Digital currencies and fintech

• 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

• Swedish Riksbank Notes and Enskilda Bank Notes: Lessons for Digital Currencies

  Staff Working Paper 2018-27 Ben Fung, Scott Hendry, Warren E. Weber

  This paper examines the experience of Sweden with government notes and private bank notes to determine how well the Swedish experience corresponds to that of Canada and the United States. Sweden is important to study because it has had government notes in circulation for more than 350 years, and it had government notes before private bank notes.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Bank notes, Digital currencies and fintech, Financial services JEL Code(s): E, E4, E41, E42, E5, E58

• The Scale and Scope of Online Retail

  Staff Analytical Note 2018-19 Alex Chernoff

  This paper studies the growth of online retail over the period 1999–2012, using confidential firm-product-level data for Canada. The revenue of online retailers is decomposed into the contributions of product scope (the number of product categories) and product scale (average revenue per product category).

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff analytical notes Topic(s): Digital currencies and fintech, Firm dynamics, International topics JEL Code(s): D, D2, D22, L, L1, L11, L8, L81
• June 13, 2018

  Bank of Canada partners with Creative Destruction Lab to deepen knowledge of new technologies

  Media Relations Ottawa, Ontario

  The Bank of Canada announced today that it will partner with the Creative Destruction Lab to deepen its knowledge of leading technologies.

  Content Type(s): Press, Press releases Topic(s): Digital currencies and fintech
• May 11, 2018

  Payments Canada, the Bank of Canada, TMX Group, Accenture and R3 Demonstrate Feasibility of Instantaneous Equity Settlement through Distributed Ledger Technology

  This joint press release describes the preliminary findings of the third phase of the Project Jasper research initiative.

  Content Type(s): Press, Press releases Topic(s): Digital currencies and fintech

• A Policy Framework for E-Money: A Report on Bank of Canada Research

  Staff Discussion Paper 2018-5 Mohammad Davoodalhosseini, Francisco Rivadeneyra

  We present a policy framework for electronic money and payments. The framework poses a set of positive questions related to the areas of responsibility of central banks: payments systems, monetary policy and financial stability. The questions are posed to four broad forms of e-money: privately or publicly issued, and with centralized or decentralized verification of transactions. This framework is intended to help evaluate the trade-offs that central banks face in the decision to issue new forms of e-money.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff discussion papers Topic(s): Digital currencies and fintech, Monetary policy, Payment clearing and settlement systems JEL Code(s): E, E4, E41, E5, E51, E52, E58
• March 22, 2018

  Financial Stability: Taking Care of Unfinished Business

  Remarks Carolyn A. Wilkins Rotman School of Management conference Toronto, Ontario

  Senior Deputy Governor Carolyn A. Wilkins discusses three areas in which work remains to be done to improve financial stability.

  Content Type(s): Press, Speeches and appearances, Remarks Topic(s): Credit and credit aggregates, Digital currencies and fintech, Financial stability, Financial system regulation and policies, Monetary policy framework, Recent economic and financial developments

• Blockchain Revolution Without the Blockchain

  Staff Analytical Note 2018-5 Hanna Halaburda

  The technology behind blockchain has attracted a lot of attention. However, this technology is for the most part not well understood. There is no consensus on what benefits it may bring or on how it may fail.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff analytical notes Topic(s): Digital currencies and fintech, Recent economic and financial developments, Service sector JEL Code(s): D, D8, G, G2, O, O3, O33