Blockchain Technology and the Financial Market: An Empirical Analysis

This study investigates the relationship between blockchain technology and the financial market. The US and China are used as case studies for the 2008–2016 period using fully modified least square and Toda-Yamamoto causality technique. The estimates show that blockchain technology has positive and significant relationship with the financial market in the US and China. In other words, the higher the levels of blockchain innovation in these countries, the more developed the financial markets. This suggests that the presence of blockchain innovation in financial markets spurs financial development. Blockchain innovation is therefore a positive significant factor for well-developed financial markets. The findings also indicate that macroeconomic factors such as lagged financial development, GDP per capita, the growth rate of GDP, FDI and trade openness have significant and positive relationship with financial development in the two countries. Among the institutional variables, government effectiveness has significant and positive effects only in the US

Blockchain Technology and the Financial Market: An Empirical Analysis

This study investigates the relationship between blockchain technology and the financial market. The US and China are used as case studies for the 2008–2016 period using fully modified least square and Toda-Yamamoto causality technique. The estimates show that blockchain technology has positive and significant relationship with the financial market in the US and China. In other words, the higher the levels of blockchain innovation in these countries, the more developed the financial markets. This suggests that the presence of blockchain innovation in financial markets spurs financial development. Blockchain innovation is therefore a positive significant factor for well-developed financial markets. The findings also indicate that macroeconomic factors such as lagged financial development, GDP per capita, the growth rate of GDP, FDI and trade openness have significant and positive relationship with financial development in the two countries. Among the institutional variables, government effectiveness has significant and positive effects only in the US

Blockchain-based reputation models for e-commerce: a systematic literature review

The Digital Age is the present, and nobody can deny that. With it has come a digital transformation in various sectors of activity, and e-commerce is no exception. Over the last few decades, there has been a massive increase in its utilization rates, as it has several advantages over traditional commerce. At the same time, the rise in the number of crimes on the Internet and, consequently, the understanding of the risks involved in online shopping has led consumers to become more cautious, looking for information about the seller and taking it into account when making a purchase decision. The need to get to know the merchant better before making a purchase decision has encouraged the creation of reputation systems, whose services play an essential role in today's e-commerce context. Reputation systems act as mechanisms to reduce information asymmetry between consumers and sellers and establish rankings that attest to fulfilling standards and policies considered necessary for shops operating in the digital market. The critical problems in current reputation systems are the frauds and attacks that such systems currently have to deal with, which results in a lack of trust between users. These security and fraud issues are critical because users' trust is commonly based on reputation models, and many of these current systems are not immune to them, thus compromising e-commerce growth. The need for a better and safer model emerges with the development of e-commerce. Through reading the articles and pursuing the answers to the primary questions, blockchain is data register technology to be analysed in order to gain a better acknowledgment of the potential of such technology. More research work and investigation must be done to fully understand how to create a more assertive reputation model. Thus, this study systematizes the knowledge generated by reputation models in E-commerce studies in Scopus, WoS databases, and Google Scholar, using PRISMA methodology. A systematic approach was adopted in conducting a literature review. The need for a systematic literature review came from the knowledge that there are reputation systems that mitigate some of the problems. In addition to identifying some indicators used in reputation models, we also conclude that these models could help provide some insurance to buyers and sellers, with a commitment to being a problem solver, being able to mitigate known problems such as Collusion, Sybil attacks, laundering attacks, and preventing online fraud ranging from ballot stuffing and bad-mouthing. Nevertheless, the results of the present work demonstrate that even though these reputation models still cannot solve all of the problems, attacking one fraud opens the door to an attack. The architecture of the models was identified, with the realization that a few lacks that need to be fulfilled

HANDLING WORK FROM HOME SECURITY ISSUES IN SALESFORCE

Security is a vital component when it is identified with an endeavor record or our genuine materials. To protect our home or valuable things like gold, cash we use bank storage administrations or underground secret storage spaces at home. Similarly, IT enterprises put tremendous measure of capital in expanding security to its business and the archives. Associations use cryptography procedures to get their information utilizing progressed encryption calculations like SHA-256, SHA-512, RSA-1024, RSA-2048 pieces’ key encryption and Elliptic Curve Cryptography (ECC) calculations. These industry standard calculations are difficult to break. For instance, to break RSA-2048-piece encryption key, an old-style PC needs around 300 trillion years. As indicated by the continuous examination, a quantum PC can break it in 10seconds, yet such a quantum PC doesn\u27t yet exist. Despite the fact that these cryptographic calculations guarantee an awesome degree of safety, there will be dependably a space for breaking the security. Programmers will attempt new techniques to break the security. Thus, the association likewise should continue to utilize new strategies to build the level and nature of the security. Now it is time to check how the security aspect is taken care of when the IT employees are at work from home. The 2020 year has made many professionals work from home because of the Covid-19 pandemic. The Covid-19 has transformed almost all organizations to work from home, this has become standard advice, and technology plays an important role during work from home to monitor the employee works and provide security when the work is being carried away from their respective organization. Employees\u27 information security awareness will become one of the most important parts of safeguarding against nefarious information security practices during this work from home. Most of the workers like the expediency of work from home and the flexibility provided for the employees. But in this situation, workers need guarantees that their privacy is secured when using company laptops and phones. Cyber security plays an important role in maintaining a secured environment when working from home. This work focusses on managing the security break attack in the course of work from home. The focus of the study is on dealing with security breaches that occur when salespeople operate from home. The problem of security isn\u27t new. Security issues existed prior to the lockdown or pandemic, but because the staff was working from the office at the time, the system administrator was available to address them. However, how can an employee\u27s laptop and account be secured when working from home? MFH\u27s salesforce has leveraged a variety of innovative technologies to address security concerns during their tenure. Because the IT behemoth Salesforce has made it possible for all employees, including freshly hired ones, to seek WFH on a permanent basis. To address the security breach difficulties faced by employees, the organization used a number of new approaches, including tracking working hours, raising password difficulty, employing VPN (virtual private network), mandating video during meetings, continuously checking right to use control, and MFA (multi-factor authentication). Improvement of existing multi-factor authentication (MFA) is the focused topic discussed in the thesis. To add an additional step of protection to the login process Blockchain technology is proposed and to identify the employee identification a hybrid recognition model is proposed using face and fingerprint recognition. This leads to the employee going through multiple processes to authenticate his or her identity in numerous ways in order to access the business laptop. This procedure entails connecting his or her laptop to his or her mobile phone or email account. Keywords: MFA, WFH, Cyber Security, Encryption, Decryption

