“Do Blockchains Deliver? A Comparative Analysis of Transparency and Performance in Traditional Equities and Cryptocurrency Markets”

Abstract

This research compares transparency and performance across blockchain-based and traditional financial assets using daily data for four representative groups from 2020–2025: blockchain-adopting S&P 500 equities, non-blockchain S&P 500 equities,
utility-oriented cryptocurrencies (e.g., smart-contract and oracle tokens), and nonutility/speculative cryptocurrencies. Prices (Yahoo Finance; Refinitiv Datastream) are transformed into daily returns and evaluated on average return, volatility, Sharpe ratio,
maximum drawdown, skewness, and the frequency of extreme negative days. Timeseries diagnostics (ADF, Jarque–Bera, Ljung–Box) and an Isolation Forest screen provide distributional and anomaly evidence. The review also operationalizes “transparency” through measurable dimensions and proposes on-chain and corporate disclosure indices used to frame interpretation. Results indicate that blockchain-adopting equities earned higher average daily returns than matched non-adopters but exhibited substantially higher volatility, deeper drawdowns, and lower Sharpe ratios; distributional shape was somewhat more favourable (more positive skew, slightly fewer extreme-loss days). Within crypto, nonutility tokens delivered higher returns and marginally higher Sharpe ratios than utility tokens but at the cost of markedly higher volatility and deeper drawdowns, whereas utility tokens showed materially smoother risk profiles. Diagnostics confirm stationary but strongly non-normal return distributions; serial dependence is more pronounced.in crypto. The anomaly screen flags more outlier days in crypto—consistent with
heavier tails and the longer trading calendar—reinforcing the need for tail-aware risk management.
Overall, blockchain’s transparency improves observability and auditability but does not guarantee stability or superior risk-adjusted performance in equities; in crypto, functional utility is associated with greater stability while speculative tokens
concentrate upside and crash risk. The study contributes a cross-market, commonmetric lens and a transparency-grounded interpretation that informs investors, issuers, and regulators. Limitations include representative (single-series) cohorts andeventstudy designs, and composite transparency indices.