Policy issues on crypto-assets

Carlo Gola and Andrea Caponera (andrea.caponera@bancaditalia.it)

LIUC Papers in Economics from Cattaneo University (LIUC)

Abstract: This paper describes the economic characteristics of crypto-assets and the regulation of the exchanges and custodian wallet providers adopted in various jurisdictions. The possible accounting and prudential treatments are then analysed. The paper provides a taxonomy of DLT digital tokens based on mutually exclusive classes. Bitcoin belongs to the class of private digital tokens with no underlining claim or liability against an issuer, exchangeable at a floating rate, which operate through an electronic protocol called permissionless distributed ledger technology (DLT). The literature on the subject shows that this type of crypto-assets do not fall within the category of money and financial instruments. The instability of their price must be considered when evaluating these instruments from an accounting and prudential point of view. The paper describes the basic features of initial coin offerings (ICOs), smart contracts, and other related aspects.

Pages: 50 pages
Date: 2019-06
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ban and nep-pay
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Published in Università Cattaneo Working papers n.7 2019

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:liu:liucec:2019-7

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