Cryptovaluation

1. Innovation and Cryptoventures Cryptovaluation Campbell R. Harvey Duke University and NBER Campbell R. Harvey 2019

2. Campbell R. Harvey 2019

3. Money Purposes of money: Primary • Unit of Account: A way to compare the value of various goods and services • Medium of Exchange: Allows for non-barter transactions. Secondary • Store of Value: Allows value to be retained – even if partially – rather than complete decay (e.g. storing food). • Transfer of Value: Ease of transfer of value and to defer value. Original vision of bitcoin was for a technology that would make transactions more efficient (the transfer of value motive) [B] Campbell R. Harvey 2019

4. Acquiring Cryptocurrency Three ways to obtain an existing cryptocurrency • Win a block. • Receive a gift or be paid for goods or services • Buy on an exchange • Currently 109 exchanges that trade bitcoin You can also obtain cryptocurrency through an Initial Coin Offering (ICO). New currency can also be obtained via a hard fork. Campbell R. Harvey 2019

5. Exchanges Campbell R. Harvey 2019 https://www.coinhills.com/market/exchange/rank-for/btc/

6. Exchanges Will have more to say later about Coincheck https://www.coinhills.com/market/exchange/rank-for/btc/ Campbell R. Harvey 2019

7. Example • Begins in January 2017 • Launches with Bitconnect Coin (BCC). You needed to send bitcoin to their exchange and they would convert it to BCC • With the BCC, you were guaranteed “up to 120% return per year” and users were earning interest by holding their coin for “helping maintain the security of the network” https://cointelegraph.com/news/bitconnect-ponzi-scheme-no-sympathy-from-crypto-community Campbell R. Harvey 2019

8. Example Campbell R. Harvey 2019

9. Example Coin rises to $437.31 Campbell R. Harvey 2019

10. Example Coin rises to $437.31 Campbell R. Harvey 2019

11. Example https://youtu.be/kbR1SXIje1U Campbell R. Harvey 2019

12. Example • January 17, 2018 exchange closes following warnings from Texas and North Carolina regulators. Drops 87% to about $30. https://cointelegraph.com/news/bitconnect-closes-virtually-its-entire-operation-bcc-token-drops-87 Campbell R. Harvey 2019

13. Example Note Campbell R. Harvey 2019 https://bitconnect.co/system-news/95/bitconnect-update-regarding-the-changes-to-lending-and-exchange-functions/

14. Example

15. Exchanges Campbell R. Harvey 2019

16. Exchanges Campbell R. Harvey 2019

17. Exchanges Only bitcoin??? Campbell R. Harvey 2019 https://coincheck.com/

18. Exchanges https://www.wsj.com/articles/cryptocurrency-worth-530-million-missing-from-japanese-exchange-1516988190 Campbell R. Harvey 2019

19. Exchanges Campbell R. Harvey 2019

20. Exchanges Campbell R. Harvey 2019

21. Exchanges Mechanics of the hack • Website says that bitcoin is held in cold storage (off line and untouchable via the Internet – and considered safe from hacks) • However, each exchange also has a “hot wallet”. Think of this as float. It allows for very fast and cheap transactions • It was the hot wallet that was exploited and the details are unclear Campbell R. Harvey 2019

22. Exchanges Campbell R. Harvey 2019 https://cointelegraph.com/news/coincheck-stolen-534-mln-nem-were-stored-on-low-security-hot-wallet

23. Exchanges Mechanics of the hack • Coincheck uses “smart hot wallet system” which was exploited • Supposedly, they used a machine-learning based dynamic hot wallet based on volumes of transactions, for easier access and faster transactions • Hackers gained access to the server where the keys were and stole all the NEM via unauthorized transactions Campbell R. Harvey 2019

24. Exchanges Mechanics of the hack (some analysis from Marc Toledo) • Speed was important. It happened in a couple of minutes. NEM is known for being one of the fastest blockchain platforms • Within Coincheck, everything appeared to be operating as usual • Coincheck signaled thumbs up for 250,000+ transactions • 8 hours later they discovered the hack Campbell R. Harvey 2019

25. Exchanges http://explorer.nemchina.com/#/s_account?account=NC4C6PSUW5CLTDT5SXAGJDQJGZNESKFK5MCN77OG Campbell R. Harvey 2019

26. Exchanges Analysis • They tested at 10:02:13 on January 25 and got 10 XEM to destination account NC4C. • They then moved 523,000,000 in 7 transactions from 10:04:56 to 10:21:14 to NC4C. • They then start moving to other addresses. • From 12:57 to 13:29, they do  8 transactions moving the 532,000,000 to different addresses. • There are then seven transactions from 13:35 to 6:37 (next day) that appear to be other funds that they have that moved to the original destination of the hack the NC4C 3,800,000. • At 9:42 on the 26th, they move 300,000 from the original NC4C to another address. There is are a bunch of dust transactions too. The NC4C account still must have (at least) 3,500,000 in it. Campbell R. Harvey 2019

27. Exchanges • 523m NEMs stolen • 260,000 customers affected • Promised to return 90% of the value • Company has the address where the funds went http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-42850194 Campbell R. Harvey 2019

28. Exchanges Campbell R. Harvey 2019

29. Exchanges Heist larger than Mt. Gox which was $450 million • NEM (coins) were lost (other cryptos were not lost) • NEM short for New Economy Movement; Coin is XEM • Launched in 2015 and similar to bitcoin but less energy intensive. They use “Proof of Importance”. Campbell R. Harvey 2019

30. Exchanges Proof of Importance (PoI) • Certain “supernodes” exist with considerable computing power • Each account as a PoI score. • If you account has 10,000 NEM or more and is “vested” holding that amount of a few weeks, you can lend your PoI score to a supernode and that increases the chance that the supernode “harvests” a block • Harvest includes coinbase plus transaction fees Campbell R. Harvey 2019

