Bitcoin and related cryptocurrency speculation have triggered an unprecedented global speculative frenzy. Through historical comparison, psychological analysis, real-world case studies, and socio-ecological assessment, this paper reveals that their essence is a modern-day amplification of Ponzi schemes and the South Sea Bubble. The study highlights how human greed, herd mentality, gambler psychology, and technological superstition are manipulated by capital and social media, resulting in personal financial ruin, the collapse of social trust, the degradation of civilization, and severe environmental and energy (...) consequences. By analyzing speculative culture, psychological mechanisms, illegal financial transactions, and global chain effects, this paper warns that humanity must awaken and distance itself from blind speculation and greed to safeguard personal wealth, social order, and the foundations of civilization. The purpose of this work is not academic research but moral critique and warning, delivering the harshest possible alert regarding the speculative crisis facing modern civilization. (shrink)

This essay is dedicated to the memory of Katherine Hawley.1Bitcoin was invented to serve as a digital currency that demands no trust in financial institutions, such as commercial and central banks. This paper discusses metaphysical aspects of bitcoin, in particular the view that bitcoin is socially constructed, non-concrete, and genuinely exists. If bitcoin is socially constructed, then one may worry that this reintroduces trust in the communities responsible for the social construction. Although we may have to rely (...) on certain communities, I argue that social construction doesn’t imply a demand for trust because the relevant communities don’t take on any relevant commitments. Bitcoin is indeed trust-free. (shrink)

The advent of virtual currencies such as bitcoin raises a pressing question for lawmakers, regulators, and judges: should bitcoin and other virtual currencies be classified as money or currency for legal and regulatory purposes? I examine two different approaches to answering this question—a descriptive approach and a normative approach. The descriptive approach says that bitcoin and other virtual currencies should be classified as money or currency just in case they really are money or currency, whereas the normative (...) approach says that this question of classification should be answered on the basis of substantive normative considerations. I argue against the descriptive approach and in favor of the normative approach. (shrink)

Paul Krugman and others deny that bitcoin has legitimate uses. Critics like Krugman also fail to distinguish bitcoin from other cryptocurrencies. But once we isolate bitcoin from the rest of the field, we see how special, and how useful, it is. In this chapter, we explain why bitcoin is unique among cryptocurrencies as a credibly neutral monetary asset and why this is important. Its uniqueness doesn’t owe entirely to its age (as the oldest) or market ranking (...) (as the most valuable). As a credibly neutral monetary asset, bitcoin solves problems for those in less than ideal circumstances. And beyond bitcoin’s functionality, its origin and surrounding culture also help to explain why people trust bitcoin more than any other cryptocurrency to solve these problems. Nothing else comes close. This gap between bitcoin and everything else has implications for policy-making, journalism, and academic research. (shrink)

In this study, I use the Critical Realism perspective of power to explain how the Bitcoin protocol operates as a system of power. I trace the ideological underpinnings of the protocol in the Cypherpunk movement to consider how notions of power shaped the protocol. The protocol by design encompasses structures, namely Proof of Work and Trustlessness that reproduce asymmetrical constraints on the entities that comprise it. These constraining structures generate constraining mechanisms, those of cost effectiveness and deanonymisation, which further (...) restrict participating entities’ ‘power to act’, reinforcing others’ ‘power over’ them. In doing so, I illustrate that the Bitcoin protocol, rather than decentralising and distributing power across a network of numerous anonymous, trustless peers, it has instead shifted it, from the traditional actors (e.g., state, regulators) to newly emergent ones. (shrink)

Many want to know what bitcoin is and how it works. But bitcoin is as complex as it is controversial, and relatively few have the technical background to understand it. In this paper, I offer an accessible on-ramp for understanding bitcoin in the form of a model. My model reveals both what bitcoin is and how it works. More specifically, it reveals that bitcoin is a fictional substance in a massively coauthored story on a network (...) that automates and distributes jobs normally entrusted to centralized publishing institutions. My model therefore falsifies a popular view according to which each bitcoin is a chunk of code. (shrink)

In the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis, Bitcoin emerged as an alternative monetary system that could circumvent political and financial authorities. A practice in libertarian prefigurative politics, Bitcoin demonstrates the capacity for online subgroups to creatively appropriate internet-based technologies to enact alternative futures. Andrew Feenberg’s critical theory of technology clarifies this capacity and outlines the significance of agency in technical action. As technology mediates many social relations, it has a significant role in the reproduction of social power. (...) Technological agency is therefore a crucial site of resistance in which users can form alternative, democratic rationalizations of technology. Yet are such instances of agency intrinsically democratic? In analysing this aspect of Feenberg’s theory, this article argues that Bitcoin represents a ‘popular rationalization’ of technology – a creative appropriation of technology that empowers some groups while lacking the ethical justification necessary to be considered democratic. (shrink)

