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Artists make vital contributions to our society and lay the foundations for billion-dollar industries. However, these artists consistently struggle to acquire sufficient funding for their projects and their livelihood. New technology-supported possibilities for funding artists and their projects have emerged in recent years. Initial Coin Offering (ICO) is a novel form of reward-based tokenized crowdfunding. Although ICOs are promising as a way to fund artistic projects, they lack widespread adoption in the creative and cultural industry (CCI). Based on 35 qualitative in-depth interviews, we identify four barriers that hinder the funding of artistic projects through ICOs: legal shortcomings, investment restrictions, lack of consumer interest, and intermediaries’ resistance. Our research contributes to cultural finance and funding literature by disclosing barriers that impede a promising form of financing artistic projects. Further, we outline possible solutions to overcome them. We also contribute to the research about ICOs by showing that rather than reducing investment risks, these offerings merely shift them.

Initial coin offerings (ICOs) have emerged as an alternative way of raising funds for entrepreneurial ventures to develop a new project or product. In this study, a comprehensive analysis is conducted on the determinants of ICO success and aftermarket performance of ICOs. Our evidence suggests that ICOs with higher ratings, shorter planned token sale duration, smaller share for token sale, larger number of experts and more members in the developing team have a greater likelihood of success and raising more funds. We also show that offer price and market sentiment play a major role in explaining longer term post-ICO performance. Yet, key to a successful ICO and post-ICO performance differ between boom vs bust periods in the cryptocurrency markets.

This survey talks about the problem of security and privacy in the blockchain ecosystem which is currently a hot issue in the blockchain community. The survey intended to study this problem by considering different types of attacks in the blockchain network with respect to algorithms presented. After a preliminary literature review it seems that some focus has been given to study the first use case while, to the best of my knowledge, the second use case requires more attention when blockchain is applied to study it. The research is also interested in exploring the link between these two use cases to study the overall data ownership preserving accountable system which will be a novel contribution of this work. However, due to the subsequent government mandated secrecy around the implementation of data encryption standard(DES), and the distrust of the academic community because of this, a movement was spawned that put a premium on individual privacy and decentralized control. This movement brought together the top minds in encryption and spawned the technology we know of as blockchain today. This survey explores the genesis of encryption, its early adoption, and the government meddling which eventually spawned a movement which gave birth to the ideas behind blockchain.

This dissertation consists of three chapters that concern financial markets. The first chapter analyzes how financial frictions impact local government infrastructure spending. The US is frequently criticized for its recent poor spending and upkeep in local infrastructure, such as schools, utilities, and roads. I provide evidence that financial frictions in municipal bond markets exacerbate infrastructure underfunding. To demonstrate this, I exploit the differential exposure to government-rescued monoline bond insurers during the financial crisis as a quasi-experiment that affected local government access to municipal bond markets. I show that local governments with more exposure to a government-rescued monoline insurer FSA and its purchaser Assured Guaranty had better borrowing outcomes and spending in capital investments, relative to others that had exposure to non-rescued insurers. Event-study coefficients and difference-in-difference regression estimates show that issuers in the treatment group issue more bonds in the years after 2008, and also spend more on capital investments. The effect is significant for categories of public goods for which federal resources are scarce -- specifically in education, housing development, and some general utilities.The second chapter analyzes the effect of passive indexing on informed trading. I develop a model of segmented trade that considers the effect of comovement on asset pricing, efficiency, and incentives to acquire information. The main contribution is to show that traders who participate via passive indexes have characteristics of both informed and uninformed traders. They are like uninformed traders as they diversify away all idiosyncratic risk, and so do not seek costly information, but they are alike informed traders as their presence causes any informed trading to be more quickly disseminated into prices. I provide some empirical justification for this model using a regression-discontinuity design around Russell 2000 index inclusions with institutional holding data. The third chapter explores the asset pricing properties of cryptocurrencies, an emerging type of digital transaction that utilizes decentralized, cryptographic methods to verify ownership. This chapter is co-authored with my dissertation chair Professor Christine Parlour. We provide summary statistics on cryptocurrency return properties and measures of common variation for over 200 digital coins. Secondly, we provide investment characteristics of initial coin offerings (ICOs), a method of crowdfunding that utilizes cryptocurrencies as legal tender. We reconcile these statistics with traditional finance theories and develop a set of empirical facts for this new asset class.

