Titel: Kan Bitcoin bli framtidens betalningsmedel i utvecklingsländer? Författare: Isak Bengtsson och Gustaf Starbrant Bakgrund och problemdiskussion: I utvecklingsländer finns det betydande grupper människor som inte har tillgång till ett fungerande bankkonto. Detta skapar problem i form av finansiellt utanförskap för vissa befolkningsgrupper. Bitcoin är en digital valuta som alla människor i teorin skulle kunna få tillgång till, med en mobiltelefon med nätverksuppkoppling som enda krav. Därigenom skulle fler människor i utvecklingsländer ha tillgång till fungerande betalningsmöjligheter och inte utsättas för finansiellt utanförskap. Forskningsfråga: Vilka möjligheter samt risker finns avseende att införa Bitcoin som betalningsmedel i utvecklingsländer? Syfte: Syftet med studien är att undersöka och analysera möjligheter samt risker avseende införandet av Bitcoin som betalningsmedel i utvecklingsländer. Metod: Genom en abduktiv ansats och en kvalitativ metodik har vi sammanfattat resonemang, argument och forskning kring Bitcoin. Material har samlats in genom tidigare forskning och semistrukturerade intervjuer. Referensram: Bitcoin och blockkedjetekniken presenteras men även Bitcoin som valuta och dess möjligheter och risker. Teorierna förtroendeteori och penningteori belyses också. Dessa utgör grundstenar och används som ett analysverktyg i uppsatsen. Empiri: Vårt empiriska undersökningsområde innefattar personer med kunskap om Bitcoin och dess underliggande teknik, blockkedjetekniken. Insamlandet av det empiriska materialet skedde genom sex semistrukturerade intervjuer. Analys och slutsatser: Bitcoin är den största digitala valutan i dagsläget och erbjuder stora möjligheter generellt. Det finns dock begränsningar, till exempel skalningsproblematik och deflation, som hade gjort det svårt för en implementering som valuta i utvecklingsländer. Däremot innehar blockkedjetekniken stor potential att förändra infrastrukturen för betalningar. Nyckelord: Betalningsmedel, Bitcoin, blockkedjetekniken, digital valuta, möjligheter, risker, utvecklingsländer

Background: This paper analyses the influence of fluctuation in gold market on bitcoin prices. Based on previous studies, in present market conditions, volatility in gold prices have caused price changes in several other major assets in the market, such as crude oil. Gold fluctuations are likely to stimulate uncertainty in some other major assets. As bitcoin is becoming an alternative tool to hedge against inflation likewise to gold, the degree of uncertainty in bitcoin market is relatively high. Therefore, the study of causal relationship between gold and bitcoin markets has become appropriate since bitcoin has tremendous growth in its returns and shares many similarities with gold. Thereupon, this study reveals the evidence of Granger causality regression in different time spans to understand the relationship between gold and bitcoin. This relationship is beneficial to study since Granger causality hypothesis acknowledges whether gold’s historical prices are useful for forecasting the bitcoin market. Purpose: This study aims to analyze the relationship between gold and bitcoin market during an 8-year period from 2014 and 2022. Throughout this period, time spans which involves financial crises have been separated from the data set and tested separately to determine if there is a constant relationship between the variables. Through this, it has been intended to find the Granger causality link between gold and bitcoin market to see whether one is leading another one. Identifying the Granger causality correlation helps analyzing the patterns of correlation by using the empirical datasets, and to determine the strength of the Granger causal relationship’s nature between gold and bitcoin. Since the correlation itself does not explain why or how, but only if both markets move together, the Granger causality correlation between gold and bitcoin is the quantification of the impact that gold market performance has on bitcoin’s future price performance. Method: Since the collected data is time-series data, Augmented Dickey-Fuller tests have been conducted initially to the chosen tests. Following the results from ADF tests, Spearman’s Rho, iand Johansen’s Cointegration tests have been utilized to determine the long-term correlation between variables. Thereafter, Toda & Yamamoto and Dolado & Lütkepohl Granger Causality (TYDL-GC) method has been used to analyze the Granger causality link between the variables. Conclusion: The results of this study indicates that (i) no statistically significant correlation between gold and bitcoin market has been found according to the Spearman’s Rho test results, (ii) no long-term relationship has been found between gold and bitcoin according to cointegration test, (iii) gold does Granger Cause bitcoin prices. The evidence of causality link is unilateral from gold towards bitcoin market. Furthermore, it was observed that the Granger causality link weakens in short term and is not constant over time. The results fail to support the semi strong Efficient Market Hypothesis form. Thus, gold and bitcoin’s markets are efficient in the weak form but inefficient in the semi strong form. Since Granger causality has been found from gold towards bitcoin, one can construct a prediction model for bitcoin by using gold’s historical prices.