Much of the research relating to the impact on Bitcoin, of the COVID-19 pandemic focuses on the United States (US) market using Bitcoin prices in US dollars, but this is a market not open to a large proportion of the world’s population who must trade Bitcoin in their local currency. The aim here is to compare Bitcoin trading behaviour pre- and post-COVID-19 in four currencies, the Australian dollar, the Canadian dollar, the UK pound and the European (...) euro, to see if there is any consistency across currencies. The Bitcoin price may be universal but Bitcoin trading in local currencies can reflect local conditions. What becomes obvious is that when comparing across currencies, there is no consistent pattern. No two currencies are the same. The pre-COVID-19 period dominates in the Australian dollar market. The UK pound is similar except for transactions per day which is higher post-COVID-19. In the Canadian dollar and euro markets neither period dominates with each currency finding ‘not significantly different’ for a number of metrics. Surprisingly, there is not even any consensus with regard to the Bitcoin price which decreases in the Australian dollar and the UK pound markets in the post-COVID-19 period while this period sees an increase in the Bitcoin price in the Canadian dollar and euro markets. Consequently, observing Bitcoin trading behaviour in one currency does not indicate patterns of trade in another currency. This is particularly evident when comparing Bitcoin trading across countries with very different economic conditions, during a period of worldwide economic uncertainty as the COVID-19 pandemic continues to take a toll on local economies. (shrink)

Bitcoin is a peer-to-peer electronic payment system that operates as an independent currency. This paper is a philosophical investigation of the ontological constitution of Bitcoin. Using Slavoj Žižek’s ontological triad of the real, the symbolic and the imaginary, the paper distinguishes between three ideal typical theories of money: commodity theory, fiat theory, and credit theory. The constitution of Bitcoin is analysed by comparing the currency to each of these ideal types. It is argued that Bitcoin is (...) commodity money without gold, fiat money without a state, and credit money without debt. In conclusion, it is suggested that Bitcoin poses an ideological challenge to conventional forms of money in so far as it not only provokes sedimented beliefs about money but also exposes the forms of exploitation, risk and even violence inherent in the existing system of state authorized credit money. (shrink)

This paper challenges the notion that Bitcoin is ‘trust-free’ money by highlighting the social practices, organizational structures and utopian ambitions that sustain it. At the paper's heart is the paradox that if Bitcoin succeeds in its own terms as an ideology, it will fail in practical terms as a form of money. The main reason for this is that the new currency is premised on the idea of money as a ‘thing’ that must be abstracted from social life (...) in order for it to be protected from manipulation by bank intermediaries and political authorities. The image is of a fully mechanized currency that operates over and above social life. In practice, however, the currency has generated a thriving community around its political ideals, relies on a high degree of social organization in order to be produced, has a discernible social structure, and is characterized by asymmetries of wealth and power that are not dissimilar from the mainstream financial system. Unwittingly, then, Bitcoin serves as a powerful demonstration of the relational character of money. (shrink)

This is a talk given in honor of O'Neill at the Pacific APA when she won the Berggruen Prize in 2018.

The payments industry – the business of transferring value through public and corporate infrastructures – is undergoing rapid transformation. New business models and regulatory environments disrupt more traditional fee-based strategies, and new entrants seek to displace legacy players by leveraging new mobile platforms and new sources of data. In this increasingly diversified industry landscape, start-ups and established players are attempting to embed payment in ‘social’ experience through novel technologies of accounting for trust. This imagination of the social, however, is being (...) materialized in gated platforms for payment, accounting, and exchange. This paper explores the ambiguous politics of such experiments, specifically those, like Bitcoin or the on-demand sharing economy, that delineate an economic imaginary of ‘just us’ – a closed and closely guarded community of peers operating under the illusion that there are no mediating institutions undergirding that community. This provokes questions about the intersection of payment and publics. Payment innovators’ attenuated understanding of the social may, we suggest, evacuate the nitty-gritty of politics. (shrink)

