THE RISKS OF OPERATING A CRYPTOCURRENCY BUSINESS

The article is devoted to the study of theoretical and practical aspects of the risks that accompany the activities of economic actors in the cryptocurrency market (both mining and trading) at the micro­ and macro­economic level at the beginning of the third decade of the XXI century. The risks associated with the functioning of economic entities in the market of cryptocurrency coins and such risks are the following: lack of legal regulation on the cryptocurrency market and insurance of owners of assets stored on crypto wallets; use of malware in order to access assets rotating on the cryptocurrency market; hacking attacks on cryptocurrency wallets and exchanges in order to steal cryptoassets; loss of assets deposited into accounts of cryptocurrency exchanges in case of bank-ruptcy or closure of these exchanges; loss of the password used to access the crypto wallet; loss of a secret personal PIN code, which is the key to access funds deposited into the crypto wallet at the exchange and used to transfer assets (cryptocurrencies or fiat currencies) to other crypto wallets or a bank card; erroneous transaction due to one number or letter mistake when transferring from one crypto wallet to another or error (when entering bank card number), when transferring funds from crypto wallet to bank card, a mistake of one or more numbers is possible and funds will be transferred to the wrong addressee, in both cases it is impos-sible to cancel the transaction and funds are lost irrevocably; significant volatility in the value of cryptocurrencies, because of which an investor can go bankrupt. It was revealed that the functioning of the cryptocurrency market is also associated with risks to the national economy and security: monetary policy (reduction of control over monetary circulation due to the replacement of national fiat currency with cryptocurrency coins and the loss of the central bank monopoly on the emission of money and reducing the country's income from seigniorage due to mining cryptocurrencies), financial stability (because of the threat of the outflow of deposits from the banking system and replacing them with investments in cryptocurrencies, the possibility of replacing traditional banking, as well as the possibility of avoiding taxation and shadowing the economy) and national security. It has been proven that the intensive activity of an economic entity associated with mining, trading, investing or other economic activities in the cryptocurrency market requires significant theoretical and practical training of the individual and patience and faith in the future of cryptocurrency market activity because of the probability of losing savings invested in cryptocurrencies or investments.Keywords: risk, cryptocurrency, cryptocurrency market, crypto coin, crypto wallet, Bitcoin, Ethereum, cyberattack. Статтю присвячено дослідженню ризиків, які супроводжують діяльність ринку криптовалют, як майнінгу, так і трейдингу. Охарактеризовано ризики, з якими пов’язане функціонування ринку криптовалют, і такими ризиками є: відсутність правового регулювання та страхування власників криптогаманців; використання шкідливих програм та здійснення хакерських атак на криптогаманці і біржі криптовалют; утрата активів, розміщених на рахунках криптовалютних бірж, у разі банкрутства чи закриття цих бірж; утрата паролю від криптогаманця чи втрата секретного персонального PIN­коду, що є ключем доступу до коштів, розміщених на криптогаманці на біржі; помилкова транзакція (через помилку на одну цифру чи букву) під час переказу з одного криптогаманця до іншого (також під час переказу грошових коштів із криптогаманця на банківську картку можлива помилка на одну чи кілька цифр, і кошти будуть переказані не тому адресанту, якому вони передбачалися); значна волатильність вартості криптовалют. Виявлено, що функціонування ринку криптовалют пов’язане з ризиками для національної економіки: монетарної політики, фі-нансової стабільності, інвестиційної та банківської діяльності. Доведено, що активна діяльність економічного суб’єкта, пов’язана з майнінгом, торгівлею, інвестуванням чи іншою економічною діяльністю на ринку криптовалют, вимагає значної теоретичної і практичної підготовки особи через імовірність утратити заощадження, вкладені у криптоферми чи інвестиції.Ключові слова: ризик, криптовалюта, крипторинок, криптомонета, криптогаманець, Bitcoin, Ethereum, хакерська атака.

The Development and Transformation of the Bank Card Market as an Imperative for Digitalization: the Case of Central and Eastern European Countries

