It has been known since at least the groundbreaking work of Fama and French (1992) that there are specific attributes, so called factors, that can help predict the returns of individual assets above the return of the broader market. Since these predictive characteristics arise out of sample...

The rise of virtual currencies, like many innovations, poses legal questions. Most existing laws do not contemplate the existence of virtual currencies. Can existing U.S. criminal law, tax law, banking law, securities law, and consumer protection law nevertheless be applied to virtual...

The introduction of central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) in general, and of a digital euro in particular, has attracted growing interest from academic research, central banks and political decision-makers. Most of the existing literature is focused on the impact of a digital euro on monetary...

With Bitcoin, a new type of technology was born in 2008 when Satoshi Nakamoto released the white paper for a new cash payment system (Nakamoto 2008), which effectively invented blockchain technology. By 2015 the technology already gained a lot of interest among startups, financial institutions,...

Existing payment systems get more and more disrupted. As a consequence of the global trend of digitizing payments and generating new business models from the use of blockchain-based digital programmable money, several new payment initiatives have been announced recently. Besides “classical”...

This paper summarises the outcome of an analysis of stablecoins undertaken by the ECB Crypto-Assets Task Force. At the time of writing, the stablecoin debate lacks a common taxonomy and unambiguous terminology. This paper applies a definition that distinguishes stablecoins from existing forms of...

This paper provides an overview of recent analytical work1 conducted, under their own aegis, by experts from various European authorities and institutions in the field of crypto-asset monitoring. Currently, risks stemming from crypto-assets and the potential implications for central banking...

A digital euro would provide the general public with an additional means of payment in the form of risk-free central bank money in digital form that is universally accepted for digital payments across the euro area. A digital euro would offer a wide range of financial stability benefits,...

This paper analyzes the legal foundations of central bank digital currency (CBDC) under central bank and monetary law. Absent strong legal foundations, the issuance of CBDC poses legal, financial and reputational risks for central banks. While the appropriate design of the legal framework will...

In July 2021 the Eurosystem decided to launch the investigation phase of the digital euro project, which aims to provide euro area citizens with access to central bank money in an increasingly digitalised world. While a digital euro could offer a wide range of benefits, it could prompt changes...