Financial Technology (FinTech), Digital Banking and Blockchain Final Individual Assignment, UoM, Singapore

Assignment

Throughout our course, we discussed how digital innovations and technologies (such as APIs, Distributed Ledgers, etc.), which were developed to address a variety of issues and create opportunities for organizations to organize or re-imagine their economic activity, can have an impact on a firm’s business model and performance, industry architecture and even competition in the wider sector.

We also discussed how technologies such as Blockchain can impact the entire value chains in payments and value transfer systems and change the way we think about money and asset ownership. Starting from the papers by Zachariadis et al. (2019) on blockchain and Chusu et al. (2022) on CBDCs as well as extending your reading to other relevant papers and resources please respond to the following questions:

Provide a definition and describe the foundational properties, and characteristics of distributed ledger technology (a.k.a. blockchain technology).

Critically discuss the application of Bitcoin and its promise to replace traditional payment infrastructures and fiat currencies around the world.

Does it always have an advantage compared to centralized systems and/or
currencies? What are its limitations and the challenges it could introduce (where possible, use examples and resources (academic and industry) to articulate your points)?

How do you think the introduction of CBDCs will affect the money and payments market going forward as well as competition with existing private
cryptocurrencies?