The volume of Initial Coin Offerings has risen steeply with an all-time high market capitalisation of close to USD 1 trillion in December 2017. Since then the digital asset market has slumped, retreating to merely approximately USD 200 billion in mid-2018. Stakeholders of the crypto industry...

This study investigates whether cryptocurrencies can be considered a viable addition to pension funds. Using the regulatory setting of Switzerland, it is assessed whether crypto components added to a standard pension fund portfolio has positive effects on the fund’s risk and return figures....

Since the introduction of Bitcoin in 2008, trading venues for cryptocurrencies, so called cryptocurrency exchanges, have undergone a fast development. Today cryptocurrencies totaling to more than USD 16bn are traded on more than 200 of such platforms, thereby surpassing the volume traded of...

Decentralized Finance or DeFi is gaining momentum in the world of banking and finance and beyond. Yet, there is still a paucity of scientific works on decentralized finance and even more scarcity on its underpinning concepts. To address this problem, this work takes stock of the entire body of...

Central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) have the potential to fundamentally alter the current monetary system. Potentially they could bring about a whole range of advantages compared to the status quo, yet they could also introduce a host of disadvantages. This text provides a comprehensive list...

Today, newly founded businesses are inevitably driven to start in a digital form from day 1. Moreover, most existing businesses conceive digitalization as an important part of their strategic orientation by developing and improving their digital assets and digitalizing their processes. By taking...