- European Central Bank – UCL Centre for Blockchain Technologies Joint workshop
- Call for Papers
- Submission deadline: 31 May 2019
P2P Financial Systems 2019
26 July 2019, Frankfurt am Main
Background
The European Central Bank and the University College London Centre for Blockchain Technologies are hosting a workshop on peer-to-peer (P2P) financial systems. This event will bring together market participants, policymakers, regulators and academics interested in P2P financial systems to share their experiences, research and policy analyses on the topic of decentralised finance (DeFi).
Objective of the workshop
This workshop seeks to focus the strategic debate on the opportunities provided by DeFi, and on its impact on the financial ecosystem in the context of the broader transformation that is under way. Authorities, academics and practitioners will have the opportunity to better understand this phenomenon and to identify possible future developments and dynamics that will ensure an innovative, integrated and developed landscape in Europe and around the world.
Workshop themes – call for papers
The workshop organisers invite authors – whether from academia, public institutions (including central banks), special interest groups or the private sector – to submit policy-oriented, theoretical and/or empirical papers. These papers should be original contributions and clearly focus on decentralised finance, covering at least one of the following three related themes:
-
Theme 1: Regulation & governance in decentralised (eco)systems
The focus of the discussion will be on how P2P systems impact the current EU regulatory framework and governance in a decentralised finance environment. Submissions should focus on (but are not limited to):
- RegTech and SupTech (the role of distributed ledger technology in regulatory enforcement)
- Economic and regulatory aspects of decentralisation and competition in the market
- Market stability and risk management for decentralised systems
- Legal/regulatory challenges of decentralised organisations (e.g. DO, DAO, DAC)
- Privacy, data protection and electronic identification (decentralised Public Key Identity and Sovereign Identity)
-
Theme 2: An economic perspective on decentralisation in the financial environment
The aim of exploring this theme further will be to highlight how DeFi could potentially disrupt the current financial landscape, including:
- Monetary aspects of P2P systems
- Stable coins and digital fiat
- Asset tokenisation, pricing and new derivatives
- Incentive mechanisms in emerging blockchain networks
- Implications of blockchain for income inequality
- Distributed ledger technologies, transaction costs and externalities
-
Theme 3: New opportunities and challenges from decentralised systems
The papers covering this theme should outline the main the area of finance that could benefit the most from using decentralised systems to foster innovation and economic growth, covering the topics of:
- FinTech and its impact on banking stability and business models
- Sustainable DeFi (e.g. green bonds, climate solutions for low-carbon infrastructure)
- Micropayments, micro-financing and crowdfunding
- Price discovery and deep liquidity on distributed exchanges
- Fraud detection and financial crime prevention
Each submission should include an abstract, as well as the name and email address of a nominated author who could present the content or specific aspects of the paper. The abstracts of around 1,000 words (and preferably the completed papers) should be in English. Any mention of the authors' names or affiliations should be removed from the submitted paper. The submission deadline for abstracts/papers is 31 May 2019. Submitted papers will be reviewed by the Scientific Committee of the P2P Financial Systems 2019 workshop.
The members of the Scientific Committee are:
- Prof. Tomaso Aste, UCL CBT
- Prof. David Yermack, Stern School of Business NYU
- Dr. Primavera De Filippi, Harvard University
- Dr. Alexander Lipton, MIT Media Lab
- Mr. Andrea Pinna, European Central Bank
- Mr. Andreas Beyer, European Central Bank
- Dr. Victoria Lemieux, University of British Columbia
- Prof. Carol Alexander, University of Sussex
Papers should be sent in PDF format to the following email address: p2pfisy@cs.ucl.ac.uk.
Selection process and workshop participation
The workshop’s Scientific Committee will review all abstracts/papers submitted by the deadline in terms of their quality, their policy relevance and the potential level of interest, while ensuring an overall balance of topics, stakeholder interests and approaches. Authors whose submissions are accepted will be notified of the Committee’s decision by 7 June 2019. By submitting their papers, authors also agree to revise them based on the discussion at the conference and to allow them to be published on the conference website.
Organisational information
Attendance at the workshop is by invitation only. The workshop will take place on 26 July 2019. A dinner is planned for the evening preceding the event.
Conference organisers
Dirk Bullmann (European Central Bank) and Paolo Tasca (University College London Centre for Blockchain Technologies).
Expenses
Academic speakers (one per accepted paper) and discussants will be reimbursed for their travel and accommodation costs.