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1 – 10 of over 3000Richard Olsen, Stefano Battiston, Guido Caldarelli, Anton Golub, Mihail Nikulin and Sergey Ivliev
This paper aims to explain the architecture and design choices of the exchange. Lykke is a FinTech company based in Zurich that has launched the global marketplace for all asset…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to explain the architecture and design choices of the exchange. Lykke is a FinTech company based in Zurich that has launched the global marketplace for all asset classes and instruments digitized on the blockchain. The authors discuss how the exchange will evolve over time. They explore the macroeconomic benefits of the new blockchain technology. The Lykke exchange is compatible with any type of public blockchain.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors present the architecture of an exchange for colored coins. By colored coins, they mean issuer-backed securities on the Bitcoin blockchain. Orders are collected and matched by a semi-trusted exchange. Matched orders are settled on the Bitcoin blockchain, where each successful trade between parties appears as a set atomic-colored coins swap transactions. Unfilled and expired orders are discarded. The exchange does not take possession of the traded coins, but needs to be trusted to match trades correctly.
Findings
Lykke has launched the exchange initially for the main currencies, cryptocurrencies and Lykke coin (entitlement to the shares of Lykke company). Perspective asset classes include futures and options on digital assets, crowd-funded loans for retail and private equity financing for small and medium-sized enterprises, contracts for difference, zero coupon bonds and other fixed income and natural capital bonds.
Originality/value
Lykke exchange and all its tools and services are open source; the transparency of technology is ideal for research. The paper provides a high-level overview of the exchange and concludes with a research agenda.
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Many recent social media posts and news may create a perception of big success in the use of blockchain for the real estate industry, land registration and protection of titles…
Abstract
Purpose
Many recent social media posts and news may create a perception of big success in the use of blockchain for the real estate industry, land registration and protection of titles and property rights. A sobering outlook is crucial because misleading concepts may bury the whole idea of blockchain use. This paper aims to research the possibilities of blockchain and other distributed ledger technologies (DLT) and applicability of these technologies for different purposes in real estate, property rights and public registries.
Design/methodology/approach
This research is framed with policy studies and focuses on property rights, land registration regulatory framework and information and communication technologies innovations. The context of this paper is decentralization which has been developed in political science studies and the role of blockchain and DLT in it. Therefore, the provided analysis of blockchain and DLT is interdisciplinary research to interpret the facets of DLT technologies in the context of real estate and land title registration.
Findings
Permissioned and private DLT systems cannot be considered a significant evolutionary step in government systems. Blockchain, which is distinguished from permissioned systems as the technology of the immutable ledger that does not require authorities, is a new word in governance. However, this technology has some principal features that can restrain its implementation at the state level and thus require further research and development. The application of blockchain requires a proper architecture of overlaid technologies to support changes of outdated and mistaken data, address issues of digital identity and privacy, legal compliance and enforceability of smart contracts and scalability of the ledger.
Originality/value
This paper shows the constraints of the technology’s properties which were not explained before in the context of title rights and land registration even though technological limits are known in more specific technical sources. Along with the known benefits this meant to help to avoid misinterpretation of some DLT features by non-technical people. A multidisciplinary approach in analyzing the technology and laws helped to better understand what can and cannot be beneficial for public registries and the protection of property rights. The presented outcomes can be laid down as requirements for the technical protocols aimed at addressing the issues of DLT and public policies to put blockchain at the service of society.
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This paper aims to solve a mining work centralization problem using a gamification-based approach.
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to solve a mining work centralization problem using a gamification-based approach.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors have developed a simple blockchain application that incorporates a gamification concept into the mining work. Then, they asked some participants in an experiment to use the application for a week and gathered some insights from the responses on questionnaires.
Findings
The results show that the gamification-based approach distributed mining work among many participants by increasing their motivation to participate mining work.
Originality/value
The gamification-based approach solves a mining work centralization problem and opens a new direction for future blockchain technologies.
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Numismatics, the systematic study and collecting of coins and related items such as tokens, medals, and paper money, has been a recognized scholarly discipline since the Middle…
Abstract
Numismatics, the systematic study and collecting of coins and related items such as tokens, medals, and paper money, has been a recognized scholarly discipline since the Middle Ages. Archaeologists, historians, economists, artists, and engravers have found numismatics a valuable adjunct to their respective fields of study. Coins are the official product of an issuing authority, and as such they can provide an important primary historical source of documentation concerning monetary values, patterns of economic exchange, trade routes, colonization, migration, military campaigns, linguistic and epigraphic data, mythology, religion, art, historical portraits, and views of buildings, monuments, and statues that have long since been destroyed. For the researcher in American history, numismatics can provide insights into historical economic trends.