Bitcoin, cryptocurrencies, and blockchains have become buzzwords in the media and are attracting increasing academic interest, mainly from the fields of computer science and financial economics. In this essay, I argue that cryptocurrencies and blockchains are important objects of general social science research and thought, but not for their ‘moneyness’ per se. Through a historical sociology of the antecedents and discourse leading up to Bitcoin, I show that it was never meant to be ‘money’ in the economic sense, (...) but rather a solution to a technical puzzle for preventing opportunistic actors from double-spending digital ‘coins,’ as well as a fervent ideology surrounding online privacy and infringement of individual rights in the digital age. Drawing from themes in science and technology studies, I suggest that Bitcoin and other ‘cryptoassets’ are properly socio-technological assemblages that constitute new and important objects of social inquiry that must be understood beyond the myopic context of crypto-money. I conclude by proposing three alternative ontologies for blockchains relevant to economic, political, and social life: as systems of accounting, as organizational forms, and as institutions in their own right. (shrink)

The philosophy of blockchain technology is concerned, among other things, with blockchain ontology, how it might be characterised, how it is being created, implemented, and adopted, how it operates in the world, and how it evolves over time. This paper concentrates on whether Bitcoin/blockchain can be considered a complex system and, if so, whether it is a chaotic one. Beyond mere academic curiosity, a positive response would raise concerns about the likelihood of Bitcoin/blockchain entering a 2010-Flash-Crash-type of chaotic (...) regime, with catastrophic consequences for financial systems based on it. The paper starts by highlighting the relevant details of the Bitcoin/blockchain ecosystem formed by the blockchain itself, bitcoin end users, capital gains seekers, miners, full nodes maintainers, and developers, and their interactions. Then the Information Theory of Complex Systems is briefly discussed for later use. Finally, the blockchain is investigated with the help of Crutchfield's Statistical Complexity measure. The low non-null statistical complexity value obtained suggests that the blockchain may be considered algorithmically complicated but hardly a complex system and unlikely to enter a chaotic regime. (shrink)

Money has been a polarising and unresolved socio-economic issue for more than 300 years. In this article, we explore how the state became increasingly involved in money and, through the words of prominent monetary theorists, identify the problem of the state in money. We analyse Bitcoin to see if it is a solution to this problem but move on to contend that the political dimension needs to be the focus of theory in the 21st century and that control of (...) the supply of money, and the power that it gives, is the root of contention. (shrink)

The book develops a comprehensive and measured case that bitcoin is a net benefit to the world, despite its imperfections. Resistance Money is intended for all, from the clueless to the specialist, from the proponent to the die-hard skeptic, and everyone in between.

ABSTRACT Advocates of Bitcoin and Modern Monetary Theory present their ideas as radical utopian alternatives to the neoliberal dominant, but these claims neglect the utopian strain in neoliberal monetary theory itself. This strain manifests in that theory’s faith in the capacity of markets to perfect human society. Bitcoin and Modern Monetary Theory express this same faith. After a brief survey of the older, more radical money utopias of More and Proudhon, this article traces the origins of Bitcoin (...) and MMT in the more conventional monetary theories of metallism and chartalism and then analyzes the utopian discourse of both movements, revealing that Bitcoin sees state intervention as the only obstacle to properly functioning markets, while MMT blames disfunction on an inadequate mobilization of labor, proposing state intervention as the remedy. In both cases, their policies only seek to enable the utopian potential of the market, falling in line with neoliberal orthodoxy. The conclusion offers some speculation about what the emergence of these two theories might tell us about the future of neoliberalism. (shrink)

I investigate ethical questions concerning a novel cryptocurrency, Bitcoin, using a Fichtean account of the ethics of currency. Fichte holds that currencies should fulfill an ethical purpose: providing access, in perpetuity, to the material welfare that underwrites citizens' basic rights. In his nineteenth‐century context, Fichte argues that currencies fulfill this purpose better when nations control them (i.e., when they are “national currencies”) than when foreigners freely trade them (as “world currencies”). After exploring conditions in which national currencies fail to (...) secure material stability over time, e.g., in corrupt regimes, I develop a Fichtean model for ethically evaluating currencies and evaluate the extent to which Bitcoin meets its standards for ethical currency. I argue that Bitcoin undermines the (monetary) power of nations and, as such, threatens their ability to provide access to necessary material goods. While offering citizens a means of defending themselves against corrupt regimes, Bitcoin forsakes the general welfare and is, as such, unethical by Fichtean lights. (shrink)

