A common narrative of cryptocurrencies presents them as "trustless," decentralized, and autonomous systems. The "trustlessness" is meant to suggest lack of need for third-party verification in blockchain technologies, but the term has been somewhat conflated with broader connotations of "trust."...

The emergence of the cryptocurrency as an investment vehicle has brought the phenomenon of Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs) into the spotlight, since they provide rapid access to capital for new ventures, but suffer from drawbacks relating to regulation and accountability. In that regard, this...

This discussion paper examines the localization of the oversight and regulatory roles for cryptocurrencies using the case of Bitlicense which is issued in New York by the Department of Financial Services, with a view to discussing the possibilities for localized regulatory licenses and agent...

The price of cryptocurrencies has been a contentious practitioner and academic question, on one hand because of its nuanced relationship to traditional finance (with challenges of mainstreaming), and on the other hand regarding its role as a hedge against hyperinflation, financial crises, and...

Virtual Assets (VAs) and Virtual Asset Service Providers (VASPs) are an area of heightened international financial regulatory interest. Although the FATF has wasted much time as a politicized instrument of economic violence against smaller economies, there are nevertheless technical areas where...

In addition to the traditional money supply, an increasing number of sovereign governments have begun to stress their commitment to launching cryptocurrencies as digital monetary instruments with a degree of substitutability with extant legal tender. The question that evidently arises is why...

There is a marked philosophical distance between social media monopolies and cryptocurrencies, the former being of digital capitalist persuasion while the latter being of cryptoanarchist provenance. This discussion paper considers an important case of the melding of the two: Facebook's proposed...

This discussion paper considers the role that blockchain-based technologies can play in advancing initiatives pertaining to environmental sustainability, using the case study of IBM's water management blockchain development in California. The paper finds that there is substantial room for...

This discussion paper considers the monetary role that cryptocurrencies can play as hedges against the crises stemming from hyperinflation. It also briefly examines such a relationship vis-a-vis currency devaluation and monetary defaults. The findings suggest that, for all the legitimate...