The purpose of this study is to determine the development trends of the major determinants of the bank card market in eight countries of Central and Eastern Europe in the period from 2010 to 2019. Continuing a study carried out in 2018, further comparative analysis of the “Bank Cards Market Index” proposed earlier and based on a system of interrelated indicators of bank payment cards, ATMs and POS‑terminals, was carried out. We provide an overview of the rankings of Ukraine, Belarus, Moldova, Russia, Romania, Poland, Hungary, Slovakia using international ranking systems such as “The Legatum Prosperity Index,” “Doing Business,” “The Index of Economic Freedom,” and the “Вank Cards Market Index.” Further studies of three international ranking systems, as well as the “Bank Cards Market Index,” again confirmed the similarity of the development models of the bank card market in Poland and Ukraine. To study the impact of the digitalization of economics and Covid–19 on the bank card market, a deeper analysis of two cases (Poland and Ukraine, as two similar bank card markets) was carried out using the “Digital Evolution Index.” In the course of the research, it was concluded that the “Вank Cards Market Index” can be successfully used for further research of the banking sector of different countries. Also, the growth trend of cashless payments in the bank card market and the possible transformation of the market under the influence of Covid–19, and the global digitalization of economics were noticed. Taking into account the above trend, further studies of the system of interrelated indicators of bank payment cards, ATMs, and POS terminals should be carried out using the “Digital Evolution Index” or other international indexes that characterize the level of digitalization of the economy in the researched countries.

Monetary Reform of G.Ya. Sokolnikov

The article covers the transformations in the sphere of commodity-money relations during establishment of Soviet power. The period under review starts from the chaotic monetary policy in the first post-revolutionary years with attempts to abandon money exchange to the period of creating stable money circulation in the country. NEP brings positive changes, when trade resumes, monetary wages are required, and a for-profit model (khozraschyot) is established. Theoretically, the advantage of a fixed equivalent of value is proved, and stable money is needed, the basis of which is gold. The State Bank is restored. It becomes possible to issue a bank card backed by gold. Under the People's Commissariat of Finance, a Currency Department is created. G. Ya. Sokolnikov is appointed to the post of People's Commissar, a group of specialists is selected, among them N. Kutler, L. Yurovsky, V. Tarnovsky. The reform begins with the implementation of two denominations that have eliminated many varieties of banknotes and reduced their number. The chervonets becomes the main monetary unit, which has a gold content and security. In 1924, the reform is completed. The Soviet Union is able to restore the national economy. The article states that the reform proved the viability of the Soviet currency, as well as the high qualification and theoretical training of its performers. Being in more difficult conditions than other countries participating in the First World War, the Soviet Union carried out monetary reform before them and with a higher result.

The Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Consumption: Learning from High-Frequency Transaction Data

We use daily transaction data in 214 cities to study the impact of COVID-19 on consumption after China's outbreak in late January 2020. Based on difference-in-difference estimation, daily offline consumption--via bank card and mobile Quick Response code transactions--fell by 32 percent, or 18.57 million renminbi (RMB) per city, during the 12-week period. The effect is prevalent across cities and is more pronounced in the dining-and-entertainment and travel categories. We infer that China's offline consumption decreased by over 1.22 trillion RMB, or 1.2 percent of China's 2019 GDP, in the 3-month postoutbreak period.

RECOGNITION OF IDENTIFICATION DATA OF BANK CARDS

This article describes the recognition of bank card information. Recognizing an object with a camera is one of the most important tasks at the moment. Recognizing credit card data at the same time is a rather complex algorithmic task, but at the moment the implementation of this task is very relevant and in-demand due to the increase in the number of payment transactions via mobile devices. The implementation of this task can save a person from having to enter most of the data when making online payments. The fundamental difficulties of this problem are discussed and methods for solving it are proposed. The problem under consideration is solved for the case of application on mobile devices, which imposes strict requirements for computational complexity. The article presents the results of a formal analysis of the performance and accuracy of the proposed algorithm. The error spectrum of the recognition system as a whole shows that the proposed algorithm solves the problem with the required accuracy. The main question that was investigated at this work: is it possible to use the Tesseract OCR library for text recognition from video images, for example, timecode? That is, digital time data embedded in the footage images. This is important for the automation of individual procedures for video technical expert studies. Object recognition by the camera is one of the most important tasks at the moment. The fundamental difficulties of this problem are discussed and methods for its solution are proposed. The article presents the results of a formal analysis of the performance and accuracy of the proposed algorithm. The spectrum of errors of the recognition system as a whole shows that the proposed algorithm solves the problem with the required accuracy.

Phishing Mitigation Techniques: A Literature Survey

Email is a channel of communication which isconsideredto be a confidential medium of communication for exchange of information among individuals and organisations. The confidentiality consideration about email is no longer the case as attackers send malicious emails to users to deceive them into disclosing their private personal information such as username, password, and bank card details, etc. In search of a solution to combat phishing cybercrime attacks, different approaches have been developed. However, the traditional exiting solutions have beenlimited in assisting email users to identify phishing emails from legitimate ones. This paper reveals the different email and website phishing solutions in phishing attack detection. It first provides a literature analysis of different existing phishing mitigation approaches. It then provides a discussion on the limitations of the techniques, before concluding with anexplorationintohow phishing detection can be improved.