The purpose of this paper is to present a concept of the protocol for public registries based on blockchain. New database protocol aims to use the benefits of blockchain…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to present a concept of the protocol for public registries based on blockchain. New database protocol aims to use the benefits of blockchain technologies and ensure their interoperability.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper is framed with design science research (DSR). The primary method is exaptation, i.e. adoption of solutions from other fields. The research is looking into existing technologies which are applied here as elements of the protocol: Name-Value Storage (NVS), Berkley DB, RAID protocol, among others. The choice of NVS as a reference technology for creating a database over blockchain is based on the analysis and comparison with two other similar technologies Bigchain and Amazon QLDB.
Findings
The proposed mechanism allows creating a standard database over a bundle of distributed ledgers. It ensures a blockchain agnostic approach and uses the benefits of various blockchain technologies in one ecosystem. In this scheme, blockchains play the role of journal storages (immutable log), whereas the overlaid database is the indexed storage. The distinctive feature of such a system is that in blockchain, users can perform peer-to-peer transactions directly in the ledger using blockchain native mechanism of user access management with public-key cryptography (blockchain does not require to administrate its database).
Originality/value
This paper presents a new method of creating a public peer-to-peer database across a bundle of distributed ledgers.
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Blockchain, which was originally created to enable peer-to-peer digital payment systems (bitcoin), is considered to have several benefits for different sectors, such as the real…
Abstract
Purpose
Blockchain, which was originally created to enable peer-to-peer digital payment systems (bitcoin), is considered to have several benefits for different sectors, such as the real estate one. In a standard European-wide real estate transaction, several intermediaries are involved. As a consequence, these agreements are usually time-consuming and involve extra difficulties to cross-border operations. As blockchain, combined with smart contracts, may have an important role in these transactions, this paper aims to explore its prospective challenges, limitations and opportunities in the real estate sector and discover how the traditional intermediaries have to face a possible implementation of this technology.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper analyses the current intermediaries in the real estate sector in European Union (EU), their functions and how can blockchain strengthen the security of these transactions while reducing their time. The author uses a legal methodology to approach it.
Findings
Blockchain, combined with smart contracts, has both challenges and opportunities for the real estate sector. On the one hand, it may improve procedures, allow EU transactions and the interconnection between public administration. However, to not reduce parties rights, this blockchain should have some special features, such as the possibility of being amended.
Originality/value
This paper provides a valuable overview of all the intermediaries that could be affected by blockchain protocols. It is of interest of blockchain developers, public administrations and researchers who are working on blockchain and property conveyancing.
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This paper aims to examine the key regulatory challenges impacting blockchains, innovative distributed technologies, in the European Union (EU) and the USA.
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to examine the key regulatory challenges impacting blockchains, innovative distributed technologies, in the European Union (EU) and the USA.
Design/methodology/approach
A qualitative perspective underpins the study. This paper relies on primary data from applicable statutes and secondary data from the public domain including relevant case study insights.
Findings
The smart regulatory hands-off approach adopted in the EU and the USA to a large extent bodes well for future innovative contributions of blockchains in the financial services and related sectors and toward enhanced financial inclusiveness.
Practical implications
The paper’s findings provide support for blockchain technology to advance with minimum regulatory brakes for greater value-adding and efficiency advancement, especially for financial services, thereby expanding accessibility and therefore financial inclusiveness.
Originality/value
This paper helps to draw greater attention to the technology underpinning virtual currencies. It also highlights other economic potentials flowing from blockchain advancement.
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FIGHTING has indeed ceased in Europe and our gratitude, especially in London and its adjacencies, is profound. It is shared by all, of course. War is by no means over and that and…
Abstract
FIGHTING has indeed ceased in Europe and our gratitude, especially in London and its adjacencies, is profound. It is shared by all, of course. War is by no means over and that and the drearier contentions of politics for a month or two, or it may be for years, are likely to act as a brake on many schemes. It is true a substantial Education Act has been achieved during the war but such peace as we have achieved finds none of the great social schemes, other than this, anywhere but in the realm of talk. Older men may well be cynical and more may be sceptical; so, it becomes those who believe a better world is possible to be aware. Hardly a town or county is without a scheme of development of sorts, ranging from entirely new, and always enlarged, central libraries to extended branch schemes. The cold fact is that only in a few cases, if in any, will any building of libraries be permitted yet. That does not mean that scheming is a vain occupation. Librarians realize as other men do that housing needs will overwhelm building resources for a few years and that schools, which are disastrously inadequate to permit the full implementing of the Act of 1944, and hospitals, will be preferred to us. Librarians, however, must be opportunists, too ; they will lose nothing by readiness to seize chances. Let us take what we can get; if, in the many newly‐planned residential centres, satellite towns, or other communities, no elaborate library accommodation is possible, let us reflect that what really matters are a book service and a centre of information, which do not require elaborate buildings, only good librarianship. Then, when the needs of the area are known, an appropriate building may be provided. And, as Mr. Berwick Sayers has suggested, much more temporary buildings than have been erected in late years should be used ; we have too many “good buildings” which are obsolescent—to say the least. It can be assumed now that readers do not need so much inducement to use public libraries as they did formerly, although some do and it is well to insist that temporary buildings are not necessarily unattractive inside or outside.