocurrency market volatility, uncertainty and environmental sustainability should be considered and developed. Moreover, the paper aims to point out future research and policy legislation directions. Notably, the paper poses the question of how cryptocurrency can be made more sustainable and environmentally friendly and how governments' cryptocurrency policies can address the cryptocurrency markets.

(1) The paper develops a cryptocurrency environmental attention index based on news coverage that captures the extent to which environmental sustainability concerns are discussed in conjunction with cryptocurrencies. (2) The paper empirically investigates the impacts of cryptocurrency environmental attention on other financial or economic variables [cryptocurrency uncertainty (UCRY) indices, Bitcoin, VIX, GlobalEPU, BCO, GTU index and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development IP index]. (3) The paper provides insights into making the most effective use of online databases in the development of new indices for financial research.

Whilst blockchain technology has a number of useful implications and has great potential to transform several industries, issues of high-energy consumption and CO2 pollution regarding cryptocurrency have become some of the main areas of criticism, raising questions about the sustainability of cryptocurrencies. These results are essential for both policy-makers and for academics, since the results highlight an urgent need for research addressing the key issues, such as the growth of carbon produced in the creation of this new digital currency. The results also are important for investors concerned with the ethical implications and environmental impacts of their investment choices.

(1) The paper provides an efficient new proxy for cryptocurrency and robust empirical evidence for future research concerning the impact of environmental issues on cryptocurrency markets. (2) The study successfully links cryptocurrency environmental attention to the financial markets, economic developments and other volatility and uncertainty measures, which has certain novel implications for the cryptocurrency literature. (3) The empirical findings of the paper offer useful and up-to-date insights for investors, guiding policy-makers, regulators and media, enabling the ICEA to evolve into a barometer in the cryptocurrency era and play a role in, for example, environmental policy development and investment portfolio optimisation.

This study investigates the role of cryptocurrencies in enhancing the performance of portfolios constructed from traditional asset classes. Using a long sample period covering not only the large value increases but also the dramatic declines during the beginning of 2018, the purpose of this paper is to provide a more complete analysis of the dynamic nature of cryptocurrencies as individual investment opportunities, and as components of optimal portfolios.

The mean-variance optimization technique of Merton (1990) is applied to develop the risk and return characteristics of the efficient portfolios, along with the optimal weights of the asset class components in the portfolios.

The authors provide evidence that as a single investment, the best cryptocurrency is Ripple, followed by Bitcoin and Litecoin. Furthermore, cryptocurrencies have a useful role in the optimal portfolio construction and in investments, in addition to their original purposes for which they were created. Bitcoin is the best cryptocurrency enhancing the characteristics of the optimal portfolio. Ripple and Litecoin follow in terms of their usefulness in an optimal portfolio as single cryptocurrencies. Including all these cryptocurrencies in a portfolio generates the best (most optimal) results. Contributions of the cryptocurrencies to the optimal portfolio evolve over time. Therefore, the results and conclusions of this study have no guarantee for continuation in an exact manner in the future. However, the increasing popularity and the unique characteristics of cryptocurrencies will assist their future presence in investment portfolios.

This is one of the first studies that examine the role of popular cryptocurrencies in enhancing a portfolio composed of traditional asset classes. The sample period is the largest that has been used in this strand of the literature, and allows to compare optimal portfolios in early/recent subsamples, and during the pre-/post-cryptocurrency crisis periods.

This research aims to determine the factors that affected Bitcoin price return in the period before and during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The independent variables used in this study are hashrate, transaction volume, social media and some macroeconomics variables. The data are processed using the vector error correction model (VECM) to determine the short-term and long-term relationships between variables.

The research shows that (1) Twitter and Gold significantly affected Bitcoin in the short term before the COVID-19 pandemic; (2) hashrate, transaction volume, Twitter and the financial stress index had a significant effect on Bitcoin in the long term before the COVID-19 pandemic; (3) the volatility index had a significant effect on Bitcoin in the short term during the COVID-19 pandemic; and (4) hashrate, transaction volume, Twitter and CHF/USD had a significant effect on Bitcoin in the long term during the COVID-19 pandemic.

This research provides explanation about factors affecting Bitcoin so investors and regulators can pay more attention and prepare for the potential risks as well as to get a good understanding of market conditions for greater crypto adoption in the future.

The novelty in this study is the various factors driving the Bitcoin price were analyzed before and during the COVID-19 pandemic including the social media, as sentiment, interestingly, is being a predictive power for Bitcoin price return.

Perhaps the most popular pricing model among Bitcoin enthusiasts is the stock-to-flow (S2F) model. The model gained significant traction after successfully predicting the meteoric rise of Bitcoin prices from late 2020 to early 2021. This paper dissects the S2F model for Bitcoin empirically to determine its viability and investigate whether investors can profit from an S2F-based trading strategy.

