Purpose This paper aims to look at shifts in internet-related content and services economies, from audience labour economies to Web 2.0 user-generated content, and the emerging model of user computing power utilisation, powered by blockchain technologies. The authors look at and test three models of user computing power utilisation based on distributed computing (Coinhive, Cryptotab and Gridcoin) two of which use cryptocurrency mining through distributed pool mining techniques, while the third is based on distributed computing of calculations for scientific research. The three models promise benefits to their users, which the authors discuss throughout the paper, studying how they interplay with the three levels of the digital divide. Design/methodology/approach The goal of this article is twofold as follows: first to discuss how using the mining hype may reduce digital inequalities, and secondly to demonstrate how these services offer a new business model based on value rewarding in exchange for computational power, which would allow more online opportunities for people, and thus reduce digital inequalities. Finally, this contribution discusses and proposes a method for a fair revenue model for content and online service providers that uses user device computing resources or computational power, rather than their data and attention. The method is represented by a model that allows for consensual use of user computing resources in exchange for accessing content and using software tools and services, acting essentially as an alternative online business model. Findings Allowing users to convert their devices’ computational power into value, whether through access to services or content or receiving cryptocurrency and payments in return for providing services or content or direct computational powers, contributes to bridging digital divides, even at fairly small levels. Secondly, the advent of blockchain technologies is shifting power relations between end-users and content developers and service providers and is a necessity for the decentralisation of internet and internet services. Originality/value The article studies the effect of services that rely on distributed computing and mining on digital inequalities, by looking at three different case studies – Coinhive, Gridcoin and Cryptotab – that promise to provide value in return for using computing resources. The article discusses how these services may reduce digital inequalities by affecting the three levels of the digital divide, namely, access to information and communication technologies (ICTs) (first level), skills and motivations in using ICTs (second level) and capacities in using ICTs to get concrete benefits (third level).
Electricity generation is decentralising quickly. Simultaneously, final energy use for residential customers electrifies in order to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. Together with ubiquitous digitalisation, this decentralisation and flexibility at the demand side paves the way towards local energy communities and – in its most distributed version – to peer-to-peer energy trading, where customers buy and sell electricity among each other. Although peer-to-peer energy trading is not yet legal everywhere, ‘citizen energy communities’ have been introduced as cornerstones of the energy transition by the European Commission in their ‘Clean Energy for All Europeans’ programme. This paper firstly discusses this digitalisation and decentralisation of the power infrastructure. These trends are supported by distributed information technologies, including peer-to-peer control paradigms. Distributed ledger technologies, such as blockchains, might be one such piece of the puzzle. The second part of the paper investigates whether blockchain technologies, and their associated smart contracts, offer advantages for larger-scale peer-to-peer energy-trading applications over a classic, centralised approach. Different blockchain implementations are investigated and qualitatively evaluated from a scalability, efficiency and trust perspective. The conclusion indicates that in the current state of the art, a trade-off between decentralised and more classical (hierarchically centralised) solutions suits larger-scale peer-to-peer energy-trading applications best.
Smart contracts, which were once theorised, are now somewhat realised, thanks to recent developments in distributed ledger technology. Yet, these self-executing agreements written in code are not a panacea to businesses’ and individuals’ contracting woes. It is argued that smart contracts worsen existing power asymmetries between contracting parties, thus, fallbacks must be provided for.
A companion paper defined the notion of digital social contracts, presented a design for a social-contracts programming language, and demonstrated its potential utility via example social contracts. The envisioned setup consists of people with genuine identifiers, which are unique and singular cryptographic key pairs, that operate software agents thus identified on their mobile device. The abstract model of digital social contracts consists of a transition system specifying concurrent, non-deterministic asynchronous agents that operate on a shared ledger by performing digital speech acts, which are cryptographically-signed sequentially-indexed digital actions. Here, we address the distributed-ledger implementation of digital social contracts in the presence of faulty agents: we present a design of a fault-tolerant distributed-ledger transition system and show that it implements the abstract shared-ledger model of digital social contracts, and discuss its resilience to faulty agents. The result is a novel ledger architecture that is distributed with a blockchain-per-person (as opposed to centralized with one blockchain for all), partially-ordered (as opposed to totally-ordered), locally-replicated (as opposed to globally-replicated), asynchronous (as opposed to globally-synchronized), peer-to-peer with each agent being both an actor and a validator (as opposed to having dedicated miners, validators, and clients), environmentally-friendly (as opposed to the environmentally-harmful Proof-of-Work), self-sufficient (as opposed to the energy-hogging Proof-of-Work or capital-hogging Proof-of-Stake) and egalitarian (as opposed to the plutocratic Proof-of-Work and Proof-of-Stake).
