(Correspondents: Liu Jingyang, Yang Fan) In the morning of October 18, Prof. Christopher Westland, currently working at University of Illinois, made an academic report titling “Determinants of Liquidity in Cryptocurrency Markets” on line, over 300 teachers and students participated in this symposium online and offline, SEM Prof. Du Rong presided the symposium at Lecture Hall 324, Xinyuan Building.
At the symposium, Prof. Christopher Westland briefed relevant concept of the cryptocurrency and its market development. Further, he led into the discussion on predictive factors of the cryptocurrency liquidity, and made analysis on whether the cryptocurrency is a kind of real cash equivalent. After determining the predictive factors of cryptocurrency liquidity, he found that the greater liquidity is related to the more profitable transactions and the better prices. Furthermore, some cryptocurrencies are fully liquid: with the purpose of being a cash substitute, they are directly linked up with the legal currencies, or become a part of production transaction directly, or serve as the main body of exchange transactions conducted in an Exchange. His study empirically verified five assumptions on the liquidity and its predictive factors. The empirical results highly approved the assumption that the price affects the liquidity, while the trading volume does not, so that it is of great significance in enlightening the cryptocurrency researches and block-chain application in the future.
At the end of the symposium, Prof. Christopher Westland responded to the questions from the teachers and students on site, and communicated with them in a warm manner. Du Rong made a summary and evaluation on the symposium. It was thus ended with a complete success.
Keynote Speech by Prof. Christopher Westland
Introduction to the lecturer:
Christopher Westland, a professor at University of Illinois, holds a bachelor’s degree in statistics, an MBA in accounting, and a doctorate in computer and information systems from the University of Michigan. He has served as a system consultant, statistician and certified public accountant in USA, Europe, Latin America and Asia, with his expertise in e-market and e-commerce. Having acted as a member of editorial committees of several academic journals, he has served as an editor of Electronic Commerce Research (well-known academic journal in the e-commerce field) since 2014. Christopher Westland is engaged in consulting, teaching and academic research in the fields including e-commerce, accounting, innovation, information technology, statistics and machine learning. Moreover, his latest work Audit Analytics becomes a guideline for application of the statistics and machine learning in the public accounting automation. He has published and publishes a large number of academic papers and books, including Financial Dynamics (Wiley 2003), Valuing Technology (Wiley 2002), Global Electronic Commerce (MIT Press 2000), Global Innovation Management (Palgrave Macmilan 2008, Springer 2017), Red Wired: China’s Internet Revolution (Marshal Cavendish 2010), Structural Equation Modeling (Springer 2015, 2019, 2nd edition) and Audit Analytics (Springer 2020). Christopher Westland has worked for University of Michigan, University of Southern California, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Tsinghua University, Nanyang Technological University, etc. He has provided consultations relating to valuation and technical strategies for Microsoft, Intel, Motorola, Vtech, US Aerospace, IBM, Pacific Bell and other technology companies.
