Abstract
This paper presents a new index concerning the extent of public policy accommodation towards usage of blockchain technology. The coverage of the index is for the 21 Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) member states, representing a significant bloc of global production, trade and economic development. The crypto-friendly index includes indicators related to four general categories of blockchain policy: (i) extent of policy restrictiveness toward cryptocurrency initial coin offerings; (ii) extent of policy restrictiveness toward cryptocurrency exchanges; (iii) taxation treatment toward cryptocurrencies; and (iv) type and extent of general public policy interest in blockchain-related activity. Based on data and information available as at October 2018, the index results reveal considerable diversity exists amongst APEC countries in terms of their degree of crypto-friendliness. Jurisdictions such as Hong Kong, Singapore, Australia, the United States and Canada are seen as relatively crypto-friendly locations, whereas jurisdictions such as China, Vietnam and Peru have the greatest scope for pro-blockchain policy improvement. This paper suggests future avenues for index refinement, as well as the potential for additional research into the concept of crypto-friendliness using this and similar policy indexes.
Highlights
Blockchain technology is a distributed, digital, peer-topeer ledger that records, verifies and validates data on its public database without recourse to a centralised authority, or intermediary, to manage the data
The opposite of a jurisdiction pursuing crypto-friendliness in policy terms is a jurisdiction opting for crypto-unfriendliness, the latter posing an aversion toward the legitimisation of widespread economic coordination within the emerging cryptoeconomy
This paper presents a crypto-friendly index of blockchain policy accommodativeness for Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC)-member countries
Summary
Blockchain technology is a distributed, digital, peer-topeer ledger that records, verifies and validates data on its public database without recourse to a centralised authority, or intermediary, to manage the data. What started out as the technology underpinning the Bitcoin crypto-currency has mushroomed into fields as diverse as financial management, personal identity, property titles, supply chain relationships, even voting. Irrespective of their backgrounds, ideals and interests, people can leverage the blockchain to develop robust and self-executing contracts, to track payments from sender to receiver in real time and launch new investment projects. The significance of policy here is that it territorially influences the set of viable blockchain-enabled activities within, and amongst, political jurisdictions.
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