The crypto-metaverse transcends mere amusement and has evolved into a robust digital landscape. The paper "Digital real estate in the metaverse: An empirical analysis of retail investor motivations" reveals the motivations behind why ordinary retail investors purchase metaverse land.

We are excited to announce that the Blockchain Research Lab has received a grant from the DZ BANK Stiftung. The funded project started in August 2023 and seeks to explore the opportunities of security tokens as a local investment option for individual investors. Furthermore, we are investigating the viability of security tokens as a potential future business model for cooperative banks.

This blog post is an invited guest post by Dr Julian Granados. This post draws on the research conducted by Dr Granados at the Leibniz Center for Tropical Marine Research on the opportunities and tools that arise from blockchain technologies for facilitating Payments for Environmental Services (PES) and other environmental management schemes.

On June 15, 2023, our co-founder Professor Dr. Ingo Fiedler led an event course on the topic "Bitcoin, Ethereum, Ripple & Co. - About Cryptocurrencies and the Abolition of Cash. Digitalization in the German Financial and Banking System of the Future." within the Study Program Q+ at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz.

The talk at Der Wirtschaftsverein e.V. on 26.06.2023 provided a comprehensive overview of ChatGPT, detailing its functionality, business applications, challenges, legal considerations, and a hands-on workshop with concrete examples. The focus on opportunities and limitations makes this information highly relevant for firms, as understanding and leveraging ChatGPT could unlock new potentials in automation, customer engagement, and various innovative solutions tailored to modern business needs.

The Blockchain Research Lab is proud to announce its 5th birthday! Together, we reflect upon this incredible journey, looking back at the past few years of exciting new experiences, successes, challenges, and opportunities. Below, we present an interview with the core BRL team, uncovering their unique perspectives and guidance.

This blog post post by Anna Vennonen draws on the ethnographic study she conducted for her Master’s Thesis at the University of Helsinki in 2023, titled: ‘More than Money: An Ethnography of Dreams, Value and Community in the Cryptoscene’. The research was supported by a scholarship from Blockchain Research Lab.

By using a synthetic difference-in-difference methodology approach, the newly published article reveals that a group of AI-crypto-assets curated by CoinGecko enjoyed a price boost of at least 10.7% and 35.5% beyond non-AI-crypto-assets in the one-month and two-month period after the ChatGPT launch.

Our co-founder Fred Steinmetz recently led an immersive in-person seminar at the Hessische Landesstelle für Suchtfragen e.V. (HLS), a non-profit organization focused on information, help and consultancy as well as prevention of gambling addiction, to deepen the understanding of the interrelations between cryptocurrency and gambling among participants.

As a researcher with a deep interest in the intersections of cryptocurrency and gambling, our co-founder Fred Steinmetz recently had the pleasure of leading a seminar on this topic at the Landesfachstelle Glücksspielsucht North-Rhine Westphalia (NRW) – a non-profit organization focused on information, support and consultancy as well as prevention of gambling addiction.

We are excited to announce that the research paper “Enhancing Trust, Efficiency, and Empowerment in Sports: Developing a Blockchain-Based Fan Token Framework” has been accepted at the prestigious Thirty-first European Conference on Information Systems (ECIS 2023), Kristiansand, Norway. This research presents a comprehensive analysis of the potential of fan tokens in revolutionizing fan engagement and empowerment through blockchain technology.

We are excited to announce the release of our latest comprehensive report “Avatars: Shaping Digital Identity in the Metaverse”, that delves into the essential role avatars play in the metaverse and digital identity. As a major pillar of the metaverse ecosystem, avatars have evolved significantly over time, and this report covers various aspects of avatars, including their market size, psychological factors influencing avatar selection, and their potential for growth in Web 3.0.

During his presentation at the Ruhr University Bochum’s Gambling research division GLUEG to a group of specialists and experts in the field of gambling, our co-founder Fred Steinmetz shared research from a paper that he led which examined the interrelation between pay-to-win gaming and gambling.