As prior researchers have suggested a firm's success in an international market depends on how well its strategy fits with the nonmarket environment such as formal institutions. This paper examines the determinants of formal institutions around new areas of economic activities. Specifically, we propose a framework for understanding how the quality of formal institutions to promote entrepreneurship drives the focus of such institutions with respect to initial coin offering (ICO), which is emerging as a popular fundraising method. The paper also analyzes how nonmarket factors such as a jurisdiction's tax haven nature, regulators' perceptions of ICOs as threats to national or political interests and trade and industry associations might moderate the relations between quality of institutions and the focus of such institutions with respect to ICOs. We utilize inductive analysis. A key finding of this study is that an economy's quality of entrepreneurship-related institutions, perceived threats to national/political interests and tax haven nature lead to different policy orientations. Consequently, regulators assign different importance to promote crypto-entrepreneurship and to deal with associated risks. Regulators with main focus on promoting crypto-ventures have taken measures to enrich blockchain ecosystem and provided tax and non-tax incentives to attract such ventures. Regulators with main focus on dealing with risks of crypto-ventures are relying on regulatory sandbox and close regulatory monitoring of such ventures.

As Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs) são uma forma alternativa de financiamento, destinada a projetos com modelo de negócio baseado na tecnologia blockchain. O presente estudo propõe-se analisar a associação entre a utilização de comunicação nos canais digitais pelos promotores do projeto e os ratings dos projetos publicados online por entidades terceiras e o sucesso das ICOs na fase de emissão. Foi efetuada a análise quantitativa de dados secundários (micro dados de 556 ICOs do setor bancário) e recorreu-se ao estudo de caso qualitativo das principais ICOs do setor bancário, com recurso à observação e análise de conteúdo. Os resultados do presente estudo revelaram que a presença nos social media está associada ao sucesso das ICOs do setor bancário, nomeadamente a utilização das plataformas Twitter, Slack, Facebook, Medium, Bitcointalk, Github, Reddit e Youtube. Adicionalmente, as classificações de ratings divulgadas nas plataformas online estão associadas ao sucesso na obtenção de financiamento das ICOs. Do ponto de vista teórico os resultados indicam que a comunicação nos canais digitais (e.g., código fonte, whitepaper) permite reduzir a assimetria de informação entre promotores e investidores numa ICO. info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion

Entrepreneurial finance markets are in a dynamic state. New market niches and players have developed and continue to emerge. The rules of the game and the methods for receiving financial backing have changed in many ways. This editorial and the special issue of Small Business Economics focus on crowdfunding (CF) and initial coin offerings (ICOs), which are two distinct but important entrepreneurial finance market segments of the future. Although the two market segments initially appear to be similar, we identify differences between them. Our comparison focuses on the stakeholders, microstructures, regulatory environments, and development of the markets. We conclude with suggestions for future ICO and CF research.

Investors and policy-makers still know little about the dynamics of initial coin offerings (ICOs) as a funding mechanism. Investors’ decisions to contribute to ICOs are essentially a leap of faith given ICOs’ decentralized nature coupled with the lack of regulatory oversight. Drawing on psychological theories on cognitive bias, we propose that one heuristic by which investors assess an ICO’s trustworthiness is the reputation of the ICO’s country of origin, which we proxy as institutional strength. Examining 2077 ICOs from 105 countries between 2015 and 2018, we find that ICOs originating in countries with stronger institutions are more likely to be traded, raise more funds, and experience lower price volatility. This relationship is particularly relevant for countries with no or few ICO regulations. Our results show that when faced with fewer regulations and higher uncertainty, investors use an ICO’s country of origin as a heuristic for the ICO’s unobserved trustworthiness.

