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I didn’t see a single disclosure of any of the authors’ personal holdings of the discussed coins, though maybe I missed it. The tone and topics seem neutral and

I didn’t see a single disclosure of any of the authors’ personal holdings of the discussed coins, though maybe I missed it. The tone and topics seem neutral and levelheaded, in fairness. I think it is just as important as a disclosing who sponsored your research and being transparent about any potential conflicts of interest. The listed Bitcoin wallet address of “Peter R. Rizun, Co-Managing Editor” (1BWZe6XkGLcf6DWC3TFXiEtZmcyAoNq5BW) has some pretty juicy trade volume. There’s no way to tell if that’s all there is to see, of course. Framed another way, would it be expected for a shareholder of a company writing a paper about that company (or its direct competitors) to disclose their stake and relationships?

say_it_as_it_is 5y ago
- robbedpeter 5y ago
  A glowing, peer reviewed paper could easily pump a currency. Disclosure imposes accountability and context. For example, if ten currencies are investigated and each time the researchers bet in the direction of their paper, they're engaged in manipulation and their work is biased. Disclosure should be a no brainer in this context.
- capableweb 5y ago
  There is an obvious conflict-of-interest if I hold Bitcoins and then start a journal that is supposed to write objectively about Bitcoin, as my worth-in-USD depends on the value of Bitcoin. If Bitcoin goes up in price, I benefit, hence I might avoid writing about certain things that could make the price go down.
- jagger27 5y ago
  This isn't a serious question, is it? Can you prove that someone with a vested interest in a particular asset would write 100% objectively and not lean towards a more positive result in the paper? No, of course you can't prove that. The least an author can do is put their cards on the table.
  - RealityVoid 5y ago
    On the other hand, it's kind of hard to talk about investing and really truly believe something is worth it financially and NOT put money on it.
ShamelessC 5y ago
> (1BWZe6XkGLcf6DWC3TFXiEtZmcyAoNq5BW) has some pretty juicy trade volume. There’s no way to tell if that’s all there is to see, of course. Can you clarify this for me? Isn't the listing of a wallet address a form of disclosure? Or would it be common to have holdings in other coins or something like that?
- mcintyre1994 5y ago
  Any user can have any number of wallets on any number of blockchains. So they could have other Bitcoin wallets that they haven't disclosed, or they could have wallet(s) containing other coins like Ethereum. In general you can't tie a wallet to its owner's identity, or know all wallets owned by an individual.
- jagger27 5y ago
  It’s common to have lots of wallets, even for a single coin. It might be tedious to list everything, so it would be better to just to say “as of $(date) the authors in sum hold roughly 100,000,000 Dogecoin, <15 ETH, and participate in the following DAOs: …” Is that unreasonable? I’m looking for transparency. I think posting wallet addresses is a great way to do disclosure, but it could be limited. They might have funds in an exchange for all I know, right?
  - ShamelessC 5y ago
    No that's not unreasonable. Thanks for clarifying.
mritchie712 5y ago
What do you use to find the "juicy trade volume"? Could you share a link.
- jagger27 5y ago
  Any blockchain explorer will do.
xmcqdpt2 5y ago
Being employed by a crypto project is reportable conflict of interest, but not simple holdings. I privately asked one of the editor exactly that and was told that they don't consider it reportable CoI unless you own "a significant stake in the project." They are effectively applying the same standard to crypto that other journals apply to stockholding and companies. Here is the policy, https://ledgerjournal.org/ojs/ledger/conflicts https://ledgerjournal.org/ojs/ledger/conflicts So basically if you own 200k USD of bitcoin you don't have to report it because it's not a significant stake of all bitcoins. Similarly, someone who owns 200k USD of Google stock wouldn't (in most scientific journals that I have checked) have to report it when peer reviewing a paper from Google, because it's not a large stake of Google's business. Now, whether that makes sense for crypto (as opposed to stocks in public companies) or stocks is another question. Personally I would prefer that scientists (and specifically peer reviewers) report all financial stakes in companies or projects that are worth more than some amount, but that's not common. It's definately something to remember when reading ANY peer-reviewed journal article that directly relates to someone's business. (Also it's fairly common to see an article in a big journal with no CoI statement because the author went on to start a company based on that publication AFTER it was reviewed. Did they plan to do this? Hard to say. IMO, it's important to google authors of dubious articles because CoI statements are almost never updated, even if the conflict is clear in retrospect. And journals should be pushed to update CoI on previously published work.)
- aspenmayer 5y ago
  I was about to post their responsible disclosure policy, but your explication went much further. Kudos.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
Wheaties466 5y ago
maybe not amount they hold but definitely their holdings would be very reasonable to disclose.
znpy 5y ago
In fairness however, just yesterday there was an usenix paper about "slicer", a large scale sharding system developed at google. Some of the authors were listed as google employees but it wasn't if any of them owned google shares. They probably do, but you can't really tell.
- jagger27 5y ago
  To me the difference is the @google.com email addresses at the top makes their intentions and motivations clear. It tells us that the authors were paid a salary by a known entity to do their research. Especially coming from Google, they get paid their plush SV salary either way if their project fails or becomes the next Gmail. The financial incentives around cryptocurrencies are different. Eminem just bought a link to a picture of a bored ape for 123 ETH ($450k USD). I'd love to read a neutral and rational explanation for the social and technical merits of that in a peer reviewed paper. Who would write such a thing who wasn't either selling their own NFTs or holding a shitload of ETH? Disclosure: I have a wallet with ~0.11 Ethereum that I mined myself a few years ago.

