Embedded supervision: how to build regulation into blockchain finance

Raphael Auer

No 811, BIS Working Papers from Bank for International Settlements

Abstract: The spread of distributed ledger technology (DLT) in finance could help to improve the efficiency and quality of supervision. This paper makes the case for embedded supervision, ie a regulatory framework that provides for compliance in tokenised markets to be automatically monitored by reading the market's ledger, thus reducing the need for firms to actively collect, verify and deliver data. After sketching out a design for such schemes, the paper explores the conditions under which distributed ledger data might be used to monitor compliance. To this end, a decentralised market is modelled that replaces today's intermediary-based verification of legal data with blockchain-enabled data credibility based on economic consensus. The key results set out the conditions under which the market's economic consensus would be strong enough to guarantee that transactions are economically final, so that supervisors can trust the distributed ledger's data. The paper concludes with a discussion of the legislative and operational requirements that would promote low-cost supervision and a level playing field for small and large firms.

Keywords: tokenisation; asset-backed tokens; stablecoins; cryptoassets; cryptocurrencies; regtech; suptech; regulation; supervision; Basel III; proportionality; blockchain; distributed ledger technology; digital currencies; proof-of-work; proof-of-stake; permissioned DLT; economic consensus; economic finality; fintech; compliance; auditing; accounting; privacy; digitalisation; finance; banking (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D20 D40 E42 E51 F31 G12 G18 G28 G32 G38 K22 K24 L10 L50 M40 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 33 pages
Date: 2019-09
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-acc, nep-law, nep-mac and nep-pay
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (17)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.bis.org/publ/work811.pdf Full PDF document (application/pdf)
https://www.bis.org/publ/work811.htm (text/html)

Related works:
Working Paper: Embedded supervision: how to build regulation into blockchain finance (2019)
Working Paper: Embedded Supervision: How to Build Regulation into Blockchain Finance (2019)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bis:biswps:811

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in BIS Working Papers from Bank for International Settlements Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Martin Fessler ().