El Bitcoin es una moneda virtual que proporciona una alternativa segura completamente descentralizada a las monedas que se utilizan actualmente. Nakamoto, el creador de esta criptomoneda, publicó un artículo sobre una lista de correo de encriptación en 2008 con el título “Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System”, dando así la creación de esta moneda virtual. Este estudio tiene como objetivo analizar la Bitcoin y qué factores pueden influir en su precio, en el contexto de una pandemia. Este (...) trabajo se centrará en el precio de bitcoin y en cinco factores diferentes que pueden influir en su precio, tales como: tasa de hash, dificultad de minería, índice de volatilidad, búsqueda de Google y costo de transacción. El periodo para esta investigación va del 15/03/2020 al 14/11/2021, un total de 96 semanas, para integrar el factor covid-19 al estudio. Los resultados muestran que las variables fsCoinCirculation y fsTransationCost son ambas condiciones necesarias para un aumento en el precio de bitcoin, pero para valores bajos de precio de bitcoin no hay condiciones necesarias. Además, los hallazgos sugieren que la tasa de hash influye en el precio de bitcoin. Finalmente, se encontró que la variable fsVix es una variable con una implicación importante en el precio, es decir, en su volatilidad. (shrink)

Bitcoin is a virtual currency that provides a completely decentralized secure alternative to the currencies currently used. Nakamoto, the creator of this cryptocurrency, published an article on an encryption mailing list in 2008 with the title “Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System”, thus giving the creation of this virtual currency. This study aims to analyze the Bitcoin and what factors can influence its price, in the context of a pandemic. This work will focus on the bitcoin (...) price and on five different factors likely to have an influence on his price, such as: Hash Rate, Mining Difficulty, Volatility Index, Google Search and Transaction Cost. The period for this research ranges from 15/03/2020 to 14/11/2021, a total of 96 weeks, to integrate the covid-19 factor into the study. The results show that the variables fsCoinCirculation and fsTransationCost are both necessary conditions for an increase on the bitcoin price, but for low values of bitcoin price there are no necessary conditions. Additionally, findings suggest that Hash Rate influences the price of bitcoin. Finally, fsVix variable was found to be a variable with an important implication in price, namely, in its volatility. (shrink)

The research evaluates the relationship between Bitcoin returns and US Gold prices using both traditional and deep learning predictive models. It analyzes Bitcoin’s volatility through time-series data from 2017 to 2025 to assess its impact on US Gold prices, which have traditionally exhibited greater stability. Forecasting accuracy is examined by applying the ARIMA and LSTM to both asset classes. The LSTM model demonstrates superior performance compared to the ARIMA model, as evidenced by lower RMSE, MAE, and MAPE values, (...) due to its ability to capture nonlinear trends and complex market dynamics. The findings suggest that Bitcoin’s price fluctuations may influence subsequent movements in gold prices, positioning Bitcoin as a potential economic indicator that challenges the traditional role of gold as a safe-haven asset. This study offers practical insights for investors, financial analysts, and policymakers, advocating for a revised portfolio strategy that incorporates Bitcoin and supports the use of advanced machine learning models in financial forecasting. (shrink)

Individuals and businesses make numerous payments every day. They sometimes have choices about what forms of payment to make or accept, and at other times are effectively forced to use a particular form. Often there is an asymmetric power relationship between payer and payee that raises the issue of whether one side unfairly exploits the other. Is it unethical exploitation for an employer to pay employees with a fee-laden payroll card over other more convenient forms of payment? Does the fee (...) structure of payment networks such as Visa and MasterCard unfairly exploit merchants? The bitcoin payment system is an ethical as well as technological evolution as it was designed to be an electronic payment system that does not rely upon trust. Can an entire payment system like bitcoin be “evil,” as charged by Krugman? Payment tools as such are ethically neutral, but can be used in an ethical or unethical manner. (shrink)

Fıkıhta bir mesele hakkında hüküm verilirken, mevzu belirli usûl ve kaideler çerçevesinde değerlendirilmektedir. Hüküm verilirken temel bakış açısı ve değerlendirme yöntemi genel hatlarıyla fıkıh usûlü ve kavaid kitaplarında mevcut olmakla beraber, bunun karmaşık güncel meselelere uyarlanması her zaman kolay olmamaktadır. Bu makalede konunun işleyişi ortaya konulmaya çalışılarak fıkhî açıdan ilgili konulara değinilecektir. Çalışmada Bitcoin meselesi, garar, bey’ul ma’dûm, kumar, miras ve akit teorisi çerçevesinde değerlendirilerek okuyucuda bir kapının aralanması hedeflenmektedir. Konunun nihai hükmü ise ilgili kurumlar ve fıkıh meclisleri tarafından (...) verilmelidir. Nihayetinde bu çalışma konunun belirli yönleri etrafında şekillenmiş ve sübjektif bakışı açısı potansiyeli taşıyabilmektedir. Kapsamlı bir değerlendirme ve objektif bir nihai karar ancak kurumsal yapılar tarafından gerçekleştirilecek kolektif çalışmalar neticesinde şekillenecektir. (shrink)

