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v1-thesis.tex
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%
% $Description: Author guidelines and sample document in LaTeX 2.09/2e$
%
% $Author: Priit Ruberg$
% $Date: 2015/02/09 $
% $Revision: 2.5 $
%
% Translated to English 2017/03/10 by Chris Raastad
%
\documentclass[12pt]{article} %Document class definition and text size settings
%
%Packages can be explored in more details: https://www.ctan.org/pkg/PACKAGE_NAME?lang=en
%
\usepackage{graphicx} %Allow using graphics in the text
\usepackage[top=2.5cm, bottom=2.5cm, left=3cm, right=3cm]{geometry} %Set the page margins
\usepackage{titlesec} %Package for title style
\usepackage{longtable} %Package so tables can be longer than one page
\usepackage{multirow} %Package so table cells can span multiple rows
\usepackage[colorinlistoftodos]{todonotes} %Package so you can add nice TODO marks in your paper with \todo{TODO text...}
\usepackage{cite} %For Bibtex
\usepackage[hidelinks]{hyperref}
\usepackage{url} %Package in order to nicely use URLs
\usepackage{float} %Package to improves interface for defining floating objects like figures and tables
\usepackage[english, estonian]{babel} %Specifies possible languages of the document: English, Russian, and Estonian
\addto\captionsestonian{\def\refname{\centerline{References}}} %Changes references name and makes it center
\addto\captionsestonian{\def\listfigurename{\centerline{List of figures}}} %Changes drawing list name and makes it center
\addto\captionsestonian{\def\listtablename{\centerline{List of tables}}} %Changes table list name makes it center
\addto\captionsestonian{\def\contentsname{\centerline{Table of contents}}}
\usepackage[T2A,T1]{fontenc} %Font encodings for Russian and Estonian letters
\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc} %use UTF8 decodings
\usepackage{tocloft} %Control table of contents, tables, etc.
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%\setlength\cftbeforechapskip{0pt}
\usepackage{amssymb} %For square itemized listss
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\usepackage{caption} %Needed to customise captions for tables and figures
\captionsetup{labelsep=period} %Set table and figure caption name to be separated with text with a period
\usepackage{verbatimbox} %To put program code in the center using Verbatim
\titlelabel{\thetitle.\quad} %Adds periods to the end of titles
\usepackage{times} %Sets font to Times New Roman
\usepackage{fancyhdr} %Allows more control of headers and footers
\setlength{\parindent}{0cm} %Set paragraph indentation to zero
\usepackage{setspace} %Allows setting spacing between lines
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%\usepackage{parskip}
\setlength{\parskip}{\baselineskip}
%\hangindent=0.7cm
\hyphenation{põhi-tekstis üliõpilas-kood lehe-küljed joonda-takse} %Correcting incorrect hyphenation (?)
\usepackage{eurosym}
\begin{document}
%------------------------------ENGLISH TITLE PAGE---------------------------------
\thispagestyle{fancy} %Page will include header and footer
\renewcommand{\headrulewidth}{0pt} %Remove header horizontal line
\renewcommand{\footrulewidth}{0pt} %Remove footer horizontal line
\headheight = 57pt %Set header heght (with regards to compiler suggestion)
\footskip = 11pt %Footer space
\headsep = 0pt %Decrease header and text line spacing distance to zero
\chead{ %Place the following text header to the center
\textsc{\begin{Large} %Make the following text have big letters
TALLINN UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY\\
\end{Large}}
Faculty of Information Technology\\
Department of Computer Engineering