31. Exchanges Proof of Importance (PoI) • They argue PoW gives advantage to those that have the most computing power – and there is an excessive amount of energy spent • They argue PoS gives advantage of “coin hoarders” – more coins the more you earn. Campbell R. Harvey 2019

32. Exchanges Proof of Importance (PoI) looks at three factors (see pages 34-35 of technical document): • PoI only counts coins that are in the account for a number of days • 10% of the unvested, vests every day • The higher number of vested coins the higher the PoI score • Need a minimum of 10,000 vested coins to start harvesting https://nem.io/wp-content/themes/nem/files/NEM_techRef.pdf Campbell R. Harvey 2019

33. Exchanges Campbell R. Harvey 2019 Created by Marc Toledo

34. Exchanges Even though NEM blockchain not hacked, lack of confidence leads collapse of coin value Campbell R. Harvey 2019

35. Exchanges History of exchange hacks: • Mt Gox 2011 • Mt Gox 2014 $350m • NiceHash Dec. 2017: 4,700BTC • Bitfinex $72m • The DAO $70m • Parity Wallet $30m • Bitstamp $5m https://www.wsj.com/articles/two-groups-account-for-1-billion-in-cryptocurrency-hacks-new-report-says-11548676800?mod=hp_lista_pos3 Campbell R. Harvey 2019

36. Cryptoassets Asset or Commodity or Currency or Collectible? • Asset : Asset produces or is expected to generate cash flows in the future (bonds, stocks, options) • Commodity: A commodity derives its value from its use as raw material to meet a fundamental need, whether it be energy, food or shelter. Value can be established looking at supply and demand.  • Currency: A currency is a medium of exchange that you use to denominate cash flow. Currencies have no cash flows and  cannot be valued, but they can be priced against other currencies. • Collectible: No cash flow and is not a medium of exchange but could have aesthetic value of value due to emotional attachment (painting or baseball card) BTC is a currency and ETH is a commodity? Campbell R. Harvey 2019

37. Cryptocurrencies: Valuation Very challenging • Most assets valuations are fairly narrow • For example, to value the stock you need a forecast of future cash flows and a sense of the risk (discount rate). There could be disagreement – but the range of disagreement is usually narrow • For fiat currency (which is closer to cryptos given there is no official collateral), we usually look at the relative expected real GDP growth in two countries and the relative expected inflation. Again, there is disagreement but range is narrow. • For cryptocurrency, the disagreement is extreme. Many believe the value is zero. Others might believe the value is $1 million. Campbell R. Harvey 2019

38. Cryptocurrencies: Valuation Many “theories” • Scarcity. The idea is that just because something is scarce it must have value. Bitcoin can be thought of as algorithmic scarcity (given the supply of bitcoin is capped at 21 million). To me, this theory only makes sense if there is a usefulness for the asset. Campbell R. Harvey 2019

39. Cryptocurrencies: Valuation Many “theories” • Assumes the cryptocurrency to be an asset, i.e., cryptoasset • Quantity theory of money. It is claimed that “There is a fixed supply of tokens. As demand for the token increases, so must the price”. However, this is problematic because it ignores the velocity. • The key equation is MV=PQ. Let PQ be Total Transaction Volume. So Average Network Value = (Total Transaction Value)/Velocity. However, velocity is very high with cryptocurrencies. This high velocity means that the Average Network Value should be small. https://multicoin.capital/2017/12/08/understanding-token-velocity/ https://medium.com/@cburniske/why-i-like-the-term-cryptoassets-ab6b76e1ee33 Campbell R. Harvey 2019

40. Cryptocurrencies: Valuation https://medium.com/@cburniske/cryptoasset-valuations-ac83479ffca7 Campbell R. Harvey 2019

41. Example : Simple Valuation Model of Storj Campbell R. Harvey 2019

42. Cryptocurrencies: Valuation Convenience yield • http://review.chicagobooth.edu/finance/2018/article/bitcoin-market-isn-t-irrational/ Campbell R. Harvey 2019

43. Cryptocurrencies: Valuation Many “theories” • Replacement for Gold. Many similarities to gold: • No centralized supply • Costly to mine • World currency • Also, there are some advantages to cryptos: • Easy to transport • Cheap to store • Not susceptible to a supply shock • However, gold has direct usefulness (jewelry, technology, dental) Campbell R. Harvey 2019

44. Cryptocurrencies: Valuation Many “theories” • Mining cost benefit equilibrium. This mixes some of the other theories. The idea is that people will not mine bitcoin unless it is profitable to do so. So the cost of the marginal miner is the floor for coin price. • If price drops, then mining decreases as it is not worth buying a mining machine and paying the electrical cost • However, in contrast to gold, decreases in hash power simply cause the difficulty to decrease (it does not impact the coinbase supply) Campbell R. Harvey 2019

45. Cryptocurrencies: Valuation Many “theories” • Bubble mentality. A bubble is an asset that has value because people believe that it has value. • Large speculative demand for cryptocurrencies is typical of bubble behavior. • “As investors join the bandwagon, they create their own truth – for a while.” Warren Buffett • Important. Bursting of a bubble does not necessarily take you to zero. Consider history of bubbles like the housing bubble, tech bubble, … Campbell R. Harvey 2019

46. Cryptocurrencies: Valuation Many “theories” • Relative value. The idea is that you fit a regression model to the price of the crypto versus other cryptos. • The model delivers a fitted price. If the fitted price is greater than the market price, then the crypto is relatively “under valued” • The key word is relative. It is possible that both are over valued or both are undervalued • However, in a long-short strategy, you are only concerned with relative not absolute value Campbell R. Harvey 2019