Cataloged from PDF version of article. Thesis (Ph.D.): Bilkent University, Department of Management, İhsan Doğramacı Bilkent University, 2021. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 77-88). The financial sector is currently experiencing a gradual change, driven by near-term digital and technological innovations. Emerging distributed ledger technologies (DLT), such as Blockchain, open new avenues for investors and companies providing fast, secure, and low-cost peer-to-peer transactions. Bitcoin, the first application of Blockchain, has inspired other applications and products, and led to the creation of thousands of other cryptocurrencies and new wave of crowdfunding. The primary purpose of this study is to investigate both cryptocurrencies and cryptocurrency-based crowdfunding. This dissertation made up of three main parts. In the first part, the determinants of Initial Coin Offering (ICO) success and aftermarket performance of ICOs are analyzed. We find that higher ratings, shorter duration, smaller share for token sale, larger number of experts and more members in the developing team have a positive impact on ICO success. We also observe a significant relationship between offer price, market sentiment and longer term post-ICO performance. Yet, key to a successful ICO and post-ICO performance differ between boom vs bust periods in the cryptocurrency markets. The second part deals with the weak-form efficiency property of four largest cryptocurrencies by market capitalization, i.e. Bitcoin, Litecoin, Ripple and Ethereum. We use different Hurst exponent estimation techniques at different intraday frequencies. We reveal a U-shaped pattern for pricing efficiency with respect to the sampling frequency. The last part is about the hedge and safe-haven properties of Bitcoin, and its interlinkages to other precious metals (gold, silver, platinum, and palladium). Using high frequency data, we find evidence of spillover effects in volatility among Bitcoin and precious metals. Furthermore, the results suggest that the risk spillovers are time dependent and are sensitive to slowdowns in economic activity and political events. Overall, we contribute to the understanding of both market and corporate based approaches to the role of cryptocurrencies in capital markets. by Aylin Aslan Ph.D.

While firms have obtained outside financing from large numbers of investors on financial markets for centuries, online crowdfunding platforms have only emerged as a major source of funding for start-ups and new projects for a decade. The information available to backers on crowdfunding platforms is generally coarse. This paper surveys the existing literature on the extent to which crowdfunding harnesses the wisdom of crowds. We discuss two broad categories of crowdfunding. Reward-based crowdfunding platforms such as Kickstarter, where backers typically have private and independent valuations, appear to offer environments that may harness the wisdom of crowds. In contrast, initial coin offerings (ICOs) offering services with network externalities and security-based platforms with common values appear to exhibit some results eliciting valuable information, but several results appear to point to informational cascades.

With transformative evolution involving crypto-assets, machine learning applications and data-driven finance models, complex regulatory and policy issues are emerging. Inadequate frameworks in FinTech markets create regulatory friction and regulatory fragmentation. These limitations continue to feature when piecemeal regulatory transition occurs. The danger of EU Member States being left behind in the FinTech innovation race if the regulatory landscape is cumbersome or incomplete for new business models is real. Regulatory lag and regulatory friction also act as a ‘disenabler’ for ease of cross-border FinTech trade in the EU. This article critically engages with the manner in which the regulatory sandbox has rapidly gained critical mass in Member States as a valuable adaptive measure supporting a route to market for FinTech entrepreneurs. Against the backdrop of the European Commission’s Digital Finance Strategy, the article further advances scholarship on FinTech in the EU by probing the EU’s resulting regulatory dilemma, undertaking a systematic evaluation of the continuum of complex policy options available to the European Union in response to the spreading regulatory sandbox phenomenon.

The European Commission published its new Digital Finance Strategy on 24 September 2020. One of the centrepieces of the Strategy is the draft Regulation on Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA), designed to provide a comprehensive regulatory framework for digital assets in the EU. With MiCA the EU Commission has proposed bespoke regulation for utility tokens and stablecoins including payments tokens, asset-backed tokens and “significant” stablecoins (including “global stablecoins”). As to investment and securities tokens, the EU Digital Finance Strategy relies on the existing body of EU financial and securities law, with the Prospectus Regulation, the MiFID framework as well as the UCITSD and AIFMD at its core, with the intention to incorporate necessary changes as part of the existing ongoing amendment and review processes. MiCA provides for a bespoke prospectus regime for crypto-assets, with the issuing of e-money tokens (i.e. payment tokens), asset-referenced tokens (also known as stablecoins) and crypto-asset services being regulated activities subject to licensing. While supervision of crypto-asset service providers (CASPs) will rest with national authorities, supervision of significant asset-referenced and e-money tokens will rest mainly with the European Banking Authority. The EU Digital Finance Strategy marks a very important step for the EU in developing both innovation and the Single Market. At the same time, while MiCA is an ambitious legislative project, there is room for improvement. First, the scope of MiCA remains uncertain as the draft MiCA does not clearly delineate between utility tokens subject to MiCA and investment tokens subject to EU securities law. Second, a systematic approach to EU law is absent. Thresholds and concepts known from other EU laws should be firmly embedded in MiCA. Third, a framework for supervisory cooperation with regard to truly global stablecoins is missing.