}
\vspace*{7 cm} %Make the page beginning and text line spacing correspond to the width
\begin{center} %Text centered
ITC70LT\\[0cm]
Christopher David Raastad\\
\begin{LARGE}
\textsc{Thesis title\\} \todo[noline]{Write thesis title}
\end{LARGE}
Master thesis\\[2cm]
\end{center}
\begin{flushright} %Align text to the right
Alex Norta\\[0cm]
PhD\\[0cm]
Associated Professor\\[0cm]
\end{flushright}
\cfoot{Tallinn 2017} %Add location and year to the header
%\renewcommand{\headrulewidth}{0pt} %Remove the footer horizontal line
\pagebreak %End of page
%------------------------------TIITELLEHT EESTI KEELES---------------------------------
\thispagestyle{fancy} %Leht sisaldab päist ja jalust
\renewcommand{\headrulewidth}{0pt} %Eemaldab päisest horisontaalse joone
\renewcommand{\footrulewidth}{0pt} %Eemaldab jalusest horisontaalse joone
\headheight = 57pt %Paneb paika päise laiuse (vastavalt kompilaatori soovitusele)
\footskip = 11pt %Jaluse ruum
\headsep = 0pt %Vähendab päise ja teksti vahelise kauguse nullini
\chead{ %Paigutab järgneva teksti päises keskele
\textsc{\begin{Large} %Tekst suurtähtedega ja suuremaks
tallinna tehnikaülikool\\
\end{Large}}
Infotehnoloogia teaduskond\\
Arvutitehnika instituut
}
\vspace*{7 cm} %Tekitab lehe alguse ja teksti vahele tühja ala vastava laiusega
\begin{center} %Tekst keskele
ITC70LT\\[0cm]
Christopher David Raastad\\
\begin{LARGE}
\textsc{lõputöö pealkiri\\} \todo[noline]{Kirjuta pealkirja eesti keeles}
\end{LARGE}
Magister\\[2cm]
\end{center}
\begin{flushright} %Joondab teksti paremale
Alex Norta\\[0cm] \todo[noline]{Tõlgi PhD eesti keelde}
PhD\\[0cm]
Associated Professor\\[0cm] \todo[noline]{Tõlgi Associated Professor eesti keelde}
\end{flushright}
\cfoot{Tallinn 2015} %Lisab asukoha ja kuupäeva jalusesse
%\renewcommand{\headrulewidth}{0pt} %Eemaldab päisest horisontaalse joone
\pagebreak %Lehe lõpp
%----------------------------LIST OF TODOS----------------------------------
\listoftodos
\newpage
%---------------------------AUTHOR DECLARATION-------------------------
\section*{\begin{center}
Author’s declaration of originality
\end{center}}
I hereby certify that I am the sole author of this thesis. All the used materials, references to the literature and the work of others have been referred to. This thesis has not been presented for examination anywhere else.
Author: Christopher David Raastad
May 8th 2017
\pagebreak
%---------------------------ABSTRACT---------------------------------
\section*{\begin{center}
Abstract
\end{center}}
\todo[inline]{Write English abstract \ldots}
If the thesis is written in English, the abstract is $\frac{1}{2}$ A4 long and the abstract in Estonian (\textit{Annotatsioon}) is of length 1 A4.
The last paragraph of abstract is obligatory and must be written accordingly:
\todo[inline]{Fill in English abstract thesis details \ldots}
The thesis is in English and contains [pages] pages of text, [chapters] chapters, [figures] figures, [tables] tables.
\pagebreak
%-----------------------------ANNOTATSIOON-----------------------------------
\section*{\begin{center}
Annotatsioon
\end{center}}
\todo[inline]{Kirjuta annotatsiooni eesti keeles \ldots}
Kui töö põhikeel on inglise keel, siis esitatakse annotatsioon (Abstract) inglise keeles mahuga $\frac{1}{2}$ A4 lehekülge ja annotatsioon eesti keeles mahuga vähemalt 1 A4 lehekülg.
Annotatsiooni viimane lõik on kohustuslik ja omab järgmist sõnastust:
\todo[inline]{Täitke eesti keele annotatsiooni lõputöö detailid \ldots}
Lõputöö on kirjutatud [mis keeles] keeles ning sisaldab teksti [lehekülgede arv] leheküljel, [peatükkide arv] peatükki, [jooniste arv] joonist, [tabelite arv] tabelit.