Multivariate GARCH models were employed to examine the yield and volatility spreads among Bitcoin, Ripple, and Litecoin. Among these models, the VAR (1) model was identified as the most suitable within the BEKK-GARCH framework. The analysis revealed a unidirectional yield spread from Ripple to both Bitcoin and Litecoin. Additionally, volatility shocks originating from Ripple and Litecoin were found to affect Bitcoin. Continuing the research, the hedging ratio and optimal portfolio weights for bilateral combinations were established for (...) class='Hi'>Bitcoin, Ripple, and Litecoin. To hedge against a $1 long position in Bitcoin, it is necessary to take a short position of $0.56 in Ripple or $0.55 in Litecoin. Conversely, to hedge the risk associated with a $1 long position in Ripple, a short position of $0.70 in Litecoin should be taken. For portfolio construction, a $1 portfolio comprising Bitcoin and Ripple should allocate $0.77 to Bitcoin and $0.23 to Ripple. If the portfolio includes Bitcoin and Litecoin, then $0.94 should be invested in Bitcoin and $0.06 in Litecoin. (shrink)

What does being money consist in? We argue that something is money if, and only if, it is typically acquired in order to realise the reduction in transaction costs that accrues in virtue of agents coordinating on acquiring the same thing when deciding what thing to acquire in order to exchange. What kinds of things can be money? We argue against the common view that a variety of things (notes, coins, gold, cigarettes, etc.) can be money. All monetary systems are (...) best interpreted as implementing the same basic protocol. Money, i.e. the thing that we coordinate on acquiring in order to lower our transaction costs, is, in all cases, a set of positions on an abstract mathematical object, namely a relative ratio scale. The things that we ordinarily call ‘money’ are merely records of positions on such a scale. (shrink)

Retraction note: Penela, D. (2022). Market Movers: the case of bitcoin in the Covid-19 setting. HUMAN REVIEW. International Humanities Revista Internacional De Humanidades, 15(7), 1–11. https://doi.org/10.37467/revhuman.v11.4373 The Editorial Office of Eurasia Academic Publishing Group has retracted this article. An investigation carried out by our Research Integrity Department has found a group of articles, among which this one is found, that are not within the thematic scope of the journal. We believe that the editorial process was manipulated and, furthermore, acceptance (...) decisions were made under possibly inappropriate peer review. (shrink)

Sosyal medya, insanları alış veriş alışkanlıklarından yatırım kararlarına kadar birçok ticari niyetleri üzerinde yüksek etki düzeyi olduğu güncel birçok çalışmada araştırılmaya başlanmıştır ve bu ilişki ortaya konmuştur. Bu ilişki üzerine inşa edilerek geliştirilen güncel analiz yöntemleri yatırım araçlarının gelecek değerlerini tahmin ederek yatırım kararları almada bir destek mekanizması olarak kullanılması çok cazip bir konudur. Bu sebeple bu ilişki yatırımcı ve analistlerden akademisyenlere kadar güncel bir ilgi konusu olmuştur. Bu çalışmanın amacı da sosyal medya ile yatırım kararları arasındaki ilişkiyi metinsel ve (...) finansal analiz aracılığı ile görmeye çalışmaktır. Bu çalışmada Twitter üzerinden metin madenciliği ile veri çekilmiş ve sentiment(duygu) analizi ile yorumların olumlu ya da olumsuz olma durumu incelenmiştir. Sentiment analizinden elde edilen sayısal değerler ile güncel ve küresel bir yatırım aracı olan Bitcoin fiyatları arasındaki ilişkinin varlığını sorgulamak adına Granger Nedensellik analizi gibi finansal analizler kullanılmıştır. (shrink)

How promising is Bitcoin as a currency? This paper discusses four claims on the advantages of Bitcoin: a more stable currency than state-backed ones; a secure and efficient payment system; a credible alternative to the central management of money; and a better protection of transaction privacy. We discuss these arguments by relating them to their philosophical roots in libertarian and neoliberal theories, and assess whether Bitcoin can effectively meet these expectations. We conclude that despite its advocates’ enthusiasm, (...) there are good reasons to doubt that Bitcoin can fulfill its promises and act as a functioning currency, rather than as a mere speculative asset. (shrink)