Fintech companies have been surging taking advantage of the current technological developments and have been challenging traditional incumbents. Disruptive ventures financed by cryptocurrencies are one of the main topics related to technological developments, capable of completely eliminating the need for a third-party intervenient and reducing the gap between investors and promoters. The purpose of this thesis is to identify the main impacts that fintech companies have on the business models of traditional banking/financial institutions and to focus on the success factors of disruptive and highly technological Initial Coin Offerings (ICO) projects, particularly, on the human capital factors. In order to do that, the thesis is divided into three main studies, each one of them focused on a particular topic. The methods used in this thesis are mixed as a qualitative approach was adopted through a systematic literature review, and a quantitative approach was performed by building several econometric models. This thesis concludes that fintechs cannot be considered complete substitutes to the traditional services yet. Nevertheless, they are posing incumbents challenges and exposing the weaknesses of their business models. The banking/financial institutions need to urgently adapt their business models in order to remain competitive, and most of them already accepted this challenge. The ICO projects also present a disruption and a step forward in the democratization of the financial investments. This study identified a wide range of success factors influencing the outcome of an ICO project. The success factors might be divided into categories according to their scope: (i) project; (ii) campaign; (iii) social networks; (iv) human capital. It is concluded that several factors have a real impact in the outcome of the projects, such as, the existence of financing thresholds, the quality of the whitepaper, the existence of a secondary market and bonus schemes, the price of the tokens, the price of cryptocurrencies, the good management of social networks, the promoters’ geographic location, their networks, the size of the teams, external ratings attributed to the project and to the team. In terms of theoretical contributions, this study added a contribution to the still scarce literature on ICO projects and to two theories, namely, the signaling theory and Human Capital Theory (HCT). The managerial implications concern mainly the assessment of the quality of a project by the investors and the need for regulation by supervisors. As empresas fintech surgiram tomando partido dos atuais desenvolvimentos tecnológicos tendo desafiado os atuais atores do mercado. Projetos disruptivos financiados nomeadamente por cripto moedas são um dos tópicos relacionados com o desenvolvimento tecnológico e capazes de eliminar a necessidade para o envolvimento de terceiros na mediação financeira reduzindo assim o hiato entre investidores e promotores. O propósito desta tese é o de identificar os principais impactos que as empresas fintech têm nos modelos de negócio das empresas financeiras já estabelecidos no mercado. Terá um foco especial nos fatores de sucesso dos projetos baseados na blockchain denominados Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs), em particular, os fatores relacionados com o capital humano. Assim, a tese está dividida em três estudos principais com focos diferentes. A metodologia usada nesta tese é de métodos mistos: uma metodologia qualitativa foi usada na revisão sistemática da literatura; e uma metodologia quantitativa foi usada na construção e estimação de modelos econométricos, tendo por base microdados de 428 projetos de ICOs do setor bancário. Esta tese conclui que as fintechs não podem ser ainda consideradas substitutos dos serviços financeiros tradicionais. Contudo, estas colocam desafios e expõem as fraquezas dos modelos de negócio tradicionais. A indústria financeira necessita de adaptar urgentemente os seus modelos de negócio para se manter competitiva. Este desafio já foi aceite por várias empresas. Os ICOs causam disrupção e são um grande passo para a democratização dos investimentos financeiros. Este estudo identificou um conjunto alargado de fatores de sucesso que influenciam o resultado final destes projetos. Os fatores podem agrupar-se em categorias: (i) projeto; (ii) campanha; (iii) redes sociais; (iv) capital humano. Os fatores que esta tese comprovou contribuírem para o sucesso de um projeto são os seguintes: pré-existência de limites de financiamento; a qualidade do whitepaper; a existência de um mercado secundário e esquema de bonificações; o preço dos tokens; o preço das cripto moedas; a boa gestão de redes sociais; a localização geográfica e a rede de contactos dos promotores; o tamanho das equipas; ratings externos atribuídos ao projeto e à equipa.No que diz respeito às contribuições teóricas, esta tese contribuiu para a escassa literatura no tema dos ICOs e para duas teorias, nomeadamente a siganling theory e Human Capital Theory (HCT). As contribuições práticas deste estudo relacionam-se com a avaliação da qualidade do projeto e a necessidade premente dos reguladores tomarem medidas nestes mercados.

