European regulation of virtual currencies, its shortcomings and future development Abstract This thesis is focused on the European regulation of virtual currencies, meaning the current Union legal regulation of this phenomenon including further European Union institutions' activities in the area. The aim of the thesis is to introduce the existing approach towards virtual currencies as well as to find some of the shortcomings and to outline the future development of European regulation of virtual currencies. As a part of this thesis, relevant activities associated with distributed ledger technology as a technology related to virtual currencies will be introduced. To achieve the mentioned, the thesis analyzes mainly legislative and non-legislative sources issued by competent institutions of the European Union, equally important are the jurisprudential texts from the area of virtual currencies and related fields. The thesis is divided into five chapters which are further divided into topical subchapters. Each of the chapters includes partial identification of shortcomings and presents the future development in the area. The introductory chapter addresses the introduction of virtual currencies as such and in the context of financial law. Further, technological bases of virtual currencies are described, namely...

The rapid advancement in encryption and network computing gave birth to new tools and products that have influenced the local and global economy alike. One recent and notable example is the emergence of virtual currencies, also known as cryptocurrencies or digital currencies. Virtual currencies, such as Bitcoin, introduced a fundamental transformation that affected the way goods, services, and assets are exchanged. As a result of its distributed ledgers based on blockchain, cryptocurrencies not only offer some unique advantages to the economy, investors, and consumers, but also pose considerable risks to users and challenges for regulators when fitting the new technology into the old legal framework. This paper attempts to model the volatility of bitcoin using 5 variants of the GARCH model namely: GARCH(1,1), EGARCH(1,1) IGARCH(1,1) TGARCH(1,1) and GJR-GARCH(1,1). Once the best model is selected, an OLS regression was ran on the volatility series to measure the day of the week the effect. The results indicate that the TGARCH (1,1) model best fits the volatility price for the data. Moreover, Sunday appears as the most significant day in the week. A nontechnical discussion of several aspects and features of virtual currencies and a glimpse at what the future may hold for these decentralized currencies is also presented.

in english The purpose of this theses is to analyse the Bitcoin electronic peer-to-peer payment system, from the view of the legal, regulatory and also purely practical issues surrounding its use as a modern means of payment processing. The reason for choosing this topic is that I find the subject to be very interesting and possibly promising for the future of payments. Also, as the use of Bitcoin payment system spreads across the global population, we can see many of legal questions arising: Is the use of Bitcoin network legal? How is it regulated under existing legal system? Can it be subsumed under any existing legal categories? What are the risks of its misuse for criminal activities? Should new legal rules be enacted to regulate its use, and if so, what should these rules be like? My goal in this paper is to find these relevant questions, elaborate on them and provide as many answers as will be possible. We have to bear in mind the fact, that the technology, underlying the Bitcoin payment systém is very new and many ways path-breaking. As usual, the legal theory lags behing technology here, so many questions still have to be settled before we can give any straight answers. The work is divided into seven chapters, each dealing with different legal or practical aspects connected to the Bitcoin...

Bitcoin is an unregulated digital currency originally introduced in 2008 without legal tender status. Based on a decentralized peer-to-peer network to confirm transactions and generate a limited amount of new bitcoins, it functions without the backing of a central bank or any other monitoring authority. In recent years, Bitcoin has seen increasing media coverage and trading volume, as well as major capital gains and losses in a high volatility environment. Interestingly, an analysis of Bitcoin returns shows remarkably low correlations with traditional investment assets such as other currencies, stocks, bonds or commodities such as gold or oil. In this paper, we shed light on the impact an investment in Bitcoin can have on an already well-diversified investment portfolio. Due to the non-normal nature of Bitcoin returns, we do not propose the classic mean-variance approach, but adopt a Conditional Value-at-Risk framework that does not require asset returns to be normally distributed. Our results indicate that Bitcoin should be included in optimal portfolios. Even though an investment in Bitcoin increases the CVaR of a portfolio, this additional risk is overcompensated by high returns leading to better return-risk ratios.