Organized by the Research Chair on Gambling at Concordia University, Montreal, our co-founder Professor Dr. Ingo Fiedler gave a presentation at the Conference Series on online gambling on the current regulatory landscape of online gambling in Germany and provided insights into the current challenges and discourse around the gambling treaty.

On 15th March 2023, our co-founder Professor Dr. Ingo Fiedler gave a presentation on the overlap of cryptocurrencies and gambling at the 20th gambling symposium of the Gambling Research Center at University of Hohenheim.

New study: The launch of OpenAI's ChatGPT artificial intelligence chatbot in November 2022 had a positive impact on AI-themed cryptocurrencies, resulting in abnormal returns up to 41% over two weeks and 90% of tokens exhibiting positive abnormal returns. This suggests that the attention towards ChatGPT and AI in general has transitioned to cryptocurrency markets, leading to a positive price effect for AI-related cryptocurrencies.

Stablecoins have become an increasingly popular topic in the cryptocurrency space. These digital assets are pegged to the value of a traditional currency, such as the US dollar, and are designed to minimize price volatility. In our recently published article „A Systematic Literature Review of Empirical Research on Stablecoins“, we revealed key findings of previous studies and promising areas for future research.

For this year´s #GivingTuesday, it is our objective to raise funds for an exciting research project - focusing on the price impacts of decade-old Bitcoins. The project would be about the price impacts of “Satoshi era coin” moves. Satoshi era coins are Bitcoins that have been held in wallets for more than a decade and never been moved since then. The results contribute to public and scientific knowledge in the realm of market efficiency of cryptocurrency markets.

Are you looking for a new challenge? We are hiring a Research Associate / Postdoc (full-time position), Working Student and Social Media Manager (mini-job) to support our team. Are you the one? Apply today!

Digital real estate in the form of digital parcels of LAND in virtual worlds such as The Sandbox is emerging as a new asset class and may represent a significant aspect of future digital social interaction, identity on the internet, the metaverse and financial markets. The research note „An analysis of LAND in The Sandbox: Q4 2022” conducts a data-driven analysis of LAND in regards of its pricing, distribution and other factors.

Our CEO Dr. Lennart Ante presented his working paper "Liquidity Shocks, Token Returns and Market Capitalization in Decentralized Finance (DeFi) Markets", where he analyzes so-called swaps on decentralized exchanges (DEXes) and challenges the metric "market capitalization" by highlighting how it insufficiently represents the actual value of DeFi tokens.

The renowned transatlantic think tank Aspen Institute Germany invited our CEO Dr. Lennart Ante as one of two experts to discuss the role of crypto assets for the financial system with a selected group of personalities from politics and business.

We would like to thank the Czech Academy of Sciences for hosting this year´s “Statistics of Machine Learning (STAT of ML) 2022“, from October 6 to October 7, 2022 in Prague, Czech Republic. Our CEO and co-founder Dr. Lennart Ante presented research on stablecoins and the market efficiency of crypto assets at the conference.

In the study “The interrelations between cryptocurrency and gambling: Results from a representative sample”, Fred Steinmetz contributes to the literature by identifying differentiating factors of cryptocurrency users, gamblers and users of both activities.

Our scientific report „LAND Ho! Digital Real Estate in the Metaverse as an Emerging Asset Class” highlights digital real estate (or virtual land) in the metaverse as an emerging asset class. It examines the price drivers of digital real estate and whether it represents a new and unique asset class.

In this BRL research note, we analyzed data from the list of all 22,560 individual Mt. Gox creditors, who may receive payouts by late August, 2022. The total claims amount to $18.6 billion in BTC and BCH and $48.1 million in USD. The top 1% of creditors together account for over 50% of all claims. The top 0.1% – only 23 claims – share 27.3% of all claims, or $5.1 billion.

We are pleased to announce that the Blockchain Research Lab has received a grant from the Ethereum Foundation. The aim of the project is to investigate the extent to which transaction costs interrelate with different economic activities on the Ethereum network. We would like to thank the Ethereum Foundation for its trust placed in us and look forward to the implementation of the research project.

