Cryptocurrencies and the New Spaces of Finance

这个项目调查了基于区块链的加密货币正在重塑初创公司内部估值和融资的地理位置和做法。加密货币支持的首次公开发行(ICO)代表着一种新型的风险融资形式，它改变了投资的规模和范围，并鼓励公司结构，最大限度地利用友好的监管地点。这些进程的结果对经济增长和财富形成的地点有重要影响，特别是在金融部门。该项目旨在澄清与加密货币相关的新颖融资做法如何影响技术部门内新公司的形成。将通过各种出版物(学术出版物和更一般的出版物，并使用开放获取出版)、分发为该项目开发的工具、代码和数据集，通过GitHub等开源工具和数据，以及通过学生培训和课堂单元等教育活动，传播调查结果。这项研究的贡献是展示与加密货币相关的新颖融资做法如何影响技术部门内新公司的形成。这项研究将通过具体研究金融化以及金融机构和逻辑在这些新的金融空间内如何在经济系统中发挥作用，来推进经济地理学中的理论和理解。该项目有三个具体目标。第一种是通过询问：哪些因素对不同加密货币操作的地理位置有影响，来确定核心加密货币功能的地理位置？地点如何与ICO等下游业务整合？这些问题将使用从地理空间科学和数字地理中提取的数据收集和地理定位方法来回答。第二个目标是评估加密货币的使用和网络对价值的贡献。这个问题将通过使用社交网络分析、机器学习、自然语言处理和计算社会学和计算机科学的深层神经网络来解决：加密货币网络在不同的使用类型之间有何不同？网络互动如何为价值做出贡献？第三个目标侧重于加密货币如何影响科技初创企业的融资和创业实践。调查员将通过访谈收集数据来回答：ICO投资者/企业家的动机是什么？融资过程中还包括哪些额外的功能？这些目标将从根本上促进经济地理的基本知识。这一奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This project investigates the ways in which blockchain-based cryptocurrencies are reshaping the geographies and practices of valuation and financing within startup firms. Cryptocurrency-backed initial coin offerings (ICOs) represent a novel form of venture financing that changes the scale and scope of investment as well as encouraging firm structures that maximize hospitable regulatory locations. The outcomes of these processes have important implications for the location of economic growth and wealth formation, particularly within the finance sector. The project seeks to clarify how novel financing practices associated with cryptocurrencies impact new firm formation within the technology sector. Findings will be disseminated via a variety of publications (academic and more general and using open access publishing), the distribution of tools, code, and datasets developed for this project for gathering, cleaning and analyzing data via open-source tools and data such as GitHub, and through educational activities such as student training and classroom modules. The contribution of this research is to demonstrate how novel financing practices associated with cryptocurrencies impact new firm formation within the technology sector. The research will advance theory and understanding within economic geography by looking specifically at financialization and the ways financial institutions and logics exert power in economic systems within these new spaces of finance. The project has three specific objectives. The first is to determine the geographies of core cryptocurrency functions by asking: what factors contribute to the geographies of different cryptocurrency operations? How are locations integrated with downstream operations such as ICOs? These questions will be answered using data-scraping and geolocation methods drawn from geospatial science and digital geographies. The second objective is to assesses how cryptocurrencies' uses and networks contribute to value. This will be addressed by using social network analysis, machine learning, natural language processing, and deep neural nets from computational sociology and computer science to ask: how do networks of cryptocurrencies differ between use types? How does network interaction contribute to value? The third objective focuses on how cryptocurrencies affect financing and entrepreneurial practices within tech-based startups. The investigator will use interviews to gather data to answer: What are the motivations of investors/entrepreneurs in ICOs? and What additional functions are folded into the financing process? Together these objectives will fundamentally advance basic knowledge in economic geography.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.