This paper examines the relationship between virtual currency, the Bitcoin, and the real economy. In the first part the description of the term virtual currency is provided with special focus on Bitcoin. Also the legal and taxation issues are discussed. In the main part the volatility of Bitcoin is inspected using various models from Autoregressive heteroskedasticity models family. We found that the volatility of Bitcoin differs significantly through time and that this relation is captured best by T-GARCH (1,1) model. Finally the relationship between Bitcoin and real economy indicators is observed to be inconsistent and mostly insignificant in time. Thus we conclude that the independency of Bitcoin cannot be rejected. Powered by TCPDF (www.tcpdf.org)

AbstractThe European Central Bank defines virtual currencies as ”unregulated, digital money, which is issued and usuallycontrolled by its developers, and used and accepted among the members of a specific virtual community.”(European Central Bank, 2012, p. 5) The interest in virtual currencies has increased immensely over the last fewyears as they become increasingly prevalent in our society across many different industries. Up until now, the field ofvirtual currencies has been mainly uncharted land and despite interest in specific currencies, few attempts havebeen made at understanding or structuring the entire landscapeThe main research question in this thesis is related to the previously mentioned dilemma: understanding andstructuring the virtual currency ecosystem, today and in the future. How can the virtual currency landscape currentlybe analyzed in a structured manner and what framework can be used to reflect and make predictions on the futuredevelopment?The thesis is based on four different sources of information: a literature study of existing material, corporateinterviews with companies dealing with virtual currencies and consumer interviews with potential early adopters, anonline survey and a case study performed at Ericsson M-Commerce. The case study of Ericsson M-Commerce hasprovided valuable insight into understanding how companies reason when considering adopting virtual currenciesinto their product portfolio and greatly helped the process of structuring the virtual currency market in acomprehensive manner. In return, the thesis has also provided decision material for the department concerningvirtual currencies.This thesis divides virtual currencies into five groups: Prepaid Value, Loyalty Points, Monetization Currencies, GamingCurrencies and Value Encoded Currencies. This model has been developed as a framework for the analysis of thecurrent situation in this thesis. However, the analysis in the thesis has shown that as virtual currencies evolve, it willprobably become more relevant to instead consider their functions. It is likely that virtual currencies will consolidateinto three distinct functional types: virtual currency as a unit of account, virtual currency as a business model formonetization, and virtual currencies as a product that can be sold.As virtual currencies evolve, the future is not only filled with many challenges, but also many new opportunities. Inthis thesis, an attempt to gain an abstract understanding of how the field is developing has been made, but it remains to be seen what the real impacts of virtual currencies will be as they continue to gain traction.

The European Central Bank defines virtual currencies as ”unregulated, digital money, which is issued and usually controlled by its developers, and used and accepted among the members of a specific virtual community.” (European Central Bank, 2012, p. 5) The interest in virtual currencies has increased immensely over the last few years as they become increasingly prevalent in our society across many different industries. Up until now, the field of virtual currencies has been mainly uncharted land and despite interest in specific currencies, few attempts have been made at understanding or structuring the entire landscape The main research question in this thesis is related to the previously mentioned dilemma: understanding and structuring the virtual currency ecosystem, today and in the future. How can the virtual currency landscape currently be analyzed in a structured manner and what framework can be used to reflect and make predictions on the future development? The thesis is based on four different sources of information: a literature study of existing material, corporate interviews with companies dealing with virtual currencies and consumer interviews with potential early adopters, an online survey and a case study performed at Ericsson M-Commerce. The case study of Ericsson M-Commerce has provided valuable insight into understanding how companies reason when considering adopting virtual currencies into their product portfolio and greatly helped the process of structuring the virtual currency market in a comprehensive manner. In return, the thesis has also provided decision material for the department concerning virtual currencies. This thesis divides virtual currencies into five groups: Prepaid Value, Loyalty Points, Monetization Currencies, Gaming Currencies and Value Encoded Currencies. This model has been developed as a framework for the analysis of the current situation in this thesis. However, the analysis in the thesis has shown that as virtual currencies evolve, it will probably become more relevant to instead consider their functions. It is likely that virtual currencies will consolidate into three distinct functional types: virtual currency as a unit of account, virtual currency as a business model for monetization, and virtual currencies as a product that can be sold. As virtual currencies evolve, the future is not only filled with many challenges, but also many new opportunities. In this thesis, an attempt to gain an abstract understanding of how the field is developing has been made, but it remains to be seen what the real impacts of virtual currencies will be as they continue to gain traction.

