DISTRIBUTED LEDGER AND ITS POTENTIAL APPLICATION

The article focuses on the advantages of distributed ledger technology in view to apply it within existing financial system. The article is highly relevant as the technology is a perfect opportunity to develop the financial system in terms of reducing costs and improving efficiency. The authors suggest a few brief definitions of such terms as distributed ledger, block-chain, bitcoin and mining. The article points out and describes special features of distributed ledger technology. Based on the definitions, the article outlines operation principles of the distributed ledger, block-chain, bitcoin and mining. Also, it compares cash against cryptocurrency - bitcoin. The article examines the possibilities of using distributed ledger technology in clearing, payment and settlement processes including ways of money transfer, payments for goods, securities and derivative financial instruments. Also, the article provides statistical data on the use of cryptocurrencies considering the cases of their capitalization, price, money supply and numbers of transactions submitted within 24 hours, 7 and 30 days. The article emphasizes the increase in volume of such transactions in the US, China, Ukraine and at the same time points to the decline in this type of transactions in Russia. In addition to statistical data, the article provides information on the types of distributed ledger systems along with comparison between different types of systems. The article describes processes of transferring money, as well as transactions with goods, securities and derivative financial instruments in modern infrastructure environment. For illustrative purposes, the authors outline how the process would proceed if distributed registry technology was implemented. The authors conclude that advantages of distributed ledger technology overweight its shortages if one takes into account operational, technical, financial and legal aspects. Application of distributed ledger technology would increase efficiency of payments, clearing and settlement, and in the long term, distributed ledger technology could eliminate most shortages of the system existing nowadays on the financial market.

distributed ledger, block-chain, bitcoin, mining, cryptocurrency

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