Digital technologies have created new alternative sources of entrepreneurial finance that create significant opportunities for start-ups and entrepreneurs. Among them, Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs) have attracted significant attention from the start-up community and from investors. Despite all the hype around ICOs and the growing number of new token offerings being launched on a daily basis, little is known about the characteristics of successful ICOs. This study aims to fill this gap in the literature by exploring whether and how the linguistic styles adopted in the white paper affects the success of an ICO as measured by the actual amount raised by the offering. Our results are based on a primary dataset of 131 ICOs completed between June 2017 and October 2018. Our results suggest that the use of precise language is positively associated with the amount funded while the use of a concrete language and more numerical terms is negatively associated with the amount funded. This study contributes to the growing literature on ICOs by providing novel insights into the role of the communication strategy adopted by token issuers.

As fintech estão visivelmente a assumir uma importância crescente a nível mundial. Permitem, entre outras inovações, novas formas de financiamento como as Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs). As ICOs possibilitam financiar projetos sem recorrer a um intermediário, através da venda de ativos digitais, designados por tokens, transacionáveis em mercado secundário, sendo estas comunicadas, essencialmente, através do digital. A presente dissertação irá analisar a presença nos social media e as campanhas de digital marketing utilizadas pelas ICOs no setor bancário. Foi efetuada a análise quantitativa de dados secundários (micro dados de 556 ICOs do setor bancário) e recorreu-se ao estudo de caso qualitativo das principais ICOs do setor bancário, com recurso à observação e entrevistas, com o principal objetivo de verificar se as plataformas de social media influenciam o sucesso das ICOs no setor bancário. Os resultados da presente dissertação revelaram que a presença nos social media está associada ao sucesso das ICOs no setor bancário, nomeadamente uma associação estatisticamente significativa entre o Twitter, Slack, Facebook, Medium, Bitcointalk, Github, Reddit e Youtube e o sucesso das ICOs no setor bancário. Por último, os resultados revelam que as classificações de ratings divulgadas nas plataformas online estão associadas ao sucesso na obtenção de financiamento das ICOs no setor bancário. Fintechs are clearly taking on increasing importance worldwide. They allow, among other innovations, new forms of financing, such as Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs). ICOs make it possible to finance projects without resorting to an intermediary, through the sale of digital assets, called tokens, tradable in the secondary market, which are communicated, essentially, through digital. This dissertation will analyze the presence in social media and the digital marketing campaigns used by ICOs in the banking sector. The quantitative analysis of secondary data (micro data of 556 ICOs in the banking sector) was carried out and a qualitative case study of the main ICOs in the banking sector was used, using observation and interviews, with the main objective of verifying whether the platforms of social media influence the success of ICOs in the banking sector. The results of this dissertation revealed that the presence in social media is associated with the success of ICOs in the banking sector, namely a statistically significant association between Twitter, Slack, Facebook, Medium, Bitcointalk, Github, Reddit and Youtube and the success of ICOs in the banking sector. Finally, the results reveal that the ratings published on the online platforms are associated with the success in obtaining financing from ICOs in the banking sector.

