IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/aea/jecper/v29y2015i2p213-38.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Bitcoin: Economics, Technology, and Governance

Author

Listed:
  • Rainer Böhme
  • Nicolas Christin
  • Benjamin Edelman
  • Tyler Moore

Abstract

Bitcoin is an online communication protocol that facilitates the use of a virtual currency, including electronic payments. Bitcoin's rules were designed by engineers with no apparent influence from lawyers or regulators. Bitcoin is built on a transaction log that is distributed across a network of participating computers. It includes mechanisms to reward honest participation, to bootstrap acceptance by early adopters, and to guard against concentrations of power. Bitcoin's design allows for irreversible transactions, a prescribed path of money creation over time, and a public transaction history. Anyone can create a Bitcoin account, without charge and without any centralized vetting procedure—or even a requirement to provide a real name. Collectively, these rules yield a system that is understood to be more flexible, more private, and less amenable to regulatory oversight than other forms of payment—though as we discuss, all these benefits face important limits. Bitcoin is of interest to economists as a virtual currency with potential to disrupt existing payment systems and perhaps even monetary systems. This article presents the platform's design principles and properties for a nontechnical audience; reviews its past, present, and future uses; and points out risks and regulatory issues as Bitcoin interacts with the conventional financial system and the real economy.

Suggested Citation

  • Rainer Böhme & Nicolas Christin & Benjamin Edelman & Tyler Moore, 2015. "Bitcoin: Economics, Technology, and Governance," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 29(2), pages 213-238, Spring.
    • Handle: RePEc:aea:jecper:v:29:y:2015:i:2:p:213-38
    Note: DOI: 10.1257/jep.29.2.213
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.aeaweb.org/articles.php?doi=10.1257/jep.29.2.213
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: http://www.aeaweb.org/jep/ds/2902/29020213_ds.zip
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to AEA members and institutional subscribers.
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Nicolas Houy, 2014. "The economics of Bitcoin transaction fees," Working Papers halshs-00951358, HAL.
    2. Nicolas Houy, 2014. "The Bitcoin mining games," Working Papers 1412, Groupe d'Analyse et de Théorie Economique Lyon St-Étienne (GATE Lyon St-Étienne), Université de Lyon.
    3. Marie Briere & Kim Oosterlinck & Ariane Szafarz, 2015. "Virtual Currency, Tangible Return: Portfolio Diversification with Bitcoins," Post-Print CEB, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles, vol. 16(6), pages 365-373.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Parthajit Kayal & Purnima Rohilla, 2021. "Bitcoin in the economics and finance literature: a survey," SN Business & Economics, Springer, vol. 1(7), pages 1-21, July.
    2. Yan, Guanghui & Wang, Shan & Li, Shikui & Lu, Binwei, 2022. "Multi-player dynamic game model for Bitcoin transaction bidding prediction," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 60(C).
    3. Zura Kakushadze & Jim Kyung-Soo Liew, 2018. "CryptoRuble: From Russia with Love," Papers 1801.05760, arXiv.org.
    4. Andreas Hanl, 2018. "Some Insights into the Development of Cryptocurrencies," MAGKS Papers on Economics 201804, Philipps-Universität Marburg, Faculty of Business Administration and Economics, Department of Economics (Volkswirtschaftliche Abteilung).
    5. Bouri, Elie & Lucey, Brian & Roubaud, David, 2020. "Cryptocurrencies and the downside risk in equity investments," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 33(C).
    6. Christie Smith & Aaron Kumar, 2018. "Crypto‐Currencies – An Introduction To Not‐So‐Funny Moneys," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 32(5), pages 1531-1559, December.
    7. Ariane Szafarz, 2015. "Market Efficiency and Crises:Don’t Throw the Baby out with the Bathwater," Bankers, Markets & Investors, ESKA Publishing, issue 139, pages 20-26, November-.
    8. Bildirici, Melike E. & Sonustun, Bahri, 2021. "Chaotic behavior in gold, silver, copper and bitcoin prices," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 74(C).
    9. White, Reilly & Marinakis, Yorgos & Islam, Nazrul & Walsh, Steven, 2020. "Is Bitcoin a currency, a technology-based product, or something else?," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 151(C).
    10. Pieters, Gina & Vivanco, Sofia, 2017. "Financial regulations and price inconsistencies across Bitcoin markets," Information Economics and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 39(C), pages 1-14.
    11. Corbet, Shaen & Katsiampa, Paraskevi & Lau, Chi Keung Marco, 2020. "Measuring quantile dependence and testing directional predictability between Bitcoin, altcoins and traditional financial assets," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 71(C).
    12. Bouri, Elie & Gupta, Rangan & Lahiani, Amine & Shahbaz, Muhammad, 2018. "Testing for asymmetric nonlinear short- and long-run relationships between bitcoin, aggregate commodity and gold prices," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 57(C), pages 224-235.
    13. Masafumi Nakano & Akihiko Takahashi & Soichiro Takahashi, 2018. "Bitcoin technical trading with artificial neural network," CIRJE F-Series CIRJE-F-1078, CIRJE, Faculty of Economics, University of Tokyo.
    14. Ting-Hsuan Chen & Mu-Yen Chen & Guan-Ting Du, 2021. "The Determinants of Bitcoin’s Price: Utilization of GARCH and Machine Learning Approaches," Computational Economics, Springer;Society for Computational Economics, vol. 57(1), pages 267-280, January.
    15. Mateus Portelinha & Carlos Heitor Campani & Raphael Roquete, 2021. "The impacts of cryptocurrencies in the performance of Brazilian stocks' portfolios," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 41(3), pages 1919-1931.
    16. Galvani, Valentina & Faychuk, Vita, 2022. "The Mean-Variance Core of Cryptocurrencies: When More is Not Better," Working Papers 2022-4, University of Alberta, Department of Economics.
    17. Masafumi Nakano & Akihiko Takahashi & Soichiro Takahashi, 2018. "Bitcoin technical trading with artificial neural network," CARF F-Series CARF-F-430, Center for Advanced Research in Finance, Faculty of Economics, The University of Tokyo.
    18. Michael Demmler & Amilcar Orlian Fernández Domínguez, 2021. "Bitcoin and the South Sea Company: A comparative analysis," Revista Finanzas y Politica Economica, Universidad Católica de Colombia, vol. 13(1), pages 197-224, March.
    19. Aniruddha Dutta & Saket Kumar & Meheli Basu, 2020. "A Gated Recurrent Unit Approach to Bitcoin Price Prediction," JRFM, MDPI, vol. 13(2), pages 1-16, February.
    20. Yuanyuan Zhang & Stephen Chan & Jeffrey Chu & Hana Sulieman, 2020. "On the Market Efficiency and Liquidity of High-Frequency Cryptocurrencies in a Bull and Bear Market," JRFM, MDPI, vol. 13(1), pages 1-14, January.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • E42 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Money and Interest Rates - - - Monetary Sytsems; Standards; Regimes; Government and the Monetary System
    • E58 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit - - - Central Banks and Their Policies
    • L51 - Industrial Organization - - Regulation and Industrial Policy - - - Economics of Regulation

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:aea:jecper:v:29:y:2015:i:2:p:213-38. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Michael P. Albert (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/aeaaaea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.