This paper explores the economic models associated to different mobile-payment systems. We first present the existing experiences and review the few economic literature on the subject. We then concentrate on the four economic models currently experimented around the world: the operator-centric...

The euro is the second most important global currency after the US dollar. However, its international role has not increased since its inception in 1999. The private sector prefers using the US dollar rather than the euro because the financial market for US dollar-denominated assets is larger...

This paper studies to what extent the cost of operating a proof-of-work blockchain is intrinsically linked to the cost of preventing attacks, and to what extent the underlying digital ledger's security budgets are correlated with the cryptocurrency market outcomes. We theoretically derive an...

Stablecoins claim to stabilise the value of major currencies in the volatile crypto-asset market. This paper describes the often complex functioning of different types of stablecoins and proposes a taxonomy of stablecoin initiatives. To this end it relies on a novel framework for their...

This paper provides background to the upcoming EU regulation on Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA). The first step to regulate crypto-assets at EU level was taken by including virtual currencies in the revision of the Anti-Money Laundering Directive (5AMLD) which came into force 2018. Initial coin...

The falling use of cash and the advent of digital technologies support the possibility of reconfiguration of monetary transactions without any intermediation of physical monetary tokens. The introduction of electronic money, especially in the guise card-based technologies but also as pre-charged...

The New Monetary Economics predicts that a low-transaction-cost world will be characterised by monetary separation. Current innovations in the payment system seem to bring us closer to such a moneyless world. However, market microstructure theory suggests that transaction costs will not fall to...

We maintain that the crypto-currency bitcoin is a practical application of what is termed “memory” in the monetary economics literature. After reviewing the theoretical literature on money and memory, we offer a brief overview of the bitcoin protocol and argue that, like memory, bitcoin...

Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies’ spectacular rise over the past years has attracted considerable public and academic interest. The important question arising in this context is whether cryptocurrencies can legitimately be regarded as money. This paper contributes to the current discourse by...