Digital currencies and fintech

• Central Bank Digital Currency and Monetary Policy

  Staff Working Paper 2018-36 Mohammad Davoodalhosseini

  Many central banks are contemplating whether to issue central bank digital currency. This piece explores the implications as well as potential motivators of such a step.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Digital currencies and fintech, Monetary policy JEL Code(s): E, E4, E42, E5, E50

• Incentive Compatibility on the Blockchain

  Staff Working Paper 2018-34 Jonathan Chiu, Thorsten Koeppl

  A blockchain is a digital ledger that keeps track of a record of ownership without the need for a designated party to update and enforce changes to the record. The updating of the ledger is done directly by the users of the blockchain and is traditionally governed by a proof-of-work (PoW) protocol.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Digital currencies and fintech, Economic models, Payment clearing and settlement systems JEL Code(s): G, G2, H, H4, P, P4, P43

• A Look Inside the Box: Combining Aggregate and Marginal Distributions to Identify Joint Distributions

  Staff Working Paper 2018-29 Marie-Hélène Felt

  This paper proposes a method for estimating the joint distribution of two or more variables when only their marginal distributions and the distribution of their aggregates are observed. Nonparametric identification is achieved by modelling dependence using a latent common-factor structure.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Bank notes, Digital currencies and fintech, Econometric and statistical methods JEL Code(s): C, C1, C14, D, D1, D14, E, E4, E41

• Bitcoin Awareness and Usage in Canada: An Update

  Staff Analytical Note 2018-23 Christopher Henry, Kim Huynh, Gradon Nicholls

  The results of our 2017 Bitcoin Omnibus Survey (December 12 to 15, 2017) when compared with those from 2016 show that Bitcoin “awareness” increased from 64 to 85 per cent, while ownership increased from 2.9 to 5.0 per cent. Most Bitcoin purchasers are using the cryptocurrency as an investment and not as a means of payment for goods or services.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff analytical notes Topic(s): Bank notes, Digital currencies and fintech, Econometric and statistical methods JEL Code(s): C, C1, C12, E, E4