Trade-offs between Distributed Ledger Technology Characteristics

When developing peer-to-peer applications on distributed ledger technology (DLT), a crucial decision is the selection of a suitable DLT design (e.g., Ethereum), because it is hard to change the underlying DLT design post hoc. To facilitate the selection of suitable DLT designs, we review DLT characteristics and identify trade-offs between them. Furthermore, we assess how DLT designs account for these trade-offs and we develop archetypes for DLT designs that cater to specific requirements of applications on DLT. The main purpose of our article is to introduce scientific and practical audiences to the intricacies of DLT designs and to support development of viable applications on DLT

Mind the Gap: Trade-Offs between Distributed Ledger Technology Characteristics

When developing peer-to-peer applications on Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT), a crucial decision is the selection of a suitable DLT design (e.g., Ethereum) because it is hard to change the underlying DLT design post hoc. To facilitate the selection of suitable DLT designs, we review DLT characteristics and identify trade-offs between them. Furthermore, we assess how DLT designs account for these trade-offs and we develop archetypes for DLT designs that cater to specific quality requirements. The main purpose of our article is to introduce scientific and practical audiences to the intricacies of DLT designs and to support development of viable applications on DLT

Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) Applications in Payment, Clearing, and Settlement Systems:A Study of Blockchain-Based Payment Barriers and Potential Solutions, and DLT Application in Central Bank Payment System Functions

Payment, clearing, and settlement systems are essential components of the financial markets and exert considerable influence on the overall economy. While there have been considerable technological advancements in payment systems, the conventional systems still depend on centralized architecture, with inherent limitations and risks. The emergence of Distributed ledger technology (DLT) is being regarded as a potential solution to transform payment and settlement processes and address certain challenges posed by the centralized architecture of traditional payment systems (Bank for International Settlements, 2017). While proof-of-concept projects have demonstrated the technical feasibility of DLT, significant barriers still hinder its adoption and implementation. The overarching objective of this thesis is to contribute to the developing area of DLT application in payment, clearing and settlement systems, which is still in its initial stages of applications development and lacks a substantial body of scholarly literature and empirical research. This is achieved by identifying the socio-technical barriers to adoption and diffusion of blockchain-based payment systems and the solutions proposed to address them. Furthermore, the thesis examines and classifies various applications of DLT in central bank payment system functions, offering valuable insights into the motivations, DLT platforms used, and consensus algorithms for applicable use cases. To achieve these objectives, the methodology employed involved a systematic literature review (SLR) of academic literature on blockchain-based payment systems. Furthermore, we utilized a thematic analysis approach to examine data collected from various sources regarding the use of DLT applications in central bank payment system functions, such as central bank white papers, industry reports, and policy documents. The study's findings on blockchain-based payment systems barriers and proposed solutions; challenge the prevailing emphasis on technological and regulatory barriers in the literature and industry discourse regarding the adoption and implementation of blockchain-based payment systems. It highlights the importance of considering the broader socio-technical context and identifying barriers across all five dimensions of the social technical framework, including technological, infrastructural, user practices/market, regulatory, and cultural dimensions. Furthermore, the research identified seven DLT applications in central bank payment system functions. These are grouped into three overarching themes: central banks' operational responsibilities in payment and settlement systems, issuance of central bank digital money, and regulatory oversight/supervisory functions, along with other ancillary functions. Each of these applications has unique motivations or value proposition, which is the underlying reason for utilizing in that particular use case

A P2P Networking Simulation Framework For Blockchain Studies

Recently, blockchain becomes a disruptive technology of building distributed applications (DApps). Many researchers and institutions have devoted their resources to the development of more effective blockchain technologies and innovative applications. However, with the limitation of computing power and financial resources, it is hard for researchers to deploy and test their blockchain innovations in a large-scape physical network. Hence, in this dissertation, we proposed a peer-to-peer (P2P) networking simulation framework, which allows to deploy and test (simulate) a large-scale blockchain system with thousands of nodes in one single computer. We systematically reviewed existing research and techniques of blockchain simulator and evaluated their advantages and disadvantages. To achieve generality and flexibility, our simulation framework lays the foundation for simulating blockchain network with different scales and protocols. We verified our simulation framework by deploying the most famous three blockchain systems (Bitcoin, Ethereum and IOTA) in our simulation framework. We demonstrated the effectiveness of our simulation framework with the following three case studies: (a) Improve the performance of blockchain by changing key parameters or deploying new directed acyclic graph (DAG) structure protocol; (b) Test and analyze the attack response of Tangle-based blockchain (IOTA) (c) Establish and deploy a new smart grid bidding system for demand side in our simulation framework. This dissertation also points out a series of open issues for future research