Money has come a long way from the substances and shapes it had in antiquity and early modernity to the ever more ephemeral forms it took on in the last decades. A further step in this direction to an increasingly virtual world of finance is digital money. Amongst digital currencies, cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and the many hundred altcoins created lately, stand out because of the challenge they pose to the conventional contour and conception of monetary systems. In addition to (...) private banks and the public hand, via cryptocurrencies now also individuals emerge as emitters of currency. Whereas formerly the sovereignty over the issuance of money was anchored locally or nationally, backed by tangible private or public institutions, cryptocurrencies immediately surface globally within the intangible cyberspace of the worldwide web. In this novel realm of money, the cryptocurrencies Bitcoin and Ripple stand for two different approaches to the question as to which impact money ought to have in people’s lives, and as to how individuals in turn can influence the nature and future of money. The article discusses the moral claims of these rivaling conceptions. (shrink)

This (somewhat polemical) paper focuses on the ontological nature of money and draws comparisons to the ontological status of gauge freedom in physics. The parallels allow us to move beyond the social constructivist theories of Searle et al., and thereby avoid some pitfalls with such views. Since we have a reasonably good grasp of the ontological features in the physics context, we can pull back lessons from there onto the economic domain. In general, we find that this approach offers a (...) nice lens through which to view the ontological peculiarities of money. (shrink)

We investigate the cross-correlations of return-volume relationship of the Bitcoin market. In particular, we select eight exchange rates whose trading volume accounts for more than 98% market shares to synthesize Bitcoin indexes. The empirical results based on multifractal detrended cross-correlation analysis reveal that the nonlinear dependencies and power-law cross-correlations in return-volume relationship are found; all cross-correlations are multifractal, and there are antipersistent behaviors of cross-correlation for q=2; the price of small fluctuations is more persistent than that of the (...) volume, while the volume of larger fluctuations is more antipersistent; and the rolling window method shows that the cross-correlations of return-volume are antipersistent in the entire sample period. (shrink)

Vivimos un tiempo de confusión, saturación, agitación, superficialidad, confrontación y polarización, sin rumbo, sin norte y necesitados de un sentido que no sabemos dónde encontrar. En los últimos siglos, hemos construido una sociedad saturada de bienes materiales y extremadamente financiarizada convirtiendo nuestra existencia en una carrera con poca conciencia de que vamos "hacia ninguna parte". El incremento de inquietudes y necesidades sociales, disfrazadas de consumo, nos lleva a buscar la inclusión, el acoplamiento y el reconocimiento social en una lucha de (...) la que resultan nuevos ganadores y muchos perdedores, insatisfechos o excluidos. Unos y otros, desde el éxito o desde el fracaso, con sus formas de interacción social, han dinamitado el contrato social que hasta ahora habíamos tenido por bueno, mientras seguimos pendientes de definir el nuevo contrato para una sociedad rica, abierta y global. (shrink)

This research investigates the growing impact of virtual currencies, with a specific focus on how Bitcoin, a leading digital currency, influences gold prices. It delves into the evolving role of Bitcoin in the traditional financial sphere, examining its effect on gold, a classical asset and a benchmark of economic stability. Through this study, we aim to understand the nuances of this unique interaction and its implications for the broader financial landscape. This paper presents an in-depth case study that (...) examines the correlations and potential causal relationships between the volatility in virtual currency markets and gold price fluctuations, a traditional indicator of economic stability and a renowned safe-haven asset, with a particular focus on the period encompassing the COVID-19 pandemic. Using a range of econometric methods, including time-series analysis and the Autoregressive Integrated Moving Average (ARIMA) model, this research analyzes historical price data from the past decade, with a special emphasis on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic alongside other key geopolitical events and macroeconomic factors, to elucidate the interplay between these distinct asset classes. (shrink)

This paper examines the spillover effect between bitcoin, gold, crude oil, and major stock markets by using the MSV model with dynamic correlation and Granger causality. The empirical results of the DC-GC-MSV model are logically correct and convergent. The DIC test result has proved that the DC-GC-MSV model is better and more accurate. Bitcoin has no significant Granger causality spillover effect than other assets. As a safe haven product for stock assets, gold price has one-way spillover effect from (...) stock market volatility. Moreover, crude oil has the highest correlation with the stock market. In the recent COVID-19 epidemic and the sluggish economic environment, investors need to consider a balanced asset allocation among low-correlation assets, medium-correlation assets, and high-correlation assets to reduce risks. (shrink)

