Blockchain Technology in the Wave of Digital Economy:Conceptual Hype or High-quality Innovation?
In recent years,the development momentum of China's digi-tal economy has been exceptionally rapid,and the digital economy has become a new driving force and new path for improving the quality and efficiency of economic development,industrial transformation and up-grading.Digital technology innovations like AI,IoT,blockchain,and 5G are pivotal in transforming industries,enhancing efficiency,and driving economic growth.These advancements are crucial for improving con-nectivity,security,and data analysis,ultimately shaping a more intelli-gent and interconnected world.Among them,blockchain technology has emerged as a transformative force in the digital era,and its importance cannot be overstated.However,blockchain technology is considered by many opponents in China as a concept hype of immature technology.On January 16,2018,the Shenzhen Stock Exchange announced that it would strictly investigate listed companies that"latch onto blockchain concept"and impose penalties on those who violate regulations by using block-chain concepts for speculation.On the same day,the Shanghai Stock Exchange also stated that the blockchain technology is still in the early development stage and it is difficult to form stable business,with clear signs of conceptual hype.Is China's blockchain technology innovation really a concept hype that can bring abnormal returns to the capital mar-ket?What is the market value of blockchain technology innovation?In addition,many people have also questioned the practical application value of blockchain technology.In August 2018,American economist and New York University professor Nouriel Roubini asserted that block-chain is nothing but a useless and overhyped technology that will never make any progress.What is the actual application value of blockchain?To answer the above questions,we use event study method to calculate the market value of blockchain innovation.Specifically,the estimation of cumulative abnormal returns based on event study method is often used by researchers to determine the speculative nature of events.How-ever,their research overlooks one point,that is,market investors can predict that the event of"patent publication"will come at some point in the future and reflect it in the current stock market prices.So,if inves-tors'rational expectations of stock prices are not taken into account,the calculated patent market value may be biased.Therefore,we use event study method to estimate the cumulative abnormal return of Chinese en-terprises'blockchain innovation patents before and after the publication date.After that,we estimate the market adjustment value of blockchain technology innovation,in order to determine whether the enterprise's blockchain innovation activities have speculative nature.In other words,when the cumulative abnormal return of the enterprise before and after the blockchain technology innovation event is positive,the enterprise's blockchain innovation activities have speculative value,and it can be determined that the enterprise's blockchain innovation activities may have speculative nature.If the cumulative abnormal return is negative,it will be unprofitable for companies to engage in speculative blockchain innovation,and the rise in the stock price of the blockchain sector may be caused by other factors rather than the innovation activity itself.In order to eliminate the possibility that the stock price increase may be caused by investors'rational expectations of the company's R&D investment and other R&D intensity data publicly disclosed in the annual report,we also estimate the market adjustment value after removing investors'expec-tations of the company's R&D intensity,and further determine whether there is speculation in blockchain innovation.Based on the above-mentioned event research method,blockchain patent data and daily stock data,we find out that the average cumulative abnor-mal return on blockchain patents of listed companies is negative,with an average market value of approximately-20.87 million yuan.The current speculation on the stock price of blockchain innovation patents in the Chinese capital market is not significant.When the dependent variable is changed to an invention patent authorization announcement with higher signal quality,the average cumulative abnormal return is positive,but af-ter excluding investors'stock price expectations based on the company's R&D intensity,the calculated market value average is still negative,about-7.73 million yuan.Although granted invention patents with higher diffi-culty and quality can bring positive stock market abnormal returns,this excess return is essentially a normal reaction made by investors based on the high innovation intensity of the enterprise itself,rather than based on blockchain innovation itself.After excluding the above investor expec-tations,we can conclude that the phenomenon of blockchain innovation speculation is not obvious,and that the hype nature of blockchain innova-tion is not strong,but there is a problem of insufficient market support.Based on the firm-year panel data,we also find that,after alleviating pos-sible endogenous problems,blockchain innovation is indeed a high-quality innovation that can promote the total factor productivity of enterprises.On the average level,the application value of each blockchain patent is about 11.25 million yuan.We also conduct mechanism analysis and heterogene-ity analysis,and accordingly provide suggestions for China's blockchain development strategy.We believe that in the future,the government should further strengthen the identification,management,and orderly guidance of financial blockchain innovation.What's more,we also need to further increase support for non-financial blockchain innovations in the field such as electronic digital data processing and wireless communication net-works,enhance integration with the electronic core industry,and improve the efficiency of blockchain innovation activities.The application value of blockchain innovation is high,but its market value is insufficient.Unlike speculative concepts such as digital currencies,blockchain innovation is a high-quality innovation with practical application value.Many investors'stereotypes caused by binding blockchain with concepts such as Bitcoin hinder the innovative financing of blockchain underlying technology.Rel-evant departments should increase the popularization of knowledge related to blockchain innovation,so that investors can have a correct understand-ing of the application value of blockchain innovation.Especially,smart contracts based on blockchain technology can effectively solve multi-party coordination problems,information asymmetry problems,and property rights issues in both the digital and real worlds,and are widely used in vari-ous real economy industries.
Digital EconomyBlockchainConcept HypeHigh-quality InnovationTotal Factor Productivity
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