\pagebreak
%---------------------ABBREVIATIONS AND GLOSSARY OF TERMS---------------------
\section*{\begin{center}
Table of abbreviations and terms
\end{center}}
\begin{tabular}{p{3 cm}ll} %Table where the first cell width is 3cm
BTC & Bitcoin currency code\\
AML & \textit{Anti Money Laundering}, processes implemented by Financial Institutions to hinder money laundering and comply with regulation\\
CTF & \textit{Counter Terrorist Financing}, processes implemented by Financial Institutions to hinder terrorist financing and comply with regulation\\
KYC & \textit{Know Your Customer}, proccesses of Financial institution to identify and verify customers' identities to aid AML and CTF
\end{tabular}
\todo[inline]{Continue adding to table of abbreviations and delete old ones\ldots}
\pagebreak
%----------------------------TABLE OF CONTENTS----------------------------------
\tableofcontents
\newpage
%----------------------LIST OF DRAWINGS-------------------------------
\listoffigures
\pagebreak
%----------------------LIST OF TABLES---------------------------------
\listoftables
\pagebreak
%-----------------------------CHAPTER 1 - INTRODUCTION-------------------------------
\section{Introduction}
\label{Introduction}
\subsection{Setting the Stage}
Payments today are the laggard of the information age. While emails can be sent instantly money is either slow and/or expensive to move digitally. Bank transfers can take days, only work during business hours, and have high fees across borders. Card payments are instant but enslave merchants with high fees and chargeback risks. Paypal brought payments to the internet, but still brings a cost to accept payments and moving funds across borders. Fintech companies like Venmo and Square can make the illusion of fast payments, but still take days to settle in the background with the same chargeback risks. All of this inconvenience comes from the centralised Financial system of banking that has little economic motivation to innovate and undo legacy. A usable digital currency would greatly alleviate this friction in transferring value that costs the economy an estimated 1\% of GDP annually \cite{kaarmann2013cost}.
Bitcoin was the first mover in digital currency introducing a clever mechanism of digital value transfer completely sidestepping the existing financial system\cite{nakamoto2008bitcoin}. Its distributed proof of work consensus protocol, clever economical incentives to maintain the network, irreversible transactions, and pseudo anonymous users sent waves of interest and skepticism in the financial and regulatory community. At the beginning of 2014, 5 years after the genesis block, the world's first cryptocurrency already had billions of dollars market capitalisation\cite{coinmarketcap2017bitcoin}, more than 100,000 daily active users doubling roughly every 8 months\cite{RePEc:fip:fedgfe:2014-104}, and hundreds of companies founded to drive the ecosystem\todo{citation needed for number of companies}. Altcoins forked the Bitcoin blockchain technology to tackle other use cases and attempt to overcome shortcomings of Bitcoin. Exchanges sprung up to bring institutional trust into the ecosystem, making it easier to buy and sell bitcoins and bridging the gap between the traditional world of finance and digital currency. Eventually Bitcoin could be used to buy Domino's pizza and airline tickets\todo{citation needed for dominos pizza and airline tickets}.
Yet payments are a niche use case in Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies\cite{sas2016design}. The main use case thus far being long term value savings and short term ``get-rich-quick'' investment speculation. Bitcoin is complicated to use, takes minutes to confidently clear transactions, lacks clear governance structure, has long term scaling worries, and missing key features of trust and user identity making it unfavourable for mainstream commerce. In addition, converting the digital currency to and from the banking financial world comes at a cost. Providers of goods and services can ``accept'' Bitcoin but in reality immediately convert the funds to a fiat currency at a 1\% fee\todo{citation for 1\% transaction fee}. The real world is not yet priced in BTC. Bitcoin does not solve the problems of the majority of society running on the traditional financial system.
An improvement is to bring fiat currency and the traditional financial system into the realm of digital currency. This manuscript explores Euro 2.0 digital currency system. Trust, regulation, and convenience are built in with Estonian ID and the Ethereum blockchain smart contract technology. The system removes the need of financial institution intermediaries to profit off of holding balances and executing payments. The usability and trust for payments arises from ease of sending to personal Estonian ID codes, identification of users on the system, and use of a common fiat currency, Euro. We explore how to derive the need of this system for stakeholders, the technical requirements, and analyse the security and privacy of its implementation. The system can be initially managed by a foundation and completely run later by central banks saving the economy a majority of its 1\% GDP lost annually to payment friction \cite{kaarmann2013cost}.
