Tax Regulation on Blockchain and Cryptocurrency: The Implications for Open Innovation

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The authors conduct a bibliometric analysis of taxation regulation in the field of blockchain and cryptocurrencies. The authors identify the research gaps related to technology advances and legislation. For these reasons, a bibliometric methodology is carried out and corresponding results are presented. The paper needs to address the following revisions.

In the Introduction there is a relevant misunderstanding of blockchain technology: “Blockchain technology implements two concepts: sovereign identity and Smart Contracts“.  Is not correct to equate a possible application and a technology’s feature because SSI uses smart contracts. The two words are not on the same level.  I recommend modifying this assumption or motivating it. Furthermore, I suggest refereeing the possible blockchain applications that reflect on your main topic.

In Section 3, a general overview of the leading and emerging trends in the topic misses. This collection could drive research in this field.  Again, it could be useful to obtain journals’ research sub-areas and order them starting from the Top 10 Most relevant sources (Table 5). 

In Section 4, please address and order your results in line with the RQs presented in the introduction. 

English needs to be revised. Standardize the choice uppercase lowercase in the text (e.g., smart contract).

Author Response

The authors conduct a bibliometric analysis of taxation regulation in the field of blockchain and cryptocurrencies. The authors identify the research gaps related to technology advances and legislation. For these reasons, a bibliometric methodology is carried out and corresponding results are presented. The paper needs to address the following revisions.

R: Dear Sir or Madam,

We are very grateful that you reviewed the manuscript and suggested several positive and constructive changes to improve our work.

In the Introduction there is a relevant misunderstanding of blockchain technology: “Blockchain technology implements two concepts: sovereign identity and Smart Contracts“.  Is not correct to equate a possible application and a technology’s feature because SSI uses smart contracts. The two words are not on the same level.  I recommend modifying this assumption or motivating it. Furthermore, I suggest refereeing the possible blockchain applications that reflect on your main topic.

R: The two paragraphs have been rewritten and restructured to make them more understandable and not confusing (changes throughout the document have been highlighted in red).

In Section 3, a general overview of the leading and emerging trends in the topic misses. This collection could drive research in this field.  Again, it could be useful to obtain journals’ research sub-areas and order them starting from the Top 10 Most relevant sources (Table 5). 

R:  We have included the thematic map: strategic diagram in order to explain leading and emerging trends. In addition, we have redesigned Table 5 to show various sub-areas of knowledge related to the sources. In

Section 4, please address and order your results in line with the RQs presented in the introduction. 

R: The research questions, as well as the discussion, have been arranged for coherence and cohesion. 

English needs to be revised. Standardize the choice uppercase lowercase in the text (e.g., smart contract).

 R: The use of words such as Smart Contract or Blockchain or SSI has been revised and standardized. 

 

In addition, the manuscript reflects the changes suggested by other reviewers, as well as the changes indicated by the editor. 

Without further ado, we would like to thank you for your dedication and interest in our work. 

Best regards. 

 

The authors

 

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

  The topic of this paper, which deals with tax regulation and blockchain, is very timely. In particular, it is a very important issue on how to apply capital gains tax to cryptocurrency such as bitcoin, and research is needed.

  However, this study simply categorizes and lists the published papers from 2015 to 2019 and does not present new implications for tax regulation of crypotocurrency. This paper has been done at a level closer to a research report than an article. For the publication of this paper, new discoveries will have to be presented to contribute to academia and the market. I strongly recommend you to provide empirical results based on the data set about tax regulation and crypotocurrency.

Author Response

  The topic of this paper, which deals with tax regulation and blockchain, is very timely. In particular, it is a very important issue on how to apply capital gains tax to cryptocurrency such as bitcoin, and research is needed.

  However, this study simply categorizes and lists the published papers from 2015 to 2019 and does not present new implications for tax regulation of crypotocurrency. This paper has been done at a level closer to a research report than an article. For the publication of this paper, new discoveries will have to be presented to contribute to academia and the market. I strongly recommend you to provide empirical results based on the data set about tax regulation and crypotocurrency.

R: Dear Sir or Madam,

We are very grateful that you have reviewed our manuscript and found it interesting. 

We have made several modifications to the paper in order to improve its quality. Furthermore, we have clarified several concepts in the introduction and the dataset used in the present study has been included to facilitate the transparency of the research itself.

 In addition, we have modified several sections in the results, such as the thematic and conceptual structure that may be useful when developing future research, as well as the discussion and conclusion have been modified and expanded.  We have added all the changes in red colour. 

Without further ado, we would like to thank you for your help. 
Best regards, 

The authors

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

Referee Report for Journal of Open Innovations

Manuscript on :

Tax Regulation on Blockchain and Cryptocurrency: A Bibliometric Analysis

 

This manuscript has the main scope of clarifying the status of the studies on new technologies such as Blockchain and Cryptocurrency.