Due to the inherent chaotic and fractal dynamics in the price series of Bitcoin, this paper proposes a two-stage Bitcoin price prediction model by combining the advantage of variational mode decomposition and technical analysis. VMD eliminates the noise signals and stochastic volatility in the price data by decomposing the data into variational mode functions, while technical analysis uses statistical trends obtained from past trading activity and price changes to construct technical indicators. The support vector regression accepts input from (...) a hybrid of technical indicators and reconstructed variational mode functions. The model is trained, validated, and tested in a period characterized by unprecedented economic turmoil due to the COVID-19 pandemic, allowing the evaluation of the model in the presence of the pandemic. The constructed hybrid model outperforms the single SVR model that uses only TI and rVMF as features. The ability to predict a minute intraday Bitcoin price has a huge propensity to reduce investors’ exposure to risk and provides better assurances of annualized returns. (shrink)

The rapid worldwide spread of COVID-19 forced many countries to enforce complete lockdown and strict quarantine policies. The strict lockdown and quarantine affect the psychological state of people toward cryptocurrency. The current research aims to examine the effect of COVID-19 on Bitcoin prices concerning cumulative deaths and confirmed cases. The research comprises daily data from January 20, 2020, to April 30, 2020, during the initial worldwide breakout of COVID-19. This research employed the augmented Dickey-Fuller test to check the stationarity (...) of data, the co-integration test for the interdependency of variables, and the vector error correction model for identifying the direction and long or short-run relationship between Bitcoin prices and COVID-19. The research results show that Bitcoin prices are negatively significant and related to COVID-19 in the short-run. A unidirectional relationship between Bitcoin prices and cumulative deaths is also observed. Investors and the public’s psychological state were positively significant to Bitcoin prices in the long-term because of cashless transactions, unbanked, and less risky virus traveling. The second reason behind the positive psychological relation is un-centralization and easy-to-make payments by Bitcoin. This study’s finding provides timely evidence to decision-makers on Bitcoin price volatility and its impacts on the public’s psychological states regarding COVID-19. (shrink)

Following the catastrophic events of the 2008 global financial crisis, an anonymous hacker released Bitcoin to claw back power from commercial and central banks. Its underlying architecture, blockchain, is now championed for delivering a decentralised global economy--a world free from hierarchy and control. Money Code Space shatters these emancipatory claims by revealing acute geographies of power that lie behind blockchain networks. Drawing on first-hand experience in cryptocurrency communities and start-up companies from Silicon Valley to London, Jack Parkin untangles the (...) complex web of culture, politics, and economics that truly drive decentralisation. (shrink)

One of the great embarrassments of contemporary academic work is the way in which many academics have aligned themselves against blockchain technologies and cryptocurrencies. The embarrassment lies...

In the bitcoin whitepaper, Satoshi Nakamoto (2008: 2) defines an electronic coin as a chain of digital signatures. Many have since defined a bitcoin as a chain of digital signatures. This latter definition continues to appear in reports from central banks, advocacy centers, and governments, as well as in academic papers across the disciplines of law, economics, computer science, cryptography, management, and philosophy. Some have even used it to argue that what we now call bitcoin is not (...) the real bitcoin. The definition fails, however. This is important because the Chain Definition obscures Satoshi’s solution to a dilemma in the design of electronic cash, as well as the truth about bitcoin’s privacy and fungibility. In this article, I explain why the Chain Definition fails and what Satoshi likely endorsed instead. Along the way, I untangle some issues around bitcoin fungibility and clarify some others around the ontology of digital assets. (shrink)

In recent years, dollar-based sanctions have become an important tool of U.S. foreign policy. The introduction of bitcoin poses challenges to this sanctions regime. Bitcoin settles transactions through a decentralized, global, permissionless, and competitive market. These characteristics create a degree of censorship resistance. As bitcoin adoption increases, policymakers intent on maintaining the status quo might try to target the bitcoin network for censorship as well. We examine two recent proposals aimed at censoring transactions involving sanctioned entities (...) and assess their likelihood of success. We argue that both proposals are unlikely to achieve their intended outcomes. Instead, a more pragmatic approach to bitcoin is likely to be more effective for those focused on sanctions compliance and enforcement. (shrink)

In this article, we identify three key design dimensions along which cryptocurrencies differ -- privacy, censorship-resistance, and consensus procedure. Each raises important normative issues. Our discussion uncovers new ways to approach the question of whether Bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies should be used as money, and new avenues for developing a positive answer to that question. A guiding theme is that progress here requires a mixed approach that integrates philosophical tools with the purely technical results of disciplines like computer science (...) and economics. Note: this article is the second entry within a two-part sequence on the Philosophy, Politics, and Economics of Cryptocurrency. (shrink)