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Kryptovalutor är ett mångfacetterat fenomen som har varit allt från libertarianers dröm på grund av sitt oberoende av staten, en ekonomisk frihet för personer som bor i diktaturer till ett verktyg som möjliggör kriminella verksamheter. Den senaste tidens kraftigt ökande handel med olika kryptovalutor har oroat världens centralbanker och nationalstater. Denna oro har skapat ett läge där stater måste ta politiska beslut för att hantera situationen vilket har lett till införande av restriktioner och regleringar. Bakom varje politiskt beslut finns ett motiv som präglas av statens nationella och internationella intressen. Denna studies syfte är att skapa en ökad förståelse för vilka politiska motiv som ligger bakom fem staters kryptopolicy. Studien är strukturerad i tre kapitel. Eftersom kryptovalutor är ett nytt samhällsfenomen ansågs det vara av vikt att beskriva vad kryptovalutor är och hur det fungerar samt förklara varför kryptovalutor är politik, denna del utgör första kapitlet. I andra kapitlet presenteras ett urval av länders kryptopolicy och i tredje kapitlet så analyseras dessa kryptopolicys utifrån studiens teori. För att synliggöra motiven bakom ländernas kryptopolicy har utgångspunkten varit tre antaganden som framställts ur neorealismen som är en dominerande teori inom internationella relationer. För insamlingen av material har litteraturstudie och innehållsanalys använts som metod.  Resultatet har synliggjort att staterna fruktar kryptovalutor främst på grund av att de eliminerar staternas roll som huvudförmedlare i ekonomiska aktiviteter och begränsar deras förmåga att spåra transaktioner. En genomförd analys av ländernas kryptopolicy har bland annat visat att stater tillåter utvinning och innehav av kryptovalutor eftersom det gynnar landets ekonomiska tillväxt men begränsar eller förbjuder användning av dem som betalmedel eftersom det medför en risk att förlora kontrollen över ekonomin.

Twelve years after Satoshi Nakamoto published the paper describing the functioning mechanism and principals of cryptocurrency that maintains secure and anonymous digital transactions beyond any banks, cryptocurrencies have become a multi-billion-dollar industry comprising millions of investors, miners, developers and profiteers. However, the actual price determinants and ways to forecast future price changes remain an open question yet to discover the answer for. This study attempts to figure out whether media hype exerts that much influence upon cryptocurrencies price movements and whether it can be used as the basis for future movements prediction. Two cryptocurrencies, Bitcoin and Tezos, and 7 mass and social media factors for each of them were considered on daily basis from 08-01-2018 to 10-31-2020. To explore the interdependence between media drivers and cryptocurrencies' prices in short, medium and long timespan, this study deploys wavelet coherence approach. There was found, that price changes turn to be the supreme prior to hype, even though the growing ado may push the prices even higher. Thus, hype is failing to prove itself as a reliable cryptocurrency price predictor. Crypto investors, though, should anyways take the news background into account while building trading strategies,...

As consumer payment services have been developed at a rapid rate in recent years, the introduction to the market of decentralised, non-regulated cryptocurrencies has enabled a significant increase in acts of criminality in the cyber environment. Efforts to combat and curb the continued growth of such illicit activities have included the development, implementation and enforcement of legislation and regulations by governing authorities on a global scale. For the purpose of this thesis, interviews were conducted with several industry experts and governmental officials specializing in the use of virtual currencies for illicit financial transactions, namely fraud, money laundering and tax evasion. While the extent to which decentralised, non-regulated payment services actually contributes to illicit financial transactions remains unclear, it can certainly be said that as the use of new and emerging virtual currencies increases, so too will acts of criminality in the cyber world.

This research paper studies the Day-of-the-week effect in the cryptocurrency market. Using multiple regression, we analyze the effect using 12 counterfactual optimized portfolios of the cryptocurrencies, as well as the 10 cryptocurrencies alone. Our findings show that well-optimized cryptocurrency portfolios are not subject to Day-of-the-week effects. A positive Monday and a negative Thursday effect were confirmed in Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Ripple, as well as a negative Sunday effect for Ripple.

