【喜庆二十大・学术讲座】2023年4月20日（周四）13:30-15:00 汪通（英国爱丁堡大学）

讲座系列：前沿专题系列讲座第15场

主讲人：汪通（英国爱丁堡大学商学院副教授）

时间：2023年4月20日（周四）13:30-15:00

地点：博学楼1222

主持人：孙一飞（国际经济贸易学院经济学系教授）

讲座题目：Assessing the Impact of Hype on Blockchain-based Cryptocurrency: The Case of Initial Coin Offerings

讲座摘要：The rapid development of blockchain technology enriches the variety of digital assets, such as in-game assets, crypto collectibles, and artwork ownership, making Initial Coin Offering （ICO） the main financing channel for blockchain projects. Since the market for ICOs lacks regulation and scrutiny, blockchain companies rely on “digital hype” as a marketing tool to promote their products. The authors examine the effects of this hype during ICOs on blockchain-based projects on project outcomes. Based on information economics, we consider hype scores as a set of predominately prelaunch marketing activities that perpetuate cheap talk signals to promote radically new and high-risk cryptocurrencies. The authors analyze a comprehensive and manually collected dataset of more than 2,479 ICOs between 2014 and 2019 and track the project status of ICOs after issuance. After correcting for potential selection and endogeneity issues using the Heckman two-step and instrumental variable methods, results show that hype scores positively affect the success of blockchain projects. Searching for a mechanism reveals that information asymmetry may lead to “bad money driving out good money” since the desire to raise money successfully may lead some low-quality projects to over-hype themselves at the ICO stage, further hurting market efficiency. To assess the heterogeneity of the effect, the authors construct a competitive network to describe the competitive relationships among projects and find that the competitive intensity moderates the hype signal effect: When a blockchain project faces competition from multiple similar projects, the signals emitted by the hype score will become blurred.

主讲人简介：汪通博士现为爱丁堡大学商学院副教授。他在图卢兹经济学院获得经济学博士学位，在来爱丁堡大学工作之前，他在欧洲大学学院担任Jean-Monnet研究员，从事规制和竞争政策分析的研究工作。他的研究兴趣主要在金融科技以及数字经济学方面。

主讲人主页：

https://www.business-school.ed.ac.uk/staff/tong-wang