say_it_as_it_is 5y ago

robbedpeter 5y ago
A glowing, peer reviewed paper could easily pump a currency. Disclosure imposes accountability and context. For example, if ten currencies are investigated and each time the researchers bet in the direction of their paper, they're engaged in manipulation and their work is biased. Disclosure should be a no brainer in this context.
capableweb 5y ago
There is an obvious conflict-of-interest if I hold Bitcoins and then start a journal that is supposed to write objectively about Bitcoin, as my worth-in-USD depends on the value of Bitcoin. If Bitcoin goes up in price, I benefit, hence I might avoid writing about certain things that could make the price go down.
jagger27 5y ago
This isn't a serious question, is it? Can you prove that someone with a vested interest in a particular asset would write 100% objectively and not lean towards a more positive result in the paper? No, of course you can't prove that. The least an author can do is put their cards on the table.
- RealityVoid 5y ago
  On the other hand, it's kind of hard to talk about investing and really truly believe something is worth it financially and NOT put money on it.

ShamelessC 5y ago

> (1BWZe6XkGLcf6DWC3TFXiEtZmcyAoNq5BW) has some pretty juicy trade volume. There’s no way to tell if that’s all there is to see, of course. Can you clarify this for me? Isn't the listing of a wallet address a form of disclosure? Or would it be common to have holdings in other coins or something like that?

mcintyre1994 5y ago
Any user can have any number of wallets on any number of blockchains. So they could have other Bitcoin wallets that they haven't disclosed, or they could have wallet(s) containing other coins like Ethereum. In general you can't tie a wallet to its owner's identity, or know all wallets owned by an individual.
jagger27 5y ago
It’s common to have lots of wallets, even for a single coin. It might be tedious to list everything, so it would be better to just to say “as of $(date) the authors in sum hold roughly 100,000,000 Dogecoin, <15 ETH, and participate in the following DAOs: …” Is that unreasonable? I’m looking for transparency. I think posting wallet addresses is a great way to do disclosure, but it could be limited. They might have funds in an exchange for all I know, right?
- ShamelessC 5y ago
  No that's not unreasonable. Thanks for clarifying.

mritchie712 5y ago

What do you use to find the "juicy trade volume"? Could you share a link.

jagger27 5y ago
Any blockchain explorer will do.

xmcqdpt2 5y ago

Being employed by a crypto project is reportable conflict of interest, but not simple holdings. I privately asked one of the editor exactly that and was told that they don't consider it reportable CoI unless you own "a significant stake in the project." They are effectively applying the same standard to crypto that other journals apply to stockholding and companies. Here is the policy, https://ledgerjournal.org/ojs/ledger/conflicts https://ledgerjournal.org/ojs/ledger/conflicts So basically if you own 200k USD of bitcoin you don't have to report it because it's not a significant stake of all bitcoins. Similarly, someone who owns 200k USD of Google stock wouldn't (in most scientific journals that I have checked) have to report it when peer reviewing a paper from Google, because it's not a large stake of Google's business. Now, whether that makes sense for crypto (as opposed to stocks in public companies) or stocks is another question. Personally I would prefer that scientists (and specifically peer reviewers) report all financial stakes in companies or projects that are worth more than some amount, but that's not common. It's definately something to remember when reading ANY peer-reviewed journal article that directly relates to someone's business. (Also it's fairly common to see an article in a big journal with no CoI statement because the author went on to start a company based on that publication AFTER it was reviewed. Did they plan to do this? Hard to say. IMO, it's important to google authors of dubious articles because CoI statements are almost never updated, even if the conflict is clear in retrospect. And journals should be pushed to update CoI on previously published work.)

aspenmayer 5y ago
I was about to post their responsible disclosure policy, but your explication went much further. Kudos.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

Wheaties466 5y ago

maybe not amount they hold but definitely their holdings would be very reasonable to disclose.

znpy 5y ago

In fairness however, just yesterday there was an usenix paper about "slicer", a large scale sharding system developed at google. Some of the authors were listed as google employees but it wasn't if any of them owned google shares. They probably do, but you can't really tell.

jagger27 5y ago
To me the difference is the @google.com email addresses at the top makes their intentions and motivations clear. It tells us that the authors were paid a salary by a known entity to do their research. Especially coming from Google, they get paid their plush SV salary either way if their project fails or becomes the next Gmail. The financial incentives around cryptocurrencies are different. Eminem just bought a link to a picture of a bored ape for 123 ETH ($450k USD). I'd love to read a neutral and rational explanation for the social and technical merits of that in a peer reviewed paper. Who would write such a thing who wasn't either selling their own NFTs or holding a shitload of ETH? Disclosure: I have a wallet with ~0.11 Ethereum that I mined myself a few years ago.