Understanding the creation of trust in cryptocurrencies: the case of Bitcoin

Abstract

Contemporary cryptocurrencies lack legal, monetary, and institutional backing that traditional financial services employ. Instead, cryptocurrencies provide trust through technology. Despite the plethora of research in both trust and cryptocurrencies, the underlying attributes of the technologies that drive trust in cryptocurrencies are not well understood. To uncover these attributes, we analyze the corpus of 1.97 million discussion posts related to Bitcoin, the oldest and most widely used cryptocurrency. Based on earlier research, we identified functionality, reliability, and helpfulness as the focal constructs with which to evaluate users' trust in technology. In our analysis, we discovered 11 different attributes related to three technology constructs that are significant in creating and maintaining users' trust in Bitcoin. The findings are discussed in detail in the article.

Trustworthy artificial intelligence

“…Likewise, several cloud providers recently began offering 'AI as a Service' (AIaaS), referring to web services for organizations and individuals interested in training, building, and deploying AI-based systems (Dakkak et al 2019;Rai et al 2019). Although cost-and time-saving opportunities have triggered a widespread implementation of AI-based systems and services in electronic markets, trust persists to play a pivotal role in any buyer-seller relationship (Bauer et al 2019;Marella et al 2020). Consequently, TAI is of increasing relevance to electronic markets and its research community.…”

Potential and limits of Blockchain technology for networked businesses

“…Albrecht et al (2020) combine a text mining approach on 144,942 tweets with a subsequent regression analysis to test their hypotheses on the effect of language, interactivity and frequency in communications about ICOs. Marella et al (2020) apply text modelling of 1.97 million discussion posts related to Bitcoin, using vector representations of words and documents and a neural network to identify semantic similarities.…”

Cryptocurrency Competition and Market Concentration in the Presence of Network Effects

“…13,26,27 One could, for instance, make the argument that Bitcoin is in many respects, including speed, functionality, transactional cost, etc., inferior to other cryptocurrencies, and yet it continues to be the most widely acknowledged and accepted cryptocurrency. 28,29 Strong network effects in the beginning could have contributed to its continuing success today, even when better alternatives are available. Relatedly, network effects theory also suggests that, assuming homogeneity, once a network hits a tipping point, the market may tip in its favor because new users will always prefer the network with the larger userbase (the so called "winner-take-all/most" markets, which Bitcoin maximalism relied on).…”