This blog post is an invited guest post by Dr. Aman Saggu. It is based on his article ‘The Intraday Bitcoin Response to Tether Minting and Burning Events: Asymmetry, Investor Sentiment, and “Whale Alerts” on Twitter’ that was recently published in Finance Research Letters.

We would like to thank the Blockmagazin and WeWork for organising and hosting this year´s “Blockchain in der Anwendung“ event, which took place on the 28th of July 2022. Our CEO and co-founder Dr. Lennart Ante presented research results on the "Musk Effect" in cryptocurrency markets.

We are pleased to announce that our co-founders Dr. Lennart Ante and Prof. Dr. Ingo Fiedler will be editing a Special Issue of the academic journal Digital Business. This issue will focus on the topic of "Emerging Digital Platforms and Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs)". In the post, further information on the Call for Papers, deadlines and other topics are provided.

We are happy to announce that our co-founder Dr. Lennart Ante was awarded as "Best Reviewer" at the 30th European Conference on Information Systems (ECIS 2022), Timisoara, 18-24 June. The conference represents one of the major scientific conferences in information systems (IS) research.

For episode 28 of the ACIT podcast, our co-founder Prof. Dr. Ingo Fiedler was invited by Manuel Brenner to talk about blockchain and cryptocurrencies. For around two hours Manuel and Ingo discuss topics like Bitcoin and Ethereum, proof of work and proof of stake, and much more.

The BLOCKCHAIN WEEK at Carl von Ossietzky University Oldenburg provides a platform for exploring blockchain from different angles. Our co-founder Dr. Lennart Ante presented on the topic of stablecoins and Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC).

Our research activities have again been honored by the Stifterverband für die Deutsche Wissenschaft with the seal of approval "Innovativ durch Forschung". We are very proud to carry the seal of approval and would like to thank our employees for their commitment to explore the opportunities and limits of the blockchain technology and sharing their findings with society.

We are pleased to announce that our co-founder Dr. Lennart Ante will be editing a Special Issue of the academic journal Digital Finance. This issue will focus on the topic of Decentralized Finance (DeFi). In the post, further information on the Call for Papers, deadlines and other topics are provided.

We published a revised version of the working paper, which provides a comprehensive review of the so-called "Musk Effect" and includes new findings. The study shows the significant impact that the social media activity of influential individuals can have on cryptocurrencies.

We would like to thank the organizers for this year´s “Blockchance Europe 2021“, which took place from the 2nd to 4th of December 2021 at the Chamber of Commerce Hamburg. The BRL presented research findings on the topic of Bitcoin's energy consumption.

The 13th Chinese Economic Association (Europe) and 32nd CEA (UK) Annual Conference provided a platform for research on climate change as one of the biggest challenges of our times. Our co-founder Dr. Lennart Ante presented his research on the topic of green finance to the audience.

Get involved in the Day of Giving and be part of the worldwide movement of the #GivingTuesday. We would be very happy if we could reach our goal together.

We would like to thank the Blockchain Research Center at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, the Austrian Blockchain Center (ABC Research), the University College Dublin, the HTW Berlin and the University of Zurich for organising and hosting this year´s “3rd Berlin Conference Crypto-Currencies in a Digital Economy (CCC3/ CCConf 2021)“

Our co-founder Fred Steinmetz gave a lecture on „Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) – The future of the Euro“ on the occasion of the FinTech Week 2021 at the Blockchain Monday of the Hanseatic Blockchain Institute.

At this year's 3rd Crypto Asset Lab Conference of the Crypto Asset Lab of Università Milano-Bicocca and the European Commission's Joint Research Centre (JRC), our co-founder Dr. Lennart Ante will present his working paper titled „Non-fungible token (NFT) markets on the Ethereum blockchain: Temporal development, cointegration and interrelations”

At this year's 25th FMM Conference: Macroeconomics of Socio-Ecological Transition of the Hans-Böckler-Stiftung, our co-founder Dr. Lennart Ante will present the working paper titled „The scope of green finance research: Research streams, influential works, intellectual exchange and future research paths”.

