We explain the mechanics of smart contracts. We then highlight benefits of smart contracts such as overcoming commitment problems. We also discuss limitations such as the difficulty for smart contracts to access information external to the blockchain and the difficulty of integrating smart...

Proof-of-Work (PoW) blockchains possess at least two undesirable characteristics: exceptional price volatility and welfare impairment. Exceptional price volatility arises because PoW implements a passive monetary policy that fails to modulate cryptocurrency demand shocks. Welfare impairment...

We model a supply chain with a single risk-averse manufacturer who purchases from vendors and sells to consumers. We find that blockchain adoption always enhances manufacturer welfare in this setting when adoption costs are zero; as a consequence, the manufacturer always adopts blockchain for...

Permissionless blockchains require a protocol to generate consensus. Many prominent permissionless blockchains employ Proof-of-Work (PoW) for that purpose, but PoW possesses significant shortcomings. Various alternatives have been proposed. This paper provides the first formal economic model of...

We demonstrate that increasing trading fees at a decentralized exchange (DEX) can increase DEX trading volume. This result arises due to the fact that higher DEX fees can endogenously reduce the price impact of trading at the DEX, thereby reducing the overall DEX trading cost and driving trading...