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Payment channel networks are supposed to overcome technical scalability limitations of blockchain infrastructure by employing a special overlay network with fast payment confirmation and only sporadic settlement of netted transactions on the blockchain. However, they introduce economic routing constraints that limit decentralized scalability and are currently not well understood. In this paper, we model the economic incentives for participants in payment channel networks. We provide the first formal model of payment channel economics and analyze how the cheapest path can be found. Additionally, our simulation assesses the long-term evolution of a payment channel network. We find that even for small routing fees, sometimes it is cheaper to settle the transaction directly on the blockchain.

Social Trading platforms combine the trading functionalities of classical online broker services with the communication and interaction features of social networks. Next to following other users’ profiles, a main characteristic of social trading platforms is the possibility to follow other users by automatically copying their trades. By being a technologically based financial intermediary that enables individual profit maximization, social trading platforms constitute a contemporary example of financialization. Our empirical analysis of the behavior of traders on a social trading platform provides new insights on financialization related questions regarding the influence of transparency and interaction in delegated investment environments. The disposition effect is a well-studied behavioral bias of investors and traders. Human investors tend to realize returns of their winning positions too early and let unfavorable positions accumulate losses for too long. We find that on social trading platforms the traders’ sensitivity to the disposition effect is influenced by the amount of attention they receive from their followers who invested capital into the traders’ strategy. These novel insights propose a link between principal-agent theory and the disposition effect induced by transparency mechanisms. We extend the literature on trader-investor interaction channels in social trading networks. The results obtained in a social network environment are of high relevance for regulators who have a strong focus on customer protection and financial services regulation. They also provide guidelines for platform designers, traders, investors and social trading platform operators.

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To overcome the limitations of conventional floatingpoint number formats, an interval arithmetic and variablewidth storage format called universal number (unum) has been recently introduced [1]. This paper presents the first (to the best of our knowledge) silicon implementation measurements of an application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) for unum floating-point arithmetic. The designed chip includes a 128-bit wide unum arithmetic unit to execute additions and subtractions, while also supporting lossless (for intermediate results) and lossy (for external data movements) compression units to exploit the memory usage reduction potential of the unum format. Our chip, fabricated in a 65 nm CMOS process, achieves a maximum clock frequency of 413 MHz at 1.2 V with an average measured power of 210 uW/MHz.