A companion paper defined the notion of digital social contracts, presented a design for a social-contracts programming language, and demonstrated its potential utility via example social contracts. The envisioned setup consists of people with genuine identifiers, which are unique and singular cryptographic key pairs, that operate software agents thus identified on their mobile device. The abstract model of digital social contracts consists of a transition system specifying concurrent, non-deterministic asynchronous agents that operate on a shared ledger by performing digital speech acts, which are cryptographically-signed sequentially-indexed digital actions. Here, we address the distributed-ledger implementation of digital social contracts in the presence of faulty agents: we present a design of a fault-tolerant distributed-ledger transition system and show that it implements the abstract shared-ledger model of digital social contracts, and discuss its resilience to faulty agents. The result is a novel ledger architecture that is distributed with a blockchain-per-person (as opposed to centralized with one blockchain for all), partially-ordered (as opposed to totally-ordered), locally-replicated (as opposed to globally-replicated), asynchronous (as opposed to globally-synchronized), peer-to-peer with each agent being both an actor and a validator (as opposed to having dedicated miners, validators, and clients), environmentally-friendly (as opposed to the environmentally-harmful Proof-of-Work), self-sufficient (as opposed to the energy-hogging Proof-of-Work or capital-hogging Proof-of-Stake) and egalitarian (as opposed to the plutocratic Proof-of-Work and Proof-of-Stake).
Traditionally, the contractual transactions between untrusted parties were generally carried out in a centralized form, requiring a trusted third party to act as a witness, and make them legally binding, enforceable and trustful. However, the process of involving a third party is associated with high expenses and delays. The Blockchain technology has been developed to address these issues, by allowing parties to enter into contractual agreements without involvement of third parties. The contract allows conducting of trusted agreements and transactions between unknown parties without the need of having an enforcement mechanism, trusted third party or legal system. In the construction sector, the smart contracts would help eliminate the slow, expensive and brittle transactions, associated with integrity and transparency issues due to potential records manipulation of the traditional contracts. This study focused on designing a blockchain smart contract adoption model and understanding stakeholders' needs for using blockchain-based smart contracts in construction industry. The study proposed the extended Technology Acceptance Model, which illustrates the constructs around the adoption and use of the blockchain smart contracts in Thailand construction sector. The model suggests that factor such as perceived financial costs, facilitating conditions, trust and readiness has influence on the construct of perceived usefulness (PU) and perceived ease of use (PEOU), which affects the behavioral intention to use the blockchain smart contracts in construction industry of Thailand.
Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) represent two potential disruptive technologies at the top of their hype cycle. Subsequently, questions arise what impact these technologies can have on future business models, especially for service-driven industries like the financial sector. While various assumptions in practice indicate a complementary usage of both DLT and AI to generate new value creation potentials, current literature and research remains scarce. To understand possible synergies for financial services, a segregated perspective on DLT or AI alone is not enough. Therefore, the main objective of this paper is to gain first insights how specific elements of these technologies can be mutually implemented and combined for a potential technological convergence on basis of an end-to-end lending reference process. Building upon the existing body of knowledge and based on Design Science Research, an instantiation of the re-designed process has been created in three iterative cycles. The process prototype demonstrates that DLT and AI are complementary technologies and mostly do not compete against each other with a focus on subsequent synergies. Finally, a comparative overview of the impact on the respective sub-processes has been elaborated to conduct principles for the design and development of future distributed-ledger-based AI applications.