This paper, dissects the S2F model for Bitcoin by putting it through a battery of tests to examine its design, characteristics, robustness and appropriateness.

Overall, this paper finds the S2F model to be insensitive to differing assumptions in the early stages of the model, alleviating concerns about data mining. This paper produces a dynamic S2F model with no peek-ahead bias and shows evidence that prediction accuracy increases over time. Finally, this paper shows that a dynamic trading strategy that goes long (short) when Bitcoin is undervalued (overvalued) according to S2F is far less profitable than a classic buy-and-hold strategy.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first paper to analyze the S2F model in an academic setting by providing a rigorous assessment of the model's construction. This paper demonstrates how the model can be implemented realistically without the peek-ahead bias, creating a tool that can be used contemporaneously by investors.

This paper explores how the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) has dealt with the emerging issue of accounting for cryptocurrencies by investigating its constituents' expectations and the motivations underlying its regulatory response.

The theoretical lens of regulatory space is used to analyse the four-year debate around cryptocurrency holdings and informs the extensive thematic analysis of public documents, meetings recordings and comment letters on the topic.

Facing national standard setters' initiatives to regulate accounting for cryptocurrency, the IASB defended its position in the regulatory space through an agenda decision based on ewct 2xisting standards, which was finalised by the International Financial Reporting Standards Interpretation Committee (IFRS IC) despite criticism from constituents and Board members.

The paper provides insights into the IASB approach to a regulatory vacuum regarding a new class of items, which derive from a new and rapidly-evolving technology. Disruptive technology impacts the contested arena of accounting regulation, in which the constituents ask for new solutions and the IASB tries to resist such pressures, while defending its position.

The paper sheds light on the growing importance of agenda decisions in the IFRS environment and on the limits of the IASB long regulatory process in the circumstance of emerging accounting issues deriving from rapidly-evolving technology.

This investigation is timely and relevant as it considers the regulatory issues arising from disruptive technological innovations (i.e. cryptocurrency), shedding light on the limits of regulatory processes in times of technological change.

The goal of this work is to determine whether Bitcoin behaves as a safe-haven asset. In order to do so, the influence of Economic Policy Uncertainty (EPU) on Bitcoin returns and volatility was studied.

It is evaluated whether, when compared with the evolution of EPU, Bitcoin's returns and volatility show behaviours typical of safe havens or rather, those of conventional speculative assets. When faced with an increase in EPU, safe havens – such as gold – can be expected to increase their returns and volatility, while conventional speculative assets will increase their volatility and reduce their returns. This study uses simple linear regression and quantile regression models on a daily data sample from 19 July 2010 to 11 April 2019, to analyse the influence of EPU on the returns and volatility of Bitcoin and gold.

Bitcoin's returns and volatility increase during more uncertain times, just like gold, showing that Bitcoin acts not only as a means of exchange but also shows characteristics of investment assets, specifically of safe havens. These findings provide useful information to investors by allowing Bitcoin to be considered as a tool to protect savings in times of economic uncertainty and to diversify portfolios.

This study complements and expands current research by aiming to answer the question of whether Bitcoin is a simple speculative asset or a safe haven. The most significant contribution is to show that Bitcoin is not a mere speculative asset but behaves like a safe haven.

本研究旨在確定比特幣是不是避難所資產。為達這目的，研究人員探討了經濟政策不確定性對比特幣的回報及波動性的影響。

研究評估比特幣的回報和波動性，若與經濟政策不確定的進化作比較，會顯示資金避難所的典型行為，抑或顯示傳統投機資產的行為。當面對經濟政策不確定的增加時，資金避難所 - 如黃金－會被預期有回報及波動性的上升。但傳統投機資產則其波動性會增加及其回報會減少。本研究使用簡單線性迴歸及分位數迴歸模型，根據從2010年7月19曰至2019年4月11日期間每天的數據樣本，來分析經濟政策不確定對比特幣和黃金的回報及波動性所產生的影響。

像黃金一樣，在較不明朗的時期，比特幣的回報和波動會增加，這顯示比特幣不單是一個交易工具，它也表現投資資產的特性，特別是資金避難所的特性。這研究結果為投資者提供有用的資訊，讓他們在經濟不明朗時考慮以比特幣作為保障存款的工具，及以比特幣作為使其投資組合更多元化的工具。

本研究旨在探索比特幣是一簡單的投機資產、抑或是一資金避難所，這補足及擴展了目前的研究。本研究最重要的貢獻、在於顯示了比特幣不單純是一種投機資產，它的行為實像資金避難所一樣。