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Bernhard K Meister

Publications and source records attributed to Bernhard K Meister.

8 recordsLinked to original sources
arXiv2026

Caratheodory II: The Geometry of Financial Irreversibility

In quantum mechanics and finance, numeraire invariance - the unobservability of absolute phase or price scale - fits with a projective and curved state space. This projective geometry has a measurable signature. For spin-one and higher spin systems, the Taylor expansion of directed distance contains a non-zero cubic term, which induces a fundamental asymmetry under the exchange of states. The Second Law, the failure of Maxwell's demon, and the limitations of sequential traders can all be reduced to this asymmetry.

q-fin.PM↗
arXiv2026

Market Dynamics of Information Avalanches

Financial markets convert the incremental arrival of information into asset price changes. In a sandpile model grains of sand represent bits of data, and the size of an avalanche, governed by a scaling law, is linked to price volatility. While this model of self-organized criticality reproduces stylized facts, it also identifies a structural tension between the non-arbitrage condition and price adjustments consistent with a constant Sharpe ratio.

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arXiv2024

Application of the Kelly Criterion to Prediction Markets

Betting markets are gaining in popularity. Mean beliefs generally differ from prices in prediction markets. Logarithmic utility is employed to study the risk and return adjustments to prices. Some consequences are described. A modified payout structure is proposed. A simple asset price model based on flipping biased coins is investigated. It is shown using the Kullback-Leibler divergence how the misjudgment of the bias and the miscalculation of the investment fraction influence the portfolio growth rate.

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arXiv2024

Gas Fees on the Ethereum Blockchain: From Foundations to Derivatives Valuations

The gas fee, paid for inclusion in the blockchain, is analyzed in two parts. First, we consider how effort in terms of resources required to process and store a transaction turns into a gas limit, which, through a fee, comprised of the base and priority fee in the current version of Ethereum, is converted into the cost paid by the user. We adhere closely to the Ethereum protocol to simplify the analysis and to constrain the design choices when considering multidimensional gas. Second, we assume that the gas price is given deus ex machina by a fractional Ornstein-Uhlenbeck process and evaluate various derivatives. These contracts can, for example, mitigate gas cost volatility. The ability to price and trade forwards besides the existing spot inclusion into the blockchain could enable users to hedge against future cost fluctuations. Overall, this paper offers a comprehensive analysis of gas fee dynamics on the Ethereum blockchain, integrating supply-side constraints with demand-side modelling to enhance the predictability and stability of transaction costs.

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arXiv2023

A quantum double-or-nothing game: The Kelly Criterion for Spins

A sequence of spin-1/2 particles polarised in one of two possible directions is presented to an experimenter, who can wager in a double-or-nothing game on the outcomes of measurements in freely chosen polarisation directions. Wealth is accrued through astute betting. As information is gained from the stream of particles, the measurement directions are progressively adjusted, and the portfolio growth rate is raised. The optimal quantum strategy is determined numerically and shown to differ from the classical strategy, which is associated with the Kelly criterion. The paper contributes to the development of quantum finance, as aspects of portfolio optimisation are extended to the quantum realm.

quant-ph↗
arXiv2023

Gambling the World Away: Myopic Investors

Myopic investors are locally rational decision-makers but globally irrational. Their suboptimal portfolios lag the market. As a consequence, other market participants are provided with profit opportunities. Not subterfuge but constrained optimisation leads to disparities. Four overlapping examples are given. The first case centres on the difference between local and global optimisers and their respective Kelly fractions, the second on isolated versus combined optimisation, the third on the distinction between qualitative and quantitative investor, the fourth on the non-commutative nature of information and the resulting asymmetries.

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arXiv2022

NFTs: The Game is Afoot

On the blockchain, NFT games have risen in popularity, spawning new types of digital assets. We present a simplified version of well-known NFT games, followed by a discussion of issues influencing the structure and stability of generic games. Where applicable, ideas from quantitative finance are incorporated, suggesting various design constraints. Following that, we explain three distinct methods for extracting value from NFT games. The first is to utilise NFT tokens as collateral outside of the game's walled garden; the second is to construct mutual beneficial games based on the participants' risk tolerance, and the third is to use Siegel's paradox in the case of multiple numeraires.

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