Blockchain supports a variety of decentralized applications enabled by its immutable, decentralized, and trustless properties. However, there are no unifying criteria for blockchain architecture across the organizations and business models. This variance has created complex and diverse blockchain products. Costs in every economic exchange with partners are associated with two metrics: transaction costs due to market imperfections and agency costs due to conflict of interest and information asymmetry in an organization. To understand the effectiveness of economic activities by blockchain intervention and facilitate strategic alignment, we use transaction cost and agency cost as theoretical lenses to explore the impacts of blockchain, discuss the transformation of those costs, and support our arguments using a case study. Our study proposes that blockchain technology brings two more benefits, trust and transparency, to the existing Internet-based business services, and helps improve corporate governance. Smart contracts improve the execution time of transactions significantly and increase transaction volume rapidly. As the internet shifts hierarchies towards electronic markets, lack of trust between peers inhibits exchanges. Blockchain applications provide a framework for building trust between peers through its consent mechanism, which allows organizations to construct trust and operate in a more decentralized manner. Thus, by including blockchain in the current Internet infrastructure, the decision boundary of organization forms would extend outward. Finally, the transformation of costs in different stages of the blockchain transition, as described in our study, has important managerial implications for the organization structure and the role of third parties. Blockchain does not assume away transaction and agency costs but pushes the transformation of the two, forming a more efficient economic entity. This study contributes to the academia and the industry. We first add to the understanding of blockchain from the perspective of exchange technology. Second, we contribute to the prediction of organization boundaries. Third, the shift in the role of third parties supports the transaction cost theory in terms of controlling opportunism. Lastly, this study facilitates the development of blockchain business models and contributes to the practice.
First paragraphs: Consumption is the sole end and purpose of all production; and the interest of the producer ought to be attended to, only so far as it may be necessary for promoting that of the consumer. The maxim is so perfectly self-evident, that it would be absurd to attempt to prove it. —Adam Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Cause of the Wealth of Nations (1776) Introduction In today’s global food system, where the concentration of both economic and political power is self-evident, the maxim of consumer sovereignty is in great need of proof. In Montana, where we live, we have the great fortune to buy grass-finished certified organic beef from a rancher almost literally in our own backyard. We know the supplier of our food not only as a producer, but as a friend. This rancher can easily garner from us, and his other costumers, our preferences. In a sense, we drive the rancher’s production methods and pricing. Even though we insist on organic certification, it is largely on the basis of trust and friendship that we return to purchase from him over and over for our family’s beef supply. . . . See the press release for this article.
The trend of cryptocurrencies has stirred interest in the underlying technology that qualifies cryptocurrencies as a secure structure with speedy, timely and cheap transactions. The aforementioned technology, the blockchain, in brief terms is a decentralized ledger technology that attains an immutable characteristic through consensus and timestamp mechanics. The model also sets the stage for transparency in transactions, which renders the technology applicable to a myriad of scenarios that involve financial instruments. This research puts forth an argumentative approach to the applicability of blockchain technology and specifically studies the prospect of utilizing smart contracts. This approach probes the feasibility of introducing smart contracts to everyday financial transactions and settlements. An opposing perspective, by taking a devil's advocate standpoint, invokes the impractical or implausible aspects of implementing the blockchain in certain scenarios. Difficulty in auditing is a prominent example among those impracticalities. Research methodology is qualitative in nature and takes the form of exploratory research by examining existing literature on the topic.