Thesis is dealing with the development of the central banking on the basis of experience from the last decade. Hypothesis is the statement, whether the central banks of the developed economies are increasingly less capable of the effective reactions on the accelerating development of the global economy and their position in the money emission and regulation of the banking sector is and will be more and more weakened by the alternative banking and monetary systems. This hypothesis is successfully disproved because of the behavior of the four chosen central banks which are CNB, FED, ECB and BoJ. The main reason was an increase in their activities and interventions causing among others multiplication of their balance sheets. On the other hand the alternative in the free banking is further from the reality than before. Virtual currencies also did not show threatening growth of the national currencies substitution in the reference period. Thesis also provides insight into new and potentially new instruments of the central banks.

In recent years, microtransactions have become a norm for monetization and a standardbusiness model in free-to-play games. This is something that affects multiple individuals andhas caused quite a stir among players. Through this research, we want to gain anunderstanding of why some microtransaction types might be considered more acceptable thanothers. In addition, to gaining potential data that could possibly give us a look into the futureof the design of microtransactions. We have gathered our data by conducting online chatbased semi-structured interviews with current and former university students studying gamedesign at Uppsala University.The research found that game design students have a predominantly negative opinion aboutmost microtransactions, especially when they were affecting the gameplay, contrary to whenthey were not.

Historien om betalningsmedel vänder under 2010-talet blad och börjar på ett nyttkapitel. Nästa steg i den monetära utvecklingen sker när de virtuella valutorna ökar ianvändning. Den virtuella valutan Bitcoin introducerades av Satoshi Nakamato år2009 och är en digital valuta, vilket innebär att den inte är kopplad till någon fysisktillgång med rättslig innebörd. När ett nytt betalningsmedel introduceras ärfundamentala faktorer gällande samhällets acceptans och nyttjande ett ekonomisktpussel. Hur kommer det sig att individer byter verkliga varor mot en papperssedel, ettmynt eller en elektronisk signal? Att inneha och aktivt använda nya betalningsmedelsom virtuella valutor medför risker som många inte är bekanta vid. Organisationeroch konsumenter som öppnar upp portarna för nya betalningsmedel måste ha kunskapom dess konsekvenser, både positiva och negativa. Studien syftar till att belysa derisker som uppstår när nya betalningsmedel som Bitcoin gör entré. Forskningsfrågankring vilka risker innehav och nyttjande av virtuella valutor medför besvaras genomen kvalitativ analys av främst forskningsartiklar. Vår studie tyder på att riskerna kringvirtuella valutor som Bitcoin relaterar till förtroende för betalningsmedlet. De flestariskerna uppstår vid innehav av Bitcoin och relaterar inte till tekniska faktorer. / The history of means of payment is taking new shape during the 2010:th decade andstarts on a new chapter. The next step in the monetary evolution will take place oncevirtual currencies become more frequently used. The virtual currency called Bitcoinwas introduced by Satoshi Nakamoto in the year of 2009 and is a digital currency,which means that it is not connected to a physical good with a forensic purpose.When a new mean of payment is introduced fundamental factors regarding theacceptance of society and utilization becomes a financial puzzle. How can it be thatindividuals exchange physical goods for a paper bill, a coin or just somethingelectronic? To possess Bitcoin and to use new means of payment on a frequent basisbring risks many users are not familiar with. Organizations and consumers whomopen up their gates to new means of payment need to gain knowledge ofconsequences both positive and negative. The purpose of this study is to highlight theaforementioned risks, which arise from the fact that new means of payment likeBitcoin is introduced. The research issue regarding which risks may arise frompossession and usage of virtual currencies are concluded by a qualitative analysisresearch containing mostly scientific articles. Our study depicts that the risksassociated with virtual currencies like Bitcoin, are all somehow related to the trust forthe specific mean of payment. Most risks arise from actually possessing a Bitcoin andhence not as much related to the technological element.