CRYPTOECONOMICS AS A NEW STAGE IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF TRANSACTION COST THEORY AND FINANCIAL INTERMEDIATION

Abstract

The article substantiates that cryptoeconomics represents a new stage in the development of transaction cost theory and transforms traditional understandings of financial intermediation under the conditions of global economic digitalisation. It is argued that the emergence of cryptocurrencies, blockchain infrastructure, smart contracts, decentralised finance, and tokenised assets changes the mechanisms of coordination among economic agents, reduces dependence on classical intermediary institutions, and creates alternative ways of ensuring trust, control, and the fulfilment of financial obligations. The article examines and substantiates that in classical transaction cost theory, a central role is assigned to the costs of information search, contract negotiation, monitoring of contract fulfilment, protection of property rights, and the minimisation of opportunistic behaviour. Within the traditional financial system, a significant share of these functions is carried out by banks, exchanges, payment systems, depositories, clearing institutions, and other financial intermediaries. At the same time, the development of cryptoeconomics changes the very nature of transaction costs: some of them are automated through software code, some are transferred to the level of digital infrastructure, while others acquire new forms related to technological, regulatory, informational, and security risks. The article shows that blockchain does not eliminate transaction costs completely, but changes their structure and sources of origin. While in the traditional economy trust is mainly ensured through institutions, legal procedures, and centralised control, in cryptoeconomics it is increasingly formed through algorithmic verification, consensus mechanisms, the transparency of distributed ledgers, and the automated execution of agreements. This provides grounds for considering cryptoeconomics not only as a technological phenomenon, but also as a new institutional form of organising economic interactions. Particular attention is paid to the transformation of financial intermediation. It is determined that cryptoeconomics does not so much completely displace financial intermediaries as changes their role: from classical guarantors and controllers of transactions to operators of digital infrastructure, liquidity providers, analytical platforms, custodial services, regulatory-compliant crypto service providers, and institutional participants in the digital asset market. In this context, financial intermediation shifts from a model of centralised control to a model of infrastructural, algorithmic, and network-based coordination. It is proven that cryptoeconomics creates a dual effect for transaction cost theory: on the one hand, it reduces certain types of costs related to verification, value transfer, contract execution, and access to financial services; on the other hand, it generates new transaction costs associated with volatility, cyber risks, the complexity of using digital assets, regulatory uncertainty, information asymmetry in the crypto market, and risks of technological dependence. Therefore, cryptoeconomics should be viewed not as a simplification, but as a complication of the transaction logic of financial relations. The scientific novelty of the article lies in the conceptualisation of cryptoeconomics as a new stage in the evolution of transaction cost theory, within which trust, intermediation, and control are increasingly shifting from the institutional level to the level of digital infrastructure, algorithms, and network protocols. The practical value of the study lies in the possibility of applying the proposed approach to analyse the transformation of financial intermediation, assess new forms of transaction costs in the crypto market, and develop regulatory approaches to digital financial ecosystems.