\subsection{History of Currency and Payments}
\todo[inline]{Citations needed for history of money and cards\ldots}
Money and payments haven been part of human society since the dawn of civilisation. Currency grew out of the need to transport value of goods without transferring the goods themselves. First came gold, silver, and other precious metals to trade in exchange for goods and services. Later in the 1600s came notes issued by the Bank of England backed by silver and shortly after followed every country in the Western world. Over this time Banks grew as the de facto institutions to store and transfer value in government issued currencies. By the 1950s the USA was the first government to eliminate a physical backing (silver) to create a fiat currency only backed by the trust of the US Government and Federal Reserve. Again, shortly after other countries followed suit and there are no countries left physically backing notes; money is entirely trust that society accepts the government backed notes for exchange of goods and service.
As early as the 1960s banks were some of the first adopters of information technology, using computers and databases to overhaul paper processes. The first electronic access of money was the Credit Card, its earliest usage was a credit exchange between private companies in the USA in the 1920s, Diners’ Club, Inc. for consumers in 1950, American Express Travel and Entertainment card in 1958, and finally the founding of VISA in 1976 to spread the concept globally\cite{britannica2016creditcard}. Debit cards directly debiting bank accounts hit market as early as 1966 in the USA, long before mass consumer adoption of technology, gaining popularity in the 80s and 90s with the rise of ATM network and merchant acceptance\cite{collins2011debitcard}. With all of these developments, the Financial institutions of banks and payment processors are the heart of system and source of high fees. Credit Cards cost merchants 1-3\% transaction fees and carry the risk of costly chargebacks at the benefit of consumer convenience. Debit cards are slightly better, charging about \euro0.45 per swipe \cite{kaarmann2014government}. \todo{Cite source of fees and average fees either for a country or the whole world}
\todo[inline]{Citations needed for average cost of bank transfers globally}
With consumer adoption of the internet came personal windows into our finances via online banking. Bank transfers can take days to settle and only work during working hours of weekdays. International bank transfers can take even longer and with a heavy 3-5\% fee. Many transactions in financial systems, such as stock trades, can happen ``instantly'' but in fact take days to settle on the backend due to legacy paper based processes. \todo{citation needed for stock trades settlement times} The financial industry and has only in this time created pretty facades to their inefficient processes. Paypal succeeding to bring payments to the internet, but is still atrociously expensive to send and receive card payments, charging 2.9\% + \$0.30 USD per transaction and adding a 2.5\% fee on top of a bank dictated currency conversion spread for international conversion of funds\cite{paypal2017fees}.
\todo[inline]{How do AML and KYC laws fit into the picture of payment costs?}
Why all the friction? The economic cost of payments is an estimated at 1\% of GDP annually \cite{kaarmann2013cost}. Financial institutions designed themselves to profit from the friction in payments\todo{cite bank incentives to keep payment costs high}. International money transfer moves between four or more levels of banks, each taking a small slice of the fee, until funds reach the destination bank\todo{cite cost and process of international money transfer}. Consumer banking creates the illusion of free domestic transfers though subsidisation, but makes the meat of their profit from transactions data to sell customers credit and loans\todo{bank local transfer subsidisation and methods of making money}. Institutional investment banks gamble with our money every day on Wall Street, when things get out of hand, we have the Financial meltdown of 2008\todo{cite financial crisis of 2008}. Even post financial crisis, too big to fail banks have barely changed there ways. With increased regulatory costs and greedy shareholders comes even less economical incentive to reduce the cost of payments\todo{cite something referring to big banks being greedy or having no motivation to reduce fees}.
\subsection{Bitcoin: The Protocol for Money}
Following the 2008 crisis, Satoshi Nakamoto quietly released \textit{Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System}\cite{nakamoto2008bitcoin} aiming to solve the business problem \textit{``How do I create a system where nobody can stop me spending my own money?''}\cite{brown2016introducing}. A decentralised system \textit{``based on cryptographic proof instead of trust''} allows parties to transact with each other directly without a trusted third party. Double spending is prevented by a \textit{``peer-to-peer distributed timestamp server to generate computational proof of the chronological order of transactions"}\cite{nakamoto2008bitcoin}. This computational proof is distributed in the amongst participant nodes in the network in a voting scheme governed by a cryptographic puzzle known as \textit{proof-of-work}. Nodes compete to publish a block of transactions in the system for a reward of Bitcoins and transaction fees. The proof of work mechanism probabilistically limits the network to publish a new block of transactions approximately every ten minutes. Blocks reference previous blocks and once published are irrevocable unless another node were to rewrite history by solving the cryptographic puzzle multiple times, which is computationally infeasible. Hence transactions on the Bitcoin network are irreversable. This chain of blocks of transactions cryptographically tied in a historical record is the \textit{blockchain}. Nodes are incentivised to act in their best interest and maintain the network to claim their reward, currently worth 12.5 BTC per block and more than 15,000 USD at the time of this writing, a process commonly known as \textit{mining}. A published block has to be valid in history, i.e. no double spent bitcoins and a valid proof-of-work solution, to be accepted by the network. With this consensus mechanism, the Bitcoin peer-to-peer network maintains itself without a centralised entity\cite{nakamoto2008bitcoin}.
