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In this paper, we provide detailed analyses of the Bitcoin network and its main participants. We build a novel database using a large number of public and proprietary sources to link Bitcoin addresses to real entities and develop an extensive suite of algorithms to extract information about the behavior of the main market participants. We conduct three major pieces of analysis of the Bitcoin eco-system. First, we analyze the transaction volume and network structure of the main participants on the blockchain. Second, we document the concentration and regional composition of the miners which are the backbone of the verification protocol and ensure the integrity of the blockchain ledger. Finally, we analyze the ownership concentration of the largest holders of Bitcoin.
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The paper provides an overview of cryptocurrencies and decentralized finance. The discussion lays out potential benefits and challenges of the new system and presents a comparison to the traditional system of financial intermediation. Our analysis highlights that while the DeFi architecture might have the potential to reduce transaction costs, similar to the traditional financial system, there are several layers where rents can accumulate due to endogenous constraints to competition. We show that the permissionless and pseudonymous design of DeFi generates challenges for enforcing tax compliance, anti-money laundering laws, and preventing financial malfeasance. We highlight ways to regulate the DeFi system which would preserve a majority of benefits of the underlying blockchain architecture but support accountability and regulatory compliance.
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Greener economic development in Russia will allow the country to overcome the limits of its current fossil fuel-dependent growth model. It can deliver prosperity to Russia's citizens that is more sustainable and more resilient to external shocks in a rapidly changing global economy. The choices toward carbon neutrality made by an increasing number of countries and companies bring a new wave of uncertainty to the value of fossil fuel assets. This uncertainty is likely to result in lower and more volatile revenue from exports of hydrocarbons and energy-intensive industrial products.
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Terra, the third largest cryptocurrency ecosystem after Bitcoin and Ethereum, collapsed in three days in May 2022 and wiped out $50 billion in valuation. At the center of the collapse was a run on a blockchain-based borrowing and lending protocol (Anchor) that promised high yields to its stablecoin (UST) depositors. Using detailed data from the Terra blockchain and trading data from exchanges, we show that the run on Terra was a complex phenomenon that happened across multiple chains and assets. It was unlikely due to concentrated market manipulation by a third party but instead was precipitated by growing concerns about the sustainability of the system. Once a few large holders of UST adjusted their positions on May 7th, 2022, other large traders followed. Blockchain technology allowed investors to monitor each other's actions and amplified the speed of the run. Wealthier and more sophisticated investors were the first to run and experienced much smaller losses. Poorer and less sophisticated investors ran later and had larger losses. The complexity of the system made it difficult even for insiders to understand the buildup of risk. Finally, we draw broader lessons about financial fragility in an environment where a regulatory safety net does not exist, pseudonymous transactions are publicly observable, and market participants are incentivized to monitor the financial health of the system.
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Trading in cryptocurrencies has grown rapidly over the last decade, primarily dominated by retail investors. Using a dataset of 200,000 retail traders from eToro, we show that they have a different model of the underlying price dynamics in cryptocurrencies relative to other assets. Retail traders in our sample are contrarian in stocks and gold, yet the same traders follow a momentum-like strategy in cryptocurrencies. Individual characteristics do not explain the differences in how people trade cryptocurrencies versus stocks, suggesting that our results are orthogonal to differences in investor composition or clientele effects. Furthermore, our findings are not explained by inattention, differences in fees, or preference for lotterylike stocks. We conjecture that retail investors hold a model of cryptocurrency prices, where price changes imply a change in the likelihood of future widespread adoption, which in turn pushes asset prices further in the same direction.
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