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...

The meteoric rise of Bitcoin has led to heightened investment, academic, commercial, numismatic, transactional, and practitioner interest in that cryptocurrency, as well as in the growing array of such instruments worldwide. This leads to an accentuated need for an examination of the historical...

Cryptocurrencies are an area of heightened pecuniary, numismatic, technological, and investment interest, and yet a comprehensive understanding of their theories and foundations is still left wanting among many practitioners and stakeholders. This discussion paper synthesizes and summarizes the...

This discussion paper considers the implications of declaring cryptocurrencies as securities, in light of the recent SEC ruling that Bitcoin and Ethereum are not securities but smaller, recent ICOs are. Its discussion suggests that, the policy implications notwithstanding, the SEC ruling is...

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...

This discussion paper considers the risks and challenges posed to the hedge funds that are dedicated to investment mandates in the cryptocurrency space, including through the haemorrhaging loses faced in the wake of asset value declines across the entire asset class

This discussion paper raises questions about the accountability of cryptocurrencies, particularly altcoins, and the international law enforcement responses to the underlying threats that such instruments, particularly in darknet markets, pose for law enforcement agencies working globally and in...