Public Seminar: Global Public Sentiment on Decentralized Finance: A Spatiotemporal Analysis of Geo-tagged Tweets from 150 Countries
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Date
12 Aug 2024
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Organiser
Department of Land Surveying & Geo-Informatics
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Time
14:30 - 15:30
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Venue
QR403 Map
Speaker
Dr. Luyao ZHANG
Enquiry
Ms Stephanie Cheung 34003662 stephanie.sy.cheung@polyu.edu.hk
Remarks
Moderator: Dr. Xintao LIU, Associate Professor, LSGI
Summary
In the digital age, blockchain technology, cryptocurrencies, and non-fungible tokens (NFTs) have fundamentally transformed finance and decentralized systems. Despite their significant impact, current research often overlooks the spatiotemporal variations in public sentiment towards these technologies. Understanding these variations is crucial, with Twitter serving as a key data source. This study addresses this gap by employing geospatial analysis on blockchain based on the sentiment scores of 10-year geo-tagged tweets from 2012 to 2022 generated by a large language model (LLM). Our findings reveal significant global variations influenced by economic factors such as GDP per capita, with more developed countries engaging more in discussions, while less developed nations show less engagement but higher sentiment levels. Geographically weighted regression indicates that the correlation between GDP and tweet proportion strengthens after Bitcoin price rises. Topic modeling shows that countries within similar economic clusters have comparable discussion trends, while different clusters focus on distinct topics. This study transcends traditional disciplinary boundaries by integrating techniques from economics, computational science, and geo-science to provide a comprehensive analysis of global sentiment towards blockchain technology. These contributions not only advance academic discourse but also equip policymakers and industry leaders with strategic insights to better navigate the evolving landscape of digital finance and public sentiment.
Keynote Speaker
Dr. Luyao ZHANG
Assistant Professor of Economics and Senior Research Scientist at the Data Science Research Center at Duke Kunshan University, China
Dr. Luyao Zhang is Assistant Professor of Economics and Senior Research Scientist at the Data Science Research Center at Duke Kunshan University (DKU). Her current research interests lie at the interplay of computational and economic science, focusing on the application of groundbreaking technologies for sustainability, human prosperity, and the advancement of society. These technologies include artificial intelligence, blockchain, and innovative computing. She has an abiding passion for interdisciplinary collaborations, especially for cutting-edge research of both profound insights and practical impacts, delving into areas such as computational economics, social science, crypto and token economics, behavioral and experimental economics, explainable and cooperative AI, and interdisciplinary big data. Her publications appear in economic and computational science journals and conference proceedings for general interest and beyond, including American Economic Review: Papers and Proceedings, the Review of Economics and Statistics, the World Economy, Nature Research Scientific Data, Springer Nature Social Indicators Research, Springer Nature Eastern Economic Journal, ACM CCS, AAAI/ACM AIES, ACM CSCW, IEEE S&P, IEEE International Conference on Blockchain Proceedings, Remote Sensing, Journal of Digital Earth, Data and Information Management. She received Ph.D. in Economics at Ohio State University, supported by Presidential Fellowship and the National Science Foundation (NSF). She graduated from Peking University with a B.A. in Economics and a B.S. in Math and Applied Math. She holds certificates from the Oxford Blockchain Strategy Program as well as from MIT Professional Education in programs such as ‘Blockchain: Disruptive Technology’, ‘Advanced Reinforcement Learning’, ‘Data Engineering’, and ‘Applied Generative AI for Digital Transformation’. She is currently supported by the National Science Foundation in China (NSFC) for her research agenda entitled “Trust Mechanism Design on Blockchain: An Interdisciplinary Approach of Game Theory, Reinforcement Learning, and Human-AI Interactions.” She was awarded the 60 Pioneers in Blockchain Innovation by the National Collegiate Artificial Intelligence and Big Data Innovation Alliance in 2022.