Users of the bitcoin network enjoy the possibility of pseudo-anonymity in using the system. Transactions are a chain of digital signatures. Public keys are the addresses which can be thought of accounts. Private keys are the proof of ownership of a public key which allow the right to claim ownership and spend all coins previously sent to that address. A user only requires a private and public key tied to some unspent tokens in order to use the system\cite{nakamoto2008bitcoin}. All transaction hashes and public keys addresses are published in blocks on the blockchain \textit{public ledger}. Anyone can view produced blocks and transactions by downloading a Bitcoin client or browsing an online tool like Blockchain Info\cite{blockchaininfo}. Pseudo-anonymity comes from the fact once the a Bitcoin address is linked to a real identity, all present, past, and future transactions are visible on the public ledger. Graph analysis of the the entire Bitcoin blockchain can reveal clues of transaction patterns, owners of addresses and networks of miners\todo{Cite something regarding graph analysis}.
Bitcoins counteracts inflation of traditional monetary systems with a limited supply, designed to emulate a growth curve similar to gold\todo{cite gold}. This supply is algorithmically limited to 21,000,000 BTC, which will be all mined into circulation around year 2140. In Theory, Bitcoin will become more and more valuable overtime because of its rarity\todo{Bitcoin supply vs inflation}, hence an attractive mechanism for long term savings.
Bitcoin transactions are geographically independent. Since the entire global network runs distributively on the internet and not controlled by a central party, transactions can happen anywhere a client has enough internet bandwidth to broadcast to the network. Theoretically \todo{find reference for bitcoin independent of geopolitical entities} Bitcoin is a completely governmental independent store and growth of value, but its price does fluctuate with geopolitical events in China, USA, and UK (Brexit) \todo{find reference relating Bitcoin price and geopolitical events}.
Bitcoin has a major benefit low cost transactions. Currently the transactions are free, since miners are incentivised enough by Bitcoin rewards mining new blocks of transactions. When Bitcoin supply approaches its upper bound, already 99\% of Bitcoins will be mined by 2036, then transaction fees must take over as incentive for miners to maintain the network\todo{find reference for network transaction fees}.
\subsection{Bitcoin Trust Paradox}
Bitcoin gained an enormous amount of infamous attention with the Silk Road, the ``Ebay for Drugs''\cite{EbayForDrugs}. The website amassed over 1000 vendors, tens of millions of dollars of revenue, and triple digit yearly growth until it was shutdown by the FBI in 2013 after two and a half years operation\cite{NotAnEbayForDrugs}. The buyers were protected in escrow Bitcoin transaction, only releasing payment to the sellar if the buyer was completely satisfied. Bitcoin allowed payments amongst parties that can barely trust each other in real life. \textit{``Anonymity and lack of regulation which is meant to free users from central authorities also empowers drug dealers and money launderers''}\cite{Ali:2015:BPU:2990603.2990632}.
