To its proponents, the cryptocurrency Bitcoin offers the potential to disrupt payment systems and traditional currencies. It has also been subject to security breaches and wild price fluctuations. This paper identifies and analyzes the impact of suspicious trading activity on the Mt. Gox Bitcoin currency exchange, in which approximately 600,000 bitcoins (BTC) valued at $188 million were fraudulently acquired. During both periods, the USD-BTC exchange rate rose by an average of four percent on days when suspicious trades took place, compared to a slight decline on days without suspicious activity. Based on rigorous analysis with extensive robustness checks, the paper demonstrates that the suspicious trading activity likely caused the unprecedented spike in the USD-BTC exchange rate in late 2013, when the rate jumped from around $150 to more than $1,000 in two months.

"There is little doubt that members of the cryptocurrency community have all the hallmarks of cult followers. For cult members wishing to be deprogrammed, as well as those seeking sound information and analysis, Bitcoin: Unlicensed Gambling is a most edifying and useful read." - Prof. Steve H. Hanke, founder and co-director of the Johns Hopkins Institute for Applied Economics, Global Health, and the Study of Business Enterprise, and a senior fellow and the director of the Troubled Currencies Project at the Cato Institute. Promoters claim that bitcoin is a new type of money, reduces transactions costs by abandoning intermediaries and will become a safe asset that they call "digital gold". In this book, we dissect these claims and explain what bitcoin really is. Economic theory states that money should reduce transaction costs for payments, loans, and relative valuations, which requires a stable value. We show that the extreme price volatility and the high transaction costs - especially the time component - make bitcoin almost useless as money. Bitcoin increases, instead of reduces, transactions costs. Furthermore, an intermediary exists - the miner - who charges a transaction fee. The fundamental value of assets is based on their cash flow or utility, which applies for shares, bonds, real estate, and intellectual property. Gold is the best-known store of value and a hedge against financial crisis and inflation. Bitcoin has no cash flow or utility, and statistics show that it is no hedge against anything. It is, in fact, pro-cyclical and its crashes of 50 % in 2018 and 2021 are unmatched by any of the main fiat currencies in the last 50 years. Bitcoin has no intrinsic value and is not anything at all like digital gold. Bitcoin is an open Ponzi scheme. The Ponzi is "open" since it is public knowledge that there are no assets at all backing a bitcoin. To the promoters of bitcoin, the lack of assets is "a feature and not a bug." The main function of the bitcoin network is simply unlicensed gambling, where new players redeem those who entered earlier. It is a zero-sum game. Finally, the bitcoin system has no responsible issuer. So, if the system breaks down, holders have nobody from whom to claim - or to whom to assign blame. Although bitcoin is nothing other than a public and decentralized ledger of accounts and transactions, the bitcoin network and its promoters have been very successful in increasing the market value of a bitcoin from 10 to 30,000 USD in 10 years. Promoters of bitcoin use methods that include: 1) distracting investors from which functions bitcoin has or does not have; 2) directing attention to irrelevant technobabble; and 3) manipulating trade and prices in the bitcoin market. Marketing of a strong brand and visual illusions in the form of physical glittering coins make the impression that bitcoin is something valuable. But we show that it is not. The average investor is succumbing to these successful methods and risks their house, savings, and pension. We show that bitcoin is also used for criminal activities such as ransomware payments, tax evasion, and money laundering. The bitcoin network consumes vast amounts of electricity and critical advanced computer chips, which consumption creates negative externalities in the form of higher prices and shortages in other sectors. With no fundamental function, not even providing governments with tax revenue specifically due from the unlicensed gambling that bitcoin really is, bitcoin's actual value for society is negative. We propose that, before there is more damage to the public, government gambling regulators immediately enforce existing regulations and take action to investigate those who operate the bitcoin network.

Since its introduction in 2009, Bitcoin has been widely promoted as a digital currency that will revolutionize everything from online commerce to the nation-state. Yet supporters of Bitcoin and its blockchain technology subscribe to a form of cyberlibertarianism that depends to a surprising extent on far-right political thought. The Politics of Bitcoin exposes how much of the economic and political thought on which this cryptocurrency is based emerges from ideas that travel the gamut, from Milton Friedman, F.A. Hayek, and Ludwig von Mises to Federal Reserve conspiracy theorists. Forerunners: Ideas First is a thought-in-process series of breakthrough digital publications. Written between fresh ideas and finished books, Forerunners draws on scholarly work initiated in notable blogs, social media, conference plenaries, journal articles, and the synergy of academic exchange. This is gray literature publishing: where intense thinking, change, and speculation take place in scholarship.