This chapter sets out to establish the key issues that have become central within the market for Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs). Within this context, we provide a brief overview of the existing literature based on ICOs around the world, while explaining the motivations and styles of criminality that have occurred, the methods that have been widely used by cryptocurrency thieves, the potential for the innovation of theft within the sector and the related problems that such technological progress can potentially generate, and the types of market agents that have set out to potentially misuse ICOs for a variety of reasons at both the sovereign and corporate level. As cryptocurrency markets continue to evolve, it is imperative that policy-makers and regulators continue to monitor the potential development of sophisticated manipulation and cybercriminality techniques that have developed throughout the market for cryptocurrencies.

Submitted by Maria Helena Ribeiro (helena.ribeiro@lisboa.ucp.pt) on 2021-11-29T10:36:32Z No. of bitstreams: 1 ERICA MARIANA PEREIRA VENTURA.pdf: 800260 bytes, checksum: c51ef3bf9d9efd9293f8fc09998b65cf (MD5) Made available in DSpace on 2021-11-29T10:36:32Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 ERICA MARIANA PEREIRA VENTURA.pdf: 800260 bytes, checksum: c51ef3bf9d9efd9293f8fc09998b65cf (MD5) Previous issue date: 2021-07-14

This paper reviews the circumstances surrounding the launch of Venture Capital: An International Journal of Entrepreneurial Finance in 1999. It highlights a number of significant changes in the structure of the entrepreneurial finance market over the past 20 years, notably the decline of‘classic’ venture capital, the effective closure of the small-cap IPO market, the scale-up problem and the emergence of a second equity gap, and the institutionalisation of the business angel market. A number of new players in the market – coinvestment schemes, equity crowdfunding platforms and blockchain technology-based Initial Coin Offerings – are discussed and the challenges and opportunities they pose for investors, entrepreneurs, policy makers, regulators and academic researchers are assessed. Against this background, a number of key features of the evolution of the content and focus of the Journal are discussed. The paper finishes with a summary of the papers included in this Special Issue.

There is a shared view among practitioners that the blockchain is a revolutionary, decentralized technology that will have a larger impact than the Internet. Firms are increasingly using blockchains for various applications; the most prominent of which to date are digital currencies. In this article, we aim to increase our theoretical understanding of the driving forces behind the success and volatility of digital currencies. We use a detailed dataset of 345 digital currencies for our explorative analysis and identify some of the key factors that can explain their performance. We find that the success and volatility of digital currencies depend on their business type (i.e., whether they relate to a platform business or not) and on their technology type (i.e., whether they are based on their own specialized blockchain technology or on a third-party standardized platform blockchain). Our findings suggest that, paradoxically, to obtain the promised benefits of this decentralized technology, firms need to centralize part of it to retain control over critical strategic dimensions (data and rules for transaction). We discuss the implications of our discovery for other contexts undergoing digital transformation.

