Explore the vast range of titles available.

Non-technical and accessible, this book seeks to demystify the functionalities of blockchains, their potential as well as their likely socio-economic impacts.

Blockchain technology has the potential to disrupt digital interaction across our economy and society. As the internet has changed our lives, the potential for blockchain and distributed ledger technologies to do the same is considerable. Fred Steinmetz, Lennart Ante and Ingo Fiedler assess this rapidly developing technology and its imminent economic and societal impact. The ideas behind blockchain technology stem from an open-source movement and build on existing technology to facilitate the exchange of value in general and assets in particular via a protocol on top of the internet. Current platform-based business structures face the risk of being replaced by evolving decentralized ecosystems and individuals are set to become empowered by sovereignty over their digital data and footprints. The book begins by explaining the key concepts of blockchain technology and presents an overview of the involved technical and economic elements. These form the basis for a discussion of the socio-economic implications of this new technology. This is followed by an in-depth analysis of significant case studies in the sectors of energy, digital identity, capital markets, logistics and gambling that outline the risks and benefits of the technology. The book strives to be non-technical and accessible, and to demystify the functionalities of blockchains and their potential for a range of readers in the wider social sciences.

Blockchain technology has the potential to disrupt digital interaction across our economy and society. As the internet has changed our lives, the potential for blockchain and distributed ledger technologies to do the same is considerable. Fred Steinmetz, Lennart Ante and Ingo Fiedler assess this rapidly developing technology and its imminent economic and societal impact. The ideas behind blockchain technology stem from an open-source movement and build on existing technology to facilitate the exchange of value in general and assets in particular via a protocol on top of the internet. Current platform-based business structures face the risk of being replaced by evolving decentralized ecosystems and individuals are set to become empowered by sovereignty over their digital data and footprints. The book begins by explaining the key concepts of blockchain technology and presents an overview of the involved technical and economic elements. These form the basis for a discussion of the socio-economic implications of this new technology. This is followed by an in-depth analysis of significant case studies in the sectors of energy, digital identity, capital markets, logistics and gambling that outline the risks and benefits of the technology. The book strives to be non-technical and accessible, and to demystify the functionalities of blockchains and their potential for a range of readers in the wider social sciences.

Pay-to-Win gaming describes a common type of video game design in which players can pay to advance in the game. The frequency and value of payments is unlimited, and payments are linked to players’ competitiveness or progress in the game, which can potentially facilitate problematic behavioral patterns, similar to those known from gambling. Our analyses focus on assessing similarities and differences between Pay-to-Win and different forms of gambling. Based on a survey among 46,136 German adult internet users, this study presents the demographic and socio-economic profile of (1) Pay-to-Win gamers who make purchases in such games, (2) heavy users who conduct daily payments, and (3) gamers who are also gamblers. Motives for making payments were assessed and participation, frequency and spending in gambling by Pay-to-Win gamers are presented. To assess the similarity of Pay-to-Win gaming and gambling, we tested whether Pay-to-Win participation, frequency of payments and problematic gaming behavior are predictors for gambling and cross-tested the opposite effects of gambling on Pay-to-Win. We find that Pay-to-Win gamers are a distinct consumer group with considerable attraction to gambling. High engagement and problematic behavior in one game form affects (over)involvement in the other. Common ground for Pay-to-Win gaming and gambling is the facilitation of recurring payments.

Bitcoin has always been used to store arbitrary data, particularly since Bitcoin Core developers added a dedicated method for data storage in 2014: the OP Return operator. This paper provides an in-depth analysis of all OP Return transactions published on Bitcoin between September 14, 2018, and December 31, 2019. The 32.4 million OP Return transactions (22% of all Bitcoin transactions) published during this period added 10 GB to the blockchain’s size. Almost all OP Return transactions can be attributed to one of 37 blockchain services. The two dominant services are Veriblock (58% of OP Return transactions) and Omni/Tether (40%). Veriblock transactions pay only 14% of the average transaction fee, partly because most of them are submitted during times when overall activity on Bitcoin is low. Omni transactions, on the other hand, pay more than twice the average transaction fee and therefore compete with regular Bitcoin transactions for inclusion in new blocks.

With ownership estimates of up to 25%, Turkey is at the forefront of cryptocurrency adoption, rendering it an interesting example to study the proclaimed use cases of cryptocurrencies. Using exploratory factor analysis based on a sample of 715 Turkish cryptocurrency owners, we identified 3 different owner groups and their underlying motives. The first group (payment users) looks at cryptocurrency as an option for payments, thereby disregarding its speculative element, while the second group (crypto investors) can best be described as experienced investors holding cryptocurrency as part of their investment strategy. The third group (crypto traders) consists of risk-tolerant traders. Further analyses show that groups not only differentiate by demographics, income and education, but also by factors such as ideology, purchase intention and the use of domestic or foreign exchanges. The results contribute to the understanding of Turkish cryptocurrency owners, their intrinsic and extrinsic motivations and can be incorporated into the pending regulatory processes in the country. The findings suggest that cryptocurrencies have outgrown the use case of mere speculation in Turkey. Those in the group of Turkish payment users are identified as potential lead users whose current needs may represent common needs for crypto users in similar markets in the future. These findings motivate further research on the diffusion and usage patterns of cryptocurrency in emerging markets and innovation in general in the context of lead markets.

Gambling usually involves wagering real money but can also be conducted with virtual money, chips, or coins. This phenomenon is sometimes referred to as simulated gambling, social gambling, or play money gambling. This study explores correlations and transitions between simulated gambling and real money gambling with an emphasis on gambling-related harms and public health concerns. The analysis is based on a national representative survey of 46,136 German Internet users which included 5,191 real money online gamblers (RMG), 54% of whom had also participated in simulated gambling (SG). The data set is divided into subsamples based on participation in SG to carve out significant differences in these groups in regard to various socio demographics, gambling patterns, and gambling problems. Regression models are used to predict RMG frequency, participation in SG, SG participation frequency, and problem gambling. The results show a clear proximity between SG and RMG with 17% of the total sample and 54% of problem gamblers reporting being “quite sure” or “certain” that simulated gambling had led them to gambling with real money. While 7% of individuals that engaged exclusively in RMG showed gambling problems, the rate is 33% for those that engaged in both RMG and SG. Regression results provide further evidence of a relationship between SG and problem gambling, although with differing effect sizes for different game forms. We argue that SG can be both a substitute and a primer for RMG, especially for problem gamblers.

Since the creation of Bitcoin in 2009, interest in the cryptocurrency and its features has been growing, mostly within IT-related communities (Romano & Schmid 2017). For many years, the technology that underpins Bitcoin has largely been unnoticed by the public (Mattila 2016). Although Bitcoin constitutes an independent monetary system, free from governmental influence, via monetary politics, and free from intermediation by fi nancial institutions and service providers, the underlying technology can be decoupled from it: blockchain describes the data structure, which is managed in decentralized ways and facilitates frictionless transactions directly between trading counterparties. Bogart and Rice (2015) explain that