We are very pleased to be able to give a workshop on the 8th of November 2021 on the topic of „Decentralized Finance (DeFi): An open financial system on the blockchain“ at the Hamburg Economic Forum. The event is organized by Handelskammer Hamburg with Deutsche Bundesbank and HAW Hamburg and is aimed at young professionals and students.

On the 17th of November 2021 our co-founder Dr. Lennart Ante will be giving a presentation on our paper “Non-fungible token (NFT) markets on the Ethereum blockchain: Temporal development, cointegration and interrelations” at the IFZ FinTech Colloquium 2021 of the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts.

We are very pleased to participate again this year with a presentation on Bitcoin's energy consumption at the upcoming Blockchance Europe 2021. Blockchance is Germany´s leading blockchain conference and will be held in Hamburg from December 2 to 4, 2021.

On 17th September, our co-founder Lennart Ante presented a poster at the Blockchain Autumn School (BAS2021) on the working paper "Bitcoin's energy consumption and social costs in relation to its capacity as a settlement layer".

This second post of the series on cryptocurrency adoption looks at correlations between variables on (1) knowledge about cryptocurrency and blockchain technology, (2) current and former cryptocurrency ownership and (3) estimations of trustworthiness towards cryptocurrency.

First part of our blog series on cryptocurrency adoption, highlighting different aspects of prevalence, use and perceptions. The analyses are based on a survey of a representative (in regards to gender and age) sample of 3,684 German citizens, sourced between February and March 2019.

Our co-founder Fred Steinmetz presented at the event, highlighting the relevance of blockchain technology for addressing current and future issues in public finance. The presentation comprised topics such as central bank digital currency, Facebook-initiated digital currency Diem as well as artificial intelligence’s implications for public finance.

In the event that is held monthly and covers latest topics and research relating to gambling, our co-founder Fred Steinmetz presented on the most important overlaps of blockchain, cryptocurrency and gambling by highlighting the phenomenon of ‘decentralized gambling’.

The Blockchain Research Lab is pleased to announce a partnership with Popsicle Finance to start a research project in the area of Decentralized Finance (DeFi). Within the research project, the relevant DeFi ecosystem(s) will be mapped, market inefficiencies identified and possible yield optimization and hedging strategies will be analysed with the goal to make DeFi markets less risky and more efficient.

Thanks to the HERMES research group for organizing and hosting the very insightful “Interactive Symposium 2021 on the Commodification of Gam(bl)ing” at Concordia University, Montréal. Our co-founder Ingo Fiedler led an interactive workshop on the overlaps of gambling and cryptocurrency trading.

A new form of digital investment has hit the mainstream. Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) are following in the footsteps of cryptocurrencies, fetching large sums in digital auctions and sales. NFTs are unique certificates of authenticity on blockchains, usually issued by the creators of the underlying works (or assets).

In our study, "A bibliometric review of research on digital identity", we identified research streams and emerging trends in academic research on digital identity through a bibliometric analysis of 1,395 peer-reviewed articles and their 44,412 references.

Based on a representative online survey, this report offers insights about the motivational factors for using digital identity solutions and risk perceptions towards the sharing and provision of personal data online as well as the trust placed in companies and institutions handling personal data.

We are very pleased that our paper „Exclusive Mining of Blockchain Transactions“ received the best paper award (2nd place) sponsored by Volksbank Mittweida at the Scientific Track of the Blockchain Autumn School.

We are pleased to announce that we have recently become a member of the Federal Association for Information Technology, Telecommunications and New Media (Bitkom e.V.). For us, the membership is an important step, in order to participate actively in current topics and discussions.

The book is written in a non-technical and accessible way and strives to demystify the functionalities of blockchains and their potential for a range of readers in the wider social sciences. It begins by explaining the key concepts of blockchain technology and presents an overview of the involved technical and economic elements.

Our research activities have been honored by the Stifterverband für die Deutsche Wissenschaft with the seal of approval "Innovativ durch Forschung". We would like to thank our employees for their commitment to explore the opportunities and limits of the blockchain technology and sharing their findings with society.

How does a typical evening with us look like? An insight using the example of an event at Hadley's in June 2018 by Christopher Nigischer.