How Many Public Corporations Recognise “Token Economy” Technologies as Materially Significant? Evidence from 10-K Reports

Abstract

The token economy promises to enable entirely new business models that will likely disrupt many market leaders. The seeds for disruption are already upon us, powered by technical innovations such as blockchains, fungible tokens, non-fungible tokens, metaverses, and decentralised autonomous organisations. How seriously are corporations taking these emerging token economy technologies? How many corporations envision these technologies to be materially significant to their business today? We answered these questions for United States (US) corporations by analysing the five most recent annual 10-K reports, a report required by the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Of the 39,522 10-K reports examined, only five percent of corporations recognise token economy technologies as materially significant. We focus upon the top 21 corporations with the most mentions of these technologies and discuss the results through the lens of the Theory of Disruptive Innovation.