On July 9, 2020, a criminal complaint was filed against Joshua Thomas Argires, a Houston business owner, for submitting materially false loan applications to obtain and misuse funds from the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP). Around May 2020, Mr. Argires opened an account in the name of Texas Barbecue at Coinbase and began trading crypto, ultimately… Read More »
Crypto assets exhibit considerable design and value proposition differences, ranging from inflation protection to facilitating more streamlined payments, ensuring censorship-resistant computing, and safeguarding property rights. Nevertheless, their prices often exhibit similar cyclical patterns. Surge periods with substantial returns have lured both retail and institutional investors. Meanwhile, the subsequent market downturns have garnered growing scrutiny from… Read More »
Decentralized Finance (DeFi) represents a growing set of financial services that attempt to replicate key functions of the conventional financial system in an open and decentralized way using blockchain technology. This emerging form of capital markets has become economically meaningful; the Federal Reserve estimated the total value of digital contracts locked in DeFi applications exceeded… Read More »
Markets built on public, permissionless blockchains like Ethereum are radically transparent. While pending transactions in traditional finance are considered private information, viewable only by brokers or corporate insiders, transactions submitted to Ethereum’s public mempool—where they wait to be included on the blockchain—are publicly known. This creates profit opportunities and trading strategies that are rarely, if… Read More »
Crypto assets and crypto-related financial activities are generating considerable discourse among global regulators and financial supervisors. As key actors in the emerging alternative finance ecosystems, crypto and its market actors have drawn increasing attention to their potential policy implications, particularly on financial integrity, consumer protection and financial stability. This is primarily because crypto ecosystems remain… Read More »
Since the inception of Bitcoin in 2008, crypto assets, have long been perceived as one of the riskiest assets.1 Unlike traditional assets, many cryptocurrencies are decentralized, limited in supply, and difficult to value, leading to speculation, high divergence of opinion, and extreme price volatility. These features, combined with the rapid growth of crypto markets during… Read More »
Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) have been in the spotlight for several years now following a trading frenzy and spectacular returns. An NFT is a digital record of ownership, created and stored on a blockchain, and thus tamper-proof and auditable. Blockchains are decentralized ledgers of transactions that are designed to run perpetually, hence providing the basis for… Read More »
The following is Lee Reiners’ oral statement delivered in front of the United States Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, And Urban Affairs at the Committee’s February 14th hearing entitled, “Crypto Crash: Why Financial System Safeguards are Needed for Digital Assets.” Thank you for inviting me to testify at today’s hearing. My name is Lee… Read More »
This essay summarizes new research findings regarding cryptocurrency-exposed companies (companies that hold cryptocurrencies) and why they should be excluded from Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) investment funds. ESG is an amorphous term with no universally agreed-upon definition. The environmental factor includes considerations like a company’s pollution, water usage, and effects on biodiversity. Social factors include… Read More »
As a new species of cryptographic asset based on blockchain technology, the non-fungible token (NFT) became prominent and attracted attention from academia and practitioners. Unlike cryptocurrencies, which primarily serve as a medium of exchange, NFTs are blockchain-recorded digital assets that can be anything digital, e.g., images, videos, and songs. The NFT market reached its peak… Read More »
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