Jeder Anfang ist schwierig - besonders für Startups, die ganz am Anfang ihres Lebenszyklus stehen. Eines der Hauptprobleme, mit denen sich Startups auseinandersetzen müssen, ist der Bedarf an externer Finanzierung zur Aufrechterhaltung ihrer Betriebsabläufe und Investitionen für künftiges Wachstum. Die richtige Mischung aus Fremd- und Eigenkapitalfinanzierung zu finden, die die beste Finanzierung zu den geringsten Kosten ermöglicht, ist ein Grundprinzip jeder umsichtigen Geschäftsstrategie. Das Unternehmen geht eine langfristige Verpflichtung bei der Finanzierung ein, die nicht nur für ein Unternehmen aus kurzfristiger Sicht bedeuten ist, sondern sich auch auf die Zukunft des Unternehmens auswirkt. Nichtsdestotrotz ist die Finanzierung eines Startups eine individuelle Entscheidung. Derzeit gibt es keine allgemeine Formel, die den Gründern die Entscheidungsfindung erleichtert und es ist wahrscheinlich, dass dieses Rätsel nie gelöst werden kann. Viele Wissenschaftler haben sich über die Jahre mit diesem Thema auseinandergesetzt und es wird immer noch als ein interessantes Forschungsgebiet angesehen. Benjamin Franklin war ein Mann mit vielen Interessen und er zeichnete sich auf diesen Gebieten aus. In diesem Zitat "Beware of little expenses; a small leak will sink a great ship", erklärte er, wie ein kleines Leck auf einem großen Schiff großen Schaden anrichten kann. Wenn kleine Ausgaben kontinuierlich ignoriert und kumuliert werden, können Beträge in Hunderte oder sogar Tausende von Dollars erreicht werden. In unserem Fall kann dieses kleine Leck durch den Ausschluss von Steuern bei der Entscheidungsfindung verursacht werden. Diese Masterarbeit versucht, die Bedeutung von Steuern hervorzuheben, da es nicht möglich ist, die Entscheidungsfindung auf rein steuerbezogene Fragen zu beschränken. Zunächst konzentriert sich diese Arbeit auf die Bedeutung der Unternehmensfinanzierung aus literarischer Sicht und die ambivalente Situation von Startups hinsichtlich ihrer Finanzierung. Einerseits werden sie oft als ungeeignet für einen Bankkredit angesehen und andererseits haben sie leichter Zugang zu anderen Mitteln der Finanzierung. Zweitens werden die verschiedenen Finanzierungsformen vorgestellt und dann ihre steuerlichen Auswirkungen aus der Sicht der Investoren diskutiert. Da eine Differenzierung der Rechtsform eines Startups über den Rahmen einer Masterarbeit hinausgeht, konzentriert sich dieser Beitrag auf die steuerlichen Implikationen des Investors, die durch die Finanzierungsform verursacht werden. Wie Forschungen bereits gezeigt haben, sind nicht nur die Steuern der Gründer zu berücksichtigen, sondern auch die Steuern auf Investorenseite beeinflussen die Kapitalstruktur von Startups. Every beginning is difficult - especially for startups at the very start of their lifecycle. One of the key issues startups have to face is their need of external money to maintain their operations and investments for future growth. Finding the mix of debt and equity financing that yields the best funding at the lowest cost is a basic tenet of any prudent business strategy. Nevertheless, the financing of a company is a long-term commitment which does not only affect the present operation of a company but also every decision that it will make in the future. How a startup should finance their operations is an individual decision. Currently, there is no general formula to ease the decision-making of the founders and it is likely that this mystery may never be solved. Many scholars concerned themselves with this topic and it is still regarded as an interesting field of research. Benjamin Franklin was a man with many interests, and he excelled in those areas. In this quote “Beware of little expenses; a small leak will sink a great ship”, he explained how a small leak on a great ship may cause great damage. If small expenses are continuously ignored and cumulated it will continue to grow and grow to hundreds or even thousands of dollars. In our case this small leak may be caused by the exclusion of taxes in the decision making. This master thesis tries to emphasize the importance of taxes as it is not possible to limit the decision to only tax related issues. Firstly, this paper focuses on the importance of corporate finance from a literary perspective and ambivalent situation of startups concerning their financing. On the one hand they are often seen as unfit for a bank loan but on the other hand they have easier access to other means to finance their objectives. Secondly, the various forms of financing are presented and then their tax implications from the investors' perspective are discussed. Since a differentiation of the legal structure of the startup exceeds the papers limitations this master thesis concentrates on the tax implications of the investor that is caused by the form of finance. As research has shown not only the founders’ taxes have to be regarded but also investors’ taxes influence the capital structure of startups. vorgelegt von: Xiao Jie Chen Wien, FH Campus Wien, Masterarb., 2020

We analyze women&rsquo, s participation and the effects of team gender diversity on initial coin offering (ICO) success measured by the total funding amount raised in the actual ICO and the project&rsquo, s long-term survival. Using a database featuring 875 initial coin offerings between 2017 and 2019, we find that women are significantly under-represented in ICO projects (on average, only 13% of team members are women). However, for projects that do have participation of women, we find that team gender diversity increases the total funding raised in the ICO. Moreover, when we separate team members into areas of expertise or roles in the project, we find that the presence of women in critical positions, such as being a founder or having financial or legal responsibilities, significantly reduces the likelihood of long-term coin failure. Our results are consistent with the notion that investors perceive women&rsquo, s participation in leadership positions as a positive signal of desirable organizational practices that will translate into better performance. Our results are also consistent with the idea that having women, who abide by ethical values and are less prone to fraud, reduces the likelihood that informationally opaque ICOs turn out to be scams.