The Cryptographic Solution to Transaction Cost Economics: A Comparative Analysis of DLT Adoption in Financial Settlement and Supply Chain Traceability

Abstract

Accelerated global digitalization is threatened by a profound crisis of digital trust, marked by systemic data breaches and eroding confidence in centralized intermediaries. This article investigates Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) as a foundational solution, examining its capacity to replace institutional trust with cryptographic assurance through decentralized verification. Through a rigorous comparative case study methodology analyzing cross-border finance and supply chain traceability, the research assesses how DLT mitigates counterparty risk while generating new forms of economic value. The core analysis focuses on critical implementation tensions between operational scalability requirements and ideological decentralization goals, alongside the challenge of reconciling immutable systems with evolving global regulatory frameworks. Empirical findings confirm DLT's tangible economic value through significant reductions in financial verification costs and settlement timeframes, while simultaneously generating measurable consumer trust premiums in supply chain applications through verifiable provenance. However, evidence reveals a fundamental trade-off: practical enterprise adoption consistently favors high-throughput permissioned ledgers, compromising decentralization ideals for operational scalability and governance control. Significant regulatory friction further necessitates hybrid data architectures, positioning DLT as a crucial assurance layer within broader compliance ecosystems rather than a standalone solution. This underscores the need for future research developing integrated trust frameworks that balance technological potential with implementation pragmatism across diverse sectoral contexts.