Sas and Khairuddin interviewed 20 Bitcoin users to explore the challenges and opportunities of Bitcoin users with respect to technological, social, and institutional trust\cite{sas2016design}. The economic rationale of holding bitcoins derived from distrust in governments and banks directly having access to bank account funds, fear of unfavourable currency movements due to inflation, economic downturn, or politcal events, and speculation that Bitcoin will become more and more valuable over time. Bitcoin users are not discouraged by the early days of Silk Road or usage for drugs and money laundering. Ironically, they found ``spending bitcoins as a currency appears as an exception rather than a norm''. Bitcoin behaves more like a commodity than a currency\todo{cite why Bitcoin is more like a commodity}. Websites and stores accepting Bitcoin do so more for marketing then actual value of the currency\todo{cite why stores and merchants accept bitcoin}. Merchants pay a 1\% transaction fee to accept Bitcoin payment for fiat currency priced goods with payment provider to directly convert the Bitcoin to a fiat currency bank account, showing little incentive to hold their Bitcoin. The short term fluctuations of value and difficult to grasp price with regards fiat currency makes it unattractive for end to end commerce in Bitcoin\todo{cite short term fluctuations and pricing}.
From the findings of Ali, Clarke, and McCorry \textit{``Bitcoin’s strengths and weaknesses both derive from the same essential ideological and architectural design choices''}\cite{Ali:2015:BPU:2990603.2990632}. Sas and Khairuddin support this statement with their analyse Bitcoin user experiences with regards to the Blockchain's characteristics and their impact on trust \cite{sas2016design}. The decentralised Blockchain gives users a sense of honestly and credibility contrasted to sometimes dishonest central financial institutions. Users value transparency in the public ledger as well as easy, quick, and low cost transactions. Unregulated Blockchain gives users a sense of empowerment, setting no limits to transaction frequency and size, and comfort in the impossibility of governmental intervening with of financial matters directly in the system.
On the other hand, surveyed users showed concern over insecure transactions and risks associated with literally handling their own finances which were categorised by the authors as:
\begin{itemize}
\item \textit{Risks Due to Users' Challenges of Handling Passwords} (or private keys)
\item \textit{Risks Due to Hackers' Malicious Attacks} to steal coins
\item \textit{Risks Due to Failure to Recover from Human Error or Malice}
\item \textit{Risks Related to Dishonest Partner of Transaction}
\end{itemize}
These risks are heightened by hackers benefiting from irreversibility of transactions, lack of regulation, and pseudo-anonymity. Also highlighted by Ali, Clarke, and McCorry, \textit{``Denoting money as virtual assets to remove reliance on banks also opens the doors to hackers and malware.''}\cite{Ali:2015:BPU:2990603.2990632}. The same factors increase the severity of losses to a user's own error, such as a forgotten password, wrong account address, or incorrect amount in a transaction. Off chain components of transactions, such as the exchange of fiat currency for bitcoin or receiving goods, have no component on the Blockchain and hence are increase risk.
The authors propose strategies for mitigating the risks of dishonest traders, the main aspect of user distrust in transacting with Bitcoin: \todo{more citations needed}
\begin{itemize}
\item \textit{Trade with Authorized Exchanges}
\item \textit{Trade with Socially Authorized Traders}
\item \textit{Trade with Reputable Individual Traders}
\item \textit{Trade with De-anonymised Individual Traders}
\item \textit{Regulating Bitcoin}
\end{itemize}
These propositions to mitigate risks paradoxically nullify some key privacy and decentralised features of Bitcoin. Users are more likely to trust the counter-party when they are socially validated and/or identified and no longer anonymous, a type of user and community driven KYC to build trust. Exchanges add an interface to the traditional financial ecosystem, forcing users to undergo traditional AML/KYC processes. Regulating Bitcoin completely goes against the original vision of Nakamoto, but could help users deal with dishonest traders and bring the security and institutional trust of regulated financial institutions, which is currently best served by exchanges.
The authors propose three general design implications for Bitcoin to ``address the trust challenges of dishonest traders while respecting Blockchain's main characteristics''\cite{sas2016design}:
\begin{itemize}
\item \textit{Supporting Transparency of Two-way Transactions} (on and off chain)
\item \textit{Tools for Materialising Trust in Blockchain}
\item \textit{Tools to Support Reversible Transactions}
\end{itemize}
The study highlights the trust needs of usable digital currency and motivates the creation of Euro 2.0 system.