Unbacked crypto assets are the oldest and most popular type of crypto assets, relying not on any backing asset for value but instead on supply and demand. They were originally developed to democratize payments but are mostly used for speculation. Crypto assets were designed to disintermediate financial services, but centralized entities, such as exchanges and wallet providers, offer key functions to users and sustain the necessity of trust in one or several entities. At present, many of these entities are not covered by existing conduct, prudential, or payment regulations and can generate risks to market integrity, market conduct, and potential financial stability. We recommend that global bodies work to develop common taxonomies that can inform global and cross-sectoral standards while improving data insights. Standards should be risk-based, with greater requirements on entities and activities that generate more risk. Crypto asset service providers that deliver core functions and generate key risks should be licensed, registered, or authorized.

Blockchain and distributed ledger technology (DLT) have been identified as emerging technologies that can enhance global supply chain management processes. Given the embryonic nature of the technology, use cases pertaining to how it can be adopted and deployed in supply chain contexts are scarce. This book shares blockchain supply chain use cases across a range of industries including smart cities, food imports, product traceability, decentralised finance, procurement, energy management, consensus mechanism security, and industry 4.0. Given its scope, it is primarily intended for academics, students, researchers, and practitioners who want to learn more about how blockchain can digitally transform global supply chains.

There has been insufficient literature focusing on the world-changing rise of Asian wealth. Private wealth in Asia is very substantial, with 33 per cent of the global population of high-net-worth individuals based in Asia. Yet, there is a dearth of legal analysis of Asian wealth, particularly by texts written in English. This collection aims to fill that gap, with chapters on legal issues in relation to Asian wealth transmission, investments in international real estate, familial disputes, family offices and private trust companies. A substantive section of this book also focuses on the changing legal context with chapters exploring trusts and cryptoassets, constructive trust, trustee's discretion and decision-making, changing regulatory environment and abuse of trust structures. This collection of essays on trusts and wealth management presents a focus on Asian wealth and the changing legal context, and follows the related publication, Trusts and Modern Wealth Management (Cambridge University Press, 2018).

At a time of growing environmental concerns and an urgent need for sustainable solutions, the intersection of blockchain technology and environmental sustainability is emerging as a powerful force for positive change. The environmental challenges of our time, including climate change, resource scarcity and the destruction of ecosystems, require innovative solutions that transcend geographical and political boundaries. Blockchain technology, with its decentralized and transparent nature, can not only track and verify environmental efforts, but also incentivize them.

Blockchain and cryptocurrencies have recently captured the interest of academics and those in industry. Cryptocurrencies are essentially digital currencies that use blockchain technology and cryptography to facilitate secure and anonymous transactions. The cryptocurrency market is currently worth over $500 billion. Many institutions and countries are starting to understand and implement the idea of cryptocurrencies in their business models. This Special Issue will provide a collection of papers from leading experts in the area of blockchain and cryptocurrencies. The topics covered in this Special Issue will include but are not limited to the following: academic research on blockchain and cryptocurrencies; industrial applications of blockchain and cryptocurrencies; applications of fintech in academia and industry; the economics of blockchain technology, and the financial analysis and risk management with cryptocurrencies.

Fintech, the integration of technology into the delivery of financial services, has revolutionized the world of Finance. This book introduces a new framework to study the concepts that underly Fintech while examining the driving forces and underlying logic behind Fintech-based innovation and predicting the future development of Fintech. The first three parts of the book cover the development and basics of Fintech and its relationship with inclusive finance, while later parts constitute a deep dive into several core issues surrounding Fintech. First, the book introduces an economic explanation of blockchain and its application in various scenarios based on the token paradigm. Second, it studies digital currency and discusses its impacts on payment systems, financial inclusion, monetary policy, and financial stability. Third, the authors explore how to build a compliant and effective market for data while protecting data privacy, impinging on the future development of AI application, the digital economy, and Fintech. Fourth, the book examines public policies related to Fintech, including regulatory technology, the regulation of financial activities of Big Tech companies, and how to promote financial inclusion. The title will appeal to scholars, students, and financial practitioners and regulators in a broad range of areas including economics, finance, technology, and public policy, especially Fintech, blockchain, and digital currency.

This double volume constitutes the thoroughly refereed post-conference proceedings of the 25th International Conference on Financial Cryptography and Data Security, FC 2021, held online due to COVID-19, in March 2021. The 47 revised full papers and 4 short papers together with 3 as Systematization of Knowledge (SoK) papers were carefully selected and reviewed from 223 submissions. The accepted papers were organized according to their topics in 12 sessions: Smart Contracts, Anonymity and Privacy in Cryptocurrencies, Secure Multi-Party Computation, System and Application Security, Zero-Knowledge Proofs, Blockchain Protocols, Payment Channels, Mining, Scaling Blockchains, Authentication and Usability, Measurement, and Cryptography.