Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/194006 
Year of Publication: 
2019
Series/Report no.: 
KIT Working Paper Series in Economics No. 129
Publisher: 
Karlsruher Institut für Technologie (KIT), Institut für Volkswirtschaftslehre (ECON), Karlsruhe
Abstract: 
The trust-free nature of blockchain-based systems challenges the role of traditional platform providers and enables the creation of new, intermediary-free markets. Despite the growing number of such markets, the impact of the blockchain's configuration on market outcomes remains unclear. In this study, we utilize order-level data from realworld financial markets to explore the impact of the blockchain parameters block size and block creation time on the quality of decentralized markets. More specifically, we find that increasing the blocks' capacity improves market activity, while higher block frequencies impose a trade-off between higher turnovers and lower trade sizes. In addition, we identify the block creation time and block size as core drivers of daily and intraday liquidity, respectively. In consequence, improving liquidity goes hand in hand with a higher activity. However, the reciprocal relationship between blockchain parameters and the increasing price impact of a block also indicate that faster and bigger blocks are no silver bullet to scale decentralized markets and may facilitate volatility. In total, we contribute an initial, technology-agnostic assessment of the quality of decentralized markets that aims to guide interdisciplinary researchers and innovative practitioners.
Subjects: 
Decentralized markets
Blockchain
Market quality
Market design
Market engineering
FinTech
JEL: 
D47
G14
L86
N2
O16
Persistent Identifier of the first edition: 
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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