\subsection{Altcoins}
\todo[inline]{Bitcoin copycats for speculation}
\todo[inline]{Tether}
\todo[inline]{Zerocoin}
\todo[inline]{Ethereum}
\todo[inline]{Project to join Etherum and Zerocoin}
\subsection{What's Missing for Digital Currency?}
\todo[inline]{Citations needed Bitcoin HCI study \ldots}
Despite this promising rise of the value transfer protocol, payments for goods and services are still a very niche use case for Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. What's preventing cryptocurrencies from widespread adoption for payments? Ironically the defining features of Bitcoin, pseudo anonymity, irreversibility of transactions, and lack of central regulations, make for an unattractive payments system. Exchanges arose to be a more trustworthy source to buy and sell Bitcoins and create a regulated gateway to the traditional financial system. Transacting with individuals outside of exchanges poses great risk with off chain components of transactions. Users end up doing KYC on their counter-party or rely on other community verification to gain trust in completing transactions.
\todo[inline]{Interest of central banks to issue a digital currency}
\todo[inline]{What are the perceived benefits of Digital currency}
The benefits of digital currency are realised only if there is end to end adoption. Current solutions lack incentives for merchants to keep their funds in a digital currency, adding to costs of converting funds back to a fiat and existing financial system. Users must take risks or pay a cost to get funds from fiat system to existing cryptocurrencies. Facelifting the existing financial system from existing fiat to digital fiat currency unlock all of the benefits and decrease the friction in the economy.
\subsection{Research Questions}
This thesis walks through the design and justification of a digital currency, which answers the following research question:
\begin{quotation}
\textbf{RQ: }\textit{How do we design a usable digital currency without an intermediary for balances and transactions while maintaining the trust of users, merchants, and governments?}
\end{quotation}
In which we explore in sub research questions:
\begin{quotation}
\textbf{RQ1: }\textit{How do we discover the relationships between requirements and stakeholders?}
\end{quotation}
\begin{quotation}
\textbf{RQ2: }\textit{How do we implement the balance, transaction, identity, and regulatory features of the digital currency?}
\end{quotation}
\begin{quotation}
\textbf{RQ3: }\textit{How do we justify our implementation is secure and to what degree of privacy is preserved?}
\end{quotation}
Answering \textbf{RQ1} ensures the digital currency satisfies the expectations and solves a problem for the key stakeholders: users willing to hold value and buy goods and services, merchants willing to accept payments and hold value, and governments willing to back the system to increase the trust of users and merchants. \textbf{RQ2} explores the centralised and decentralised technologies and components needed to implement the requirements. Finally, \textbf{RQ3} analyses the security characteristics of the implementation in regards, which is vital for all key stakeholders to trust and adopt the system. Together \textbf{RQ1}, \textbf{RQ2}, and \textbf{RQ3} lead to the design of a usable and trustworthy digital currency.
\subsection{Structure of the Thesis}
\todo[inline]{TODO}
\pagebreak
%--------------------CHAPTER 2 - BRIDGE-----------------
\section{Bridge of Knowledge}
\label{Bridge of Knowledge}
\todo[inline]{Write the Bridge of Knowledge (Chapter 2) \ldots}
\pagebreak
%--------------------CHAPTER 3-----------------
\section{Chapter 3}
\label{Chapter 3}
\todo[inline]{Write Chapter 3 \ldots}
\pagebreak
%--------------------CHAPTER 4-----------------
\section{Chapter 4}
\label{Chapter 4}
\todo[inline]{Write Chapter 4 \ldots}
\pagebreak
%--------------------CHAPTER 5-----------------
\section{Chapter 5}
\label{Chapter 5}
\todo[inline]{Write Chapter 5 \ldots}
\pagebreak
%--------------------CHAPTER 6 - EVALUATION-----------------
\section{Evaluation}
\label{Evaluation}
\todo[inline]{Write Evaluation (Chapter 6) \ldots}
\pagebreak
%-------------------------------SUMMARY---------------------------
\section{Summary}
\label{Summary}
\todo[inline]{Write Summary (Chapter 7) \ldots}
\pagebreak
%------------------------------Bibliography-----------------------------------
\addcontentsline{toc}{section}{Bibliography}
\bibliography{thesis}{}
\bibliographystyle{plain}
\pagebreak
%-----------------------------APPENDICES--------------------------------
\section*{Appendix 1 - [Heading]}
%\label{Lisa1}
\addcontentsline{toc}{section}{Appendix 1}
\todo[inline]{Add Appendix 1 or delete it}
\end{document}