To achieve this goal, Author(s)  perform a full and exhaustive bibliometric analysis, retrieving more than 300 research papers, published between 2015-2019.

The paper could be of a great interest for the readers of Journal of Open Innovations, since it is the very first and most updated tentative in reaching this goal.

However, before the paper could be publishable, I advise a major and a minor change, as follows:

Major: since the top is quickly changing, I suggest to update the analysis to the period 2015-2020.

Minor: Kshetri, N. (2017a). Blockchain’s roles in strengthening cybersecurity and protecting privacy. Telecommunications Policy, 41(10), 1027– 1038. Is cited and reported twice, as Kshetri, N. (2017a). and Kshetri, N. (2017b).

Author Response

This manuscript has the main scope of clarifying the status of the studies on new technologies such as Blockchain and Cryptocurrency.

To achieve this goal, Author(s)  perform a full and exhaustive bibliometric analysis, retrieving more than 300 research papers, published between 2015-2019.

The paper could be of a great interest for the readers of Journal of Open Innovations, since it is the very first and most updated tentative in reaching this goal.

However, before the paper could be publishable, I advise a major and a minor change, as follows:

Major: since the top is quickly changing, I suggest to update the analysis to the period 2015-2020.

R: Dear Sir or Madam, 

We are very grateful that you have reviewed our manuscript and found it interesting.  We have made several modifications to the paper in order to improve its quality. We have not taken into account the period that includes the year 2020, despite the fact that as you indicate it is a discipline that is booming, incipient and with a lot of scientific production, the fact of limiting our research to the last year (taking into account that we are in March 2021) we consider that it is not a prudent time to include the year 2020 in our study. Furthermore, we explain, databases such as Web of Science or Scopus, usually take several months to index and recognize all the papers published in the previous year (for example, until the end of the third or fourth quarter of 2021 they do not index and include all the papers from the previous year 2020). If we had considered the year 2020, we could obtain a rather biased sample of the reality in the scientific production analyzed. For this reason, the authors considered that the most sensible thing to do was to establish a prudential time lag of one year (many bibliometric or scientometric studies even recommend leaving a margin of 2 years). 

Minor: Kshetri, N. (2017a). Blockchain’s roles in strengthening cybersecurity and protecting privacy. Telecommunications Policy, 41(10), 1027– 1038. Is cited and reported twice, as Kshetri, N. (2017a). and Kshetri, N. (2017b).

 

R: The reference has been unified and replaced. 

In addition, we include in the manuscript the changes suggested by the other reviewers and the editor. 

Without further ado, we would like to thank you for your time and help. 

Best regards. 

The authors

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 4 Report

This article addresses the brand new topic of “Block Chain”, and conducts a bibliometric analysis. The paper is well-organized and well-described to understand and it extracts several original findings.

One suggestion is that the paper can deepen the interpretation of the results on the most relevant authors, institutions, and countries; the most cited scientific articles and the most relevant academic research journals; and the scientific and academic social structure. For instance, the author found that RUSSIA stands out as the country with the greatest number of publications in this field, but it does not present collaborations with other countries, and argues that these patterns of scientific collaboration respond to geopolitical and cultural issues, as well as to conflicts of economic interests. Then, it would be more fruitful to compare the case of block chain with other cases of virtual reality (VR), nanotechnology, artificial intelligence (AI), data science or robotics, and so on. If the common collaboration patterns are found in any other cases, the author’s interpretation would be more persuasive. So some need for comparative studies among different topics can be mentioned as a future work of this paper.

Author Response

This article addresses the brand new topic of “Block Chain”, and conducts a bibliometric analysis. The paper is well-organized and well-described to understand and it extracts several original findings.

One suggestion is that the paper can deepen the interpretation of the results on the most relevant authors, institutions, and countries; the most cited scientific articles and the most relevant academic research journals; and the scientific and academic social structure. For instance, the author found that RUSSIA stands out as the country with the greatest number of publications in this field, but it does not present collaborations with other countries, and argues that these patterns of scientific collaboration respond to geopolitical and cultural issues, as well as to conflicts of economic interests. Then, it would be more fruitful to compare the case of block chain with other cases of virtual reality (VR), nanotechnology, artificial intelligence (AI), data science or robotics, and so on. If the common collaboration patterns are found in any other cases, the author’s interpretation would be more persuasive. So some need for comparative studies among different topics can be mentioned as a future work of this paper.

 

R: Dear Sir or Madam,

We are very grateful that you have reviewed our manuscript and found it interesting. 

We have made several modifications to the paper in order to improve its quality. 

We have better discussed our results and looked for linkages and connections between the scientific output as well as the social structure derived from the research. The authors have supported the results with different similar studies as suggested by the authors.
 
In addition, we include in the manuscript the changes suggested by the other reviewers and the editor.  All changes can be seen reflected in red color. 

Without further ado, we would like to thank you for your time and help. 
Best regards. 

The authors

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

I decided to reject in the first review, and this decision will not be changed.