Purpose A first exploration of the impact of blockchain on real estate in the Netherlands took place in 2017. In the follow-up, several blockchain and real estate studies have appeared with research on real estate and blockchain worldwide. In view of the previous research, the question remained as to what is now happening worldwide in the field of blockchain and real estate. This has resulted in the start-up of the Foundation for International Blockchain and Real Estate Expertise (FIBREE) network. This network has led to the launch of two investigations: Industry Report Blockchain Real Estate 2019 on exploration of international products and a database exploring blockchain and real estate on exploring (inter)national research. This paper aims to provides an overview and analysis of all relevant scientific publications – targeted on the Netherlands – and does so within a context of a first small international exploration of international research, experts and products – in particular land registration. Design/methodology/approach I have asked everybody at the Regionals Chairs of FIBREE to collect data with info about which blockchain and real estate product-suppliers or initiatives do you see, which research-output on blockchain and real estate is there and who are the experts with which specific expertise? This paper provides an overview and analysis of all relevant scientific publications – targeted on the Netherlands – and does so within a context of a first small international exploration of international research, experts and products – in particular land registration. Findings This paper provides an overview and analysis of all relevant scientific publications – targeted on the Netherlands – and does so within a context of a first small international exploration of international research, experts and products – in particular land registration. Research limitations/implications A question that remains is to continue to look at existing markets or too disruptive innovation newcomers in the blockchain market. The question is whether blockchain is only a technological disruption or a real game changer and whether the entire value chain of the market is going to embrace this. Confidence in blockchain is therefore a precondition for guiding that disruption where (new) companies use new technology to offer cheaper and superior alternatives in the market. But the big question is how quickly blockchain will develop as well as all its applications. Practical/social implications A question that remains is to continue to look at existing markets or too disruptive innovation newcomers in the blockchain market. The question is whether blockchain is only a technological disruption or a real game changer and whether the entire value chain of the market is going to embrace this. Confidence in blockchain is therefore a precondition for guiding that disruption where (new) companies use new technologies to offer cheaper and superior alternatives in the market. But the big question is how quickly blockchain will develop as well as all its applications. Originality/value A first exploration of the influence of blockchain on real estate in the Netherlands took place in 2017. In the follow-up, several blockchain and real estate studies appear with research about real estate and blockchain worldwide.
There is now a consensus on the role of open innovation intermediaries, especially in relation to the transaction costs associated with open and collaborative innovation. On the other hand, since its “invention” in 2008, blockchain has been given considerable attention across various fields. A common view is that by drastically reducing transaction costs, blockchain could suppress the need of middlemen and intermediaries. With this in mind, the aim of this paper is to assess the potential impact of blockchain on the role of open innovation intermediaries, with a particular focus on crowdsourcing platforms. Following Schenk et al. (2018), the role of crowdsourcing platforms is considered along three complementary streams of literature: transaction costs theory, resource-based theory, and the theory of two-sided markets. Through its registry and smart-contract applications (which are yet to be characterized precisely), we argue that if vastly implemented, blockchain will significantly reduce the possibility of opportunistic behavior, as well as the associated transaction costs. This could in turn lead to a reconsideration of the role of open innovation intermediaries and platforms. But the role of these platforms also includes the matchmaking between seekers and solvers (which involves network effects) and the provision of resources and competences required along the open innovation process. The discussion proposed in this chapter suggests that these roles should not be altered by blockchain (at least in a foreseeable future).
Ride-sharing is a service that enables drivers to share their trips with other riders, contributing to improving traffic congestion as well as assist in reducing Carbon Dioxide (CO2) emission and fuel consumption. It has come to the forefront in recent years as a Green service in large cities. However, the majority of existing ride-sharing services rely on a central third party, which makes them subject to a single point of failure and privacy disclosure concerns by both internal and external attackers. Moreover, they are vulnerable to distributed denial of service (DDoS) and Sybil attacks due to malicious users. There is also high service fees paid to the ride-sharing service provider. In this paper, we propose to decentralize ride-sharing services based on a public Blockchain. Our scheme enables drivers to propose ride-sharing services without relying on a trusted third party. To preserve location privacy, riders send cloaked ride requests to hide their exact pick-up/drop-off locations, and departure/arrival dates. Then, by using an off-line matching technique, drivers sends their offers encrypted to ensure data confidentiality. Upon receiving the ride-offers, the rider can find a ride match using some heuristics as well as the bid price included in the offer. To preserve anonymity, riders/drivers use pseudonyms that change per trip to ensure unlinkabilty. We envision the application of this technology in Green Internet of Things connected smart cities, where ride sharing services are common. Finally, we implement our scheme and deploy it in a test net of Ethereum. The experimental results show the applicability of our protocol.