This paper argues that the practical implementation of blockchain technology can be considered an institution of property similar to legal institutions. Invoking Penner's theory of property and Hegel's system of property rights, and using the example of bitcoin, it is possible to demonstrate that blockchain effectively implements all necessary and sufficient criteria for property without reliance on legal means. Blockchains eliminate the need for a third-party authority to enforce exclusion rights, and provide a system of universal access to knowledge (...) and discoverability about the property rights of all participants and how the system functions. The implications of these findings are that traditional property relations in society could be replaced by or supplemented with blockchain models, and implemented in new domains. (shrink)

Cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, SETLcoin, Ether, Solar Coin, or Liberty Reserve exist since 2009. Because of their decentralized control, they are often considered a threat or alternative to the conventional centralized banking system. While the technological implication of some such currencies, especially of Bitcoin, has attracted much attention, so far there is little discussion about the entire field of cryptocurrencies and very little academic literature addressing its ethical significance. In this article, we thus address the impact of “blockchain (...) technology” on the nature of financial transactions from a business ethics perspective. We begin with a survey on relevant literature from neighboring disciplines. Next, we work towards a 3 × 3 framework for current debates on the ethics of cryptocurrencies : we combine the micro, meso, and macro levels of business and society with assessments of the potential ethical impact of cryptocurrencies as morally beneficial, detrimental, and ambiguous. In addition, we highlight possible avenues for future research, such as the changing roles of the miners and regulators, the prosocial use of cryptocurrencies, the antisocial use for shadow banking and transactions in the ‘dark net’ and cryptocurrencies’ effect on inflation and deflation. (shrink)

Modern fiat currencies have achieved near-frictionless transactional efficiency, yet this convenience comes at a hidden cognitive cost: the erosion of value awareness. When monetary exchange requires negligible mental effort, the brain's valuation mechanisms deactivate, leading to impulsive consumption, undervaluation of goods, and the emergence of self-reinforcing "bad attractors" characterized by declining product quality and misplaced consumer frustration. This paper introduces a framework of *cognitive transaction costs* to explain how Bitcoin—through deliberate friction—functions not as a superior medium of exchange, but (...) as a *cognitive store of value* that restores active valuation. We demonstrate that Bitcoin's resistance to cognitive stress emerges from its *non-filtering principle*: by refusing to cognitively filter "small" transactions, it forces continuous opportunity cost evaluation. Empirical patterns from early adoption contexts reveal an inverted cognitive hierarchy—Bitcoin (primary anchor) → consumption goods (secondary utility) → fiat currency (tertiary convenience)—that reorders monetary instruments according to their capacity to sustain value awareness rather than transactional speed. The implications suggest that optimal monetary design may require *deliberate friction* to prevent cognitive atrophy in value perception. (shrink)

Vertrauenslosigkeit und damit Vertrauen gelten als Kategorien, die Blockchain- und digitale Technologien über Fragen der bekannten Bitcoin- Anwendung hinaus theoretisch interessant machen. Es zeigt sich jedoch, dass es schwierig wird, wenn wir von „(Nicht-)Vertrauen in die Blockchain“ sprechen. Ist es nicht oftmals eher Verlässlichkeit als Vertrauenswürdigkeit, auf deren Basis Bitcoin- Akteur:innen handeln? Ist Vertrauen in zwischenmenschlichen Beziehungen, das wir alltäglich konkret erleben und oft intuitiv verstehen, und das sich auf Institutionen und Professionen ausweiten kann, für die starre Blockchain-Technologie (...) relevant? Und falls ja, auf welche Weise? Oder wird die Notwendigkeit für Vertrauen – wie es sich im Bitcoin-Whitepaper auf den ersten Blick lesen lässt – mit Bitcoin überflüssig? Sollten wir von einem Technologievertrauen sprechen, das, aufgrund der Unveränderlichkeit dessen, was in der Blockchain gespeichert ist, mit dem interpersonalen Vertrauensparadigma unvereinbar ist und damit eine tiefgreifende Transformation der sozialen Realitäten implizieren würde? Der hier unternommene Versuch, Vertrauen in Abgrenzung zu Sich-verlassen-auf, beide als philosophische Konzepte, im Blockchain-Kontext zu aktualisieren, bedeutet auch, Technologien in ihrer Verwobenheit mit sozial interpretierten Realitäten (des Vertrauens) zu verstehen. (shrink)