HOW BLOCKCHAIN FACILITATES SMART CITY APPLICATIONS– DEVELOPMENT OF A MULTI-LAYER TAXONOMY

A decade after Sathosi Nakamoto published his famous whitepaper, blockchain technology (BT) has started to become widely recognized and used beyond the cryptocurrency Bitcoin. While the financial sector is the most prominent adopter of the technology, numerous other fields of application for the ground-breaking innovation are discussed by researchers and practitioners alike. One key area in which blockchain-based applications are expected to drive radical and disruptive innovation is smart cities. BT provides unique benefits which smart cities can leverage to improve quality of life, adminis-trative processes, and environmental sustainability. However, due to the entrepreneurial dynamics and abundant fields of application for BT in smart cities, an integrated and boundary-spanning analysis is lacking. Thus, our paper aims at analysing how BT is used in different smart city business models to present a multi-layer taxonomy. For this purpose, we identified a global sample of 80 startups which offer products or services for smart cities and examined their business models. The paper explores economic and technological characteristics of blockchain based smart city applications. These unique insights will be useful for researchers, practitioners, and regulators

STANDARDIZATION OF BLOCKCHAIN IN FINANCE - COMPARING COMMON STANDARDS

Blockchain technology, originating from Bitcoin\u27s inception in 2008, has garnered significant interest across various industries, particularly finance. With the global blockchain market projected to reach $39.7 billion by 2025, the imperative for standardization to ensure trust, security, and compatibility across diverse blockchain implementations is evident. This culminating experience project focused on answering the following question: How can standardization be effectively navigated to facilitate the adoption and implementation of blockchain technology in financial institutions? The key findings are as follows: (a) there is a need to explore the many challenges encountered in standardization efforts, including (i) regulatory compliance, (ii) consensus building, and (iii) the dynamic technological landscape. Efforts to tackle these challenges include: (i) aligning strategically with regulations, (ii) employing consensus-building mechanisms, and (iii) implementing dynamic standardization processes. The conclusion is that it is important to build consensus among the key standardization players including bodies like ISO/TC 307, ISO/TC 68 Financial Services, and the European Union Agency for Cybersecurity (ENISA) in shaping blockchain adoption within the financial sector. Areas for further study include using a case study research approach to examine successful blockchain implementations, performing longitudinal studies tracking the progression of blockchain standards, and the exploration of stakeholder perspectives to inform more comprehensive and effective standardization strategies

Blockchain for Finance: A Survey

As an innovative technology for enhancing authenticity, security, and risk management, blockchain is being widely adopted in trade and finance systems. The unique capabilities of blockchain, such as immutability and transparency, enable new business models of distributed data storage, point-to-point transactions, and decentralized autonomous organizations. In this paper, we focus on blockchain-based securities trading, in which blockchain technology plays a vital role in financial services as it ultimately lifts trust and frees the need for third-party verification by using consensus-based verification. We investigate the 12 most popular blockchain platforms and elaborate on 6 platforms that are related to finance, seeking to provide a panorama of securities trading practices. Meanwhile, this survey provides a comprehensive summary of blockchain-based securities trading applications. We gather numerous practical applications of blockchain-based securities trading and categorize them into four distinct categories. For each category, we introduce a typical example and explain how blockchain contributes to solving the key problems faced by FinTech companies and researchers. Finally, we provide interesting observations ranging from mainstream blockchain-based financial institutions to security issues of decentralized finance applications, aiming to picture the current blockchain ecosystem in finance

The future of Cybersecurity in Italy: Strategic focus area

This volume has been created as a continuation of the previous one, with the aim of outlining a set of focus areas and actions that the Italian Nation research community considers essential. The book touches many aspects of cyber security, ranging from the definition of the infrastructure and controls needed to organize cyberdefence to the actions and technologies to be developed to be better protected, from the identification of the main technologies to be defended to the proposal of a set of horizontal actions for training, awareness raising, and risk management

Toward a sustainable cybersecurity ecosystem

© 2020 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. Cybersecurity issues constitute a key concern of today’s technology-based economies. Cybersecurity has become a core need for providing a sustainable and safe society to online users in cyberspace. Considering the rapid increase of technological implementations, it has turned into a global necessity in the attempt to adapt security countermeasures, whether direct or indirect, and prevent systems from cyberthreats. Identifying, characterizing, and classifying such threats and their sources is required for a sustainable cyber-ecosystem. This paper focuses on the cybersecurity of smart grids and the emerging trends such as using blockchain in the Internet of Things (IoT). The cybersecurity of emerging technologies such as smart cities is also discussed. In addition, associated solutions based on artificial intelligence and machine learning frameworks to prevent cyber-risks are also discussed. Our review will serve as a reference for policy-makers from the industry, government, and the cybersecurity research community

Cyber finance challenges demand a unified response. CEPS Policy Insights No 2018/12, October 2018

The biggest opportunities and threats in finance these days come from the cyber-sphere. Fintech firms (fintechs) have made big inroads in financial intermediation, and some new companies are valued more than large banks. Blockchain and robo-advice are expected to revolutionise the ways banks interact with their clients and structure operations internally. The use of cryptocurrency has created a big controversy in central banking circles about the creation of a new form of money outside the classic institutions. But more cyber could also create more threats for operational failures of systems, or huge thefts of data. Fintech is depriving banks of important sources of revenue and raising questions about the adequacy and sustainability of bank business models and their legacy systems. Blockchains may in theory be very secure, but the technology is still immature and they are very energy intensive. Cryptocurrencies facilitate money laundering and reduce financial inclusion, or may be simply Ponzi schemes. Robots store large amounts of private information, but how the data are used and the reasons why certain products are recommended to clients may be very opaque. In this Policy Insight, CEPS CEO Karel Lannoo assesses the impact of innovation in the cyber-sphere on finance and addresses the central question of whether the policy response, either at the global or European levels, is adequate

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

The role of private and public regulation in the case study of crypto-assets: The Italian move towards participatory regulation

With the Digital Financial package (MiCA, DLT Pilot, and DORA, later on complemented by the DAC8 proposal) the European Union seeks to establish an appropriate legal framework for crypto-assets showing a financial nature. The package represents a first attempt to regulate a complex and emerging phenomenon, characterised by significant trade-offs. Unsurprisingly, in this early stage of the law-making process several relevant aspects of the crypto environment remain unaddressed, such as pure DeFI models, DAOs, and NFTs. Such regulatory gap is to a large extent attributable to the difficulty of addressing technologically complex issues through command-and-control top-down legislation. The improvements delivered by the Better Regulation Agenda are not enough to solve this conundrum. In this context, the Communication by the Bank of Italy on Decentralised Technology in Finance and Crypto-assets and its first move, the smart-contract MoU, provide an interesting case study to discuss the potential of ‘participatory regulation.’ This experimental form of regulation tries to get the most out of co-regulation, self-regulation, and command-and-control, combining their characters with the view of reconciling the technology neutrality principle with technology-based regulation. Participatory regulation aims to bridge the public and private sector in order to strike a right balance between flexibility and legal certainty, without stifling innovation