Dans les crypto-monnaies telles Bitcoin, l’anonymité des utilisateurs peut être compromise de plusieurs façons. Dans ce mémoire, nous effectuons une revue de littérature et une classification des différents protocoles existants pour anonymiser les usagers et analysons leur efficacité. S’appuyant sur certains critères désirables dans de tels protocoles, nous proposons un modèle de mixeur synchrone décentralisé. Nous avons ciblé deux approches qui s’inscrivent dans ce modèle, le plan de transaction et le réseau de transactions, le second étant une contribution originale de ce mémoire. Nous expliquons son fonctionnement puis analysons son efficacité dans le contexte actuel d’utilisation de Bitcoin / In cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, the anonymity of the users may be compromised in many ways. In this thesis, we review the literature concerning existing protocols used to increase anonymity by a method called mixing and produce a classification for such protocols. We propose a decentralized synchronous N-to-N mixing model that takes into account many considerations of mixers. We address two frameworks within this model, the transaction blueprint and the network of transactions, the second approach being a new contribution. We explain how it functions and analyse its efficiency in the current Bitcoin ecosystem.

區塊鏈技術藉著比特幣而發揚光大，經過將近十年的考驗，區塊鏈被視為足 以改變全球經濟模式的火紅科技，各種應用的想法如雨後春筍般出現，本文趁勢 提出台灣股票結算交割的區塊鏈應用。本文從最原始的區塊鏈系統——比特幣介 紹起，深入討論區塊鏈運作的機制，包括共識的形成與交易的驗證方式。比特幣 的區塊鏈系統中的某些設定對於股票結算交割來說是缺陷，本文提出改良的方式， 包括許可制的區塊鏈、引入特殊功能節點及採用實名制等，試圖讓區塊鏈技術能 夠完美的應用於結算交割系統。最後分析應用區塊鏈之後所能夠達到的經濟與社 會效益。 / After nearly ten-year challenge, blockchain was known because of Bitcoin, and regarded as the most famous technology that could change the way how the whole world works. Lots of application ideas appear at this moment, this paper tries to follow the trend and discuss about the Taiwan stock clearing and settlement system. Begin with the original blockchain system, Bitcoin, reveal how actually blockchain works including the formation of consensus and the way of transactions verification. There are some defects when implementing the application by using Bitcoin system directly. This thesis proposes the way to improve the blockchain system which includes permission blockchain system, special functional nodes and implementation of real name blockchain system, and try to make modified blockchian system applicable to clearing and settlement system. Last but not least, this thesis analyzes the benefit of economy and society when the application is employed.

目前，因應不同需求與應用情境的各式電子發票系統已被建立。儘管電子發票系統、區塊鏈技術與其相關的文件及平台已經存在，許多研究學者及廠商仍希望推展此技術並應用於其它領域。 本研究的目的在以區塊鏈技術為基礎建構電子發票平台，希望提出一種區塊鏈技術的新應用情境。首先，透過資訊計量學的方法分析980篇電子發票及區塊鏈的相關文獻以了解電子發票及區塊鏈的發展；接著，探討比特幣(Bitcoin)與區塊鏈(Blockchain)間的重要觀念與技術；最後，利用區塊鏈技術中的一種以太坊(Ethereum)來建立電子發票平台。 本研究中六項建構電子發票系統的需求如資料完整性、可驗證性、可用性、可稽核性、不可否認性與可溯源性可被達成。此架構不僅適用於發行一般的消費性電子發票更適用於向企業提供短期資金借貸如發票融資的應用情境。未來，在不同的實作需求下，將可探討整合區塊鏈另一項技術開放鏈(Openchain)以建立混合公開與私有節點的應用。 / Different e-invoice systems are designed to meet different needs and application scenarios. Although these systems areuseful and readily available, researchers and businesses hope to be able to expand the coverage of e-invoice systems using Blockchain technologies. This study proposes an e-invoice system based on Blockchain technologies which shows anotherapplication scenario of Blockchain technology and e-invoice system. First, a review of about 980 publicationson e-invoicing and Blockchain was carried outwithinformetrics used for further analysis so as to better understandthe development of e-invoice and Blockchain technologies. Second, the concepts and mechanisms of Bitcoin and Blockchain technologies were reviewed. Finally, an e-invoice system based on Ethereumwas proposed. The proposed system meets the six needs of an e-invoice system: integrity, authenticity, availability, auditability, non-repudiation and traceability. It is not only suitable for issuing general invoices but also can play a role in further invoicing applications such as invoice financing as well as agri-food supply chain traceability. In the future, Openchain or hybrid Blockchain infrastructure that combines public and private nodes can be consideredfor use in this proposed e-invoice system.