Car sharing allows car owners to share their cars to tenants, making the control rights of vehicles to be frequently transferred among individuals. The existing control schemes for car shearing with centralized architecture are faced with several threatens, e.g., the single point of failure and lack of mutual trust. To this end, we propose a decentralized car-sharing control scheme by using blockchain and smart contracts. Massive base stations of Internet-of-Vehicles (IoV) deployed over wide areas are used to jointly build the distributed system with blockchain to replace the untrusted third-party server. Having the smart contract, access control procedures can be performed automatically by an arbitrary base station in the decentralized architecture. The scheme provides a secure platform for the interactions among vehicles, individuals and application providers to avoid some security issues. Several simulations are conducted to validate the feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed scheme.
Smart contract is a disruptive FinTech that is signed in advance and automatically executed when the goods are received. Therefore, the buyer will settle accounts without delay payment under smart contract, which benefits the supplier in B2B transactions. However, how to motivate the buyer to participate in smart contract? In this paper, we consider a supplier selling goods through retailers such as Wal-Mart in a co-opetitive supply chain, where the retailer buys and resells the supplier's goods and the supplier encroaches on the market by opening a direct channel. Without smart contract, the supplier incurs cash opportunity cost because of the retailer's delay payment (referred to as Traditional Contract scenario). With smart contract, the retailer needs to pay the supplier immediately when the goods arrive (referred to as Smart Contract scenario). We use Generalized Nash Bargaining to formulate the contract negotiation, and show that the adoption of smart contract changes the competition and cooperation between the supplier and the retailer both vertically and horizontally. We find that, when the supplier's unit cash opportunity cost is high (low), the smart contract enhances (weakens) the coordination in the reselling channel, increases (decreases) the reselling channel's market share compared to the direct-selling channel, and increases (lowers) the retailer's proportion in the reselling revenue. Interestingly, we show that, when the supplier's bargaining power is moderate or extremely low, it prefers traditional contract when the unit cash opportunity cost is moderate. We also show that, the retailer and the supplier have incentive alignment to adopt smart contract when the supplier's unit cash opportunity cost is high. We further study the impact of the supplier's merchant discount fee under traditional contract and its commission cost when the direct channel is an online store, finding that our main results are qualitatively unchanged.
This study presents conceptual research designed to assess how the sharing economy concept can be leveraged to increase the participation of commercial organisations, such as retailers and transporters, in disaster relief operations. Drawing on social exchange theory, the academic literature on the sharing economy and blockchain, as well as existing resource-sharing practices in commercial and humanitarian logistics, the study develops a theoretical framework for analysing the structure, benefits, and prerequisites of a logistics-sharing system in emergency response. In addition, it proposes to utilise the blockchain distributed ledger technology-a shared data platform that enables authenticated communication and the widespread sharing of real-time information-to facilitate interactions and enhance trust between emergency responders and commercial organisations. It is argued that using commercial logistics resources, including emergency supplies, transport capacity, and storage space, has the potential to improve the mobilisation and deployment of urgently needed relief items and augment the flexibility of emergency response.
Candy So Suk Yi Candice, Eric Yung, Samuel Lee, Christopher Fong · 5 authors
A Deloitte (2016) survey report states that blockchain technology can have an impact on the telecommunications industry in preventing fraud, identifying as-a-service and data management, 5G enabling, and IoT connectivity. For example, fraud costs more than USD 38 billion a year. In a panel of industry experts, Carrier Industry is looking for ways to cut costs, boost revenues, and market segments through blockchain technology (Total Telecom, 2018). Blockchain is treated as a breakthrough technology for managing the operation of telecommunications such as identity management, smart contracts, payments and transactions, reporting and analysis, network management, billing / OSS, etc. A statistical analysis shows that blockchain in telecommunications and postal services in 2017 amounted to more than USD 39 million and is expected to achieve an estimate of more than USD 641 million by 2023-end, suggesting powerful market growth over the next few years (Market Research Future Report, 2018). Since carriers apply telecom standards to run its business and operations, and thus blockchain technology, a high secure of distributed ledger and trust processes to solve the high traffics. According to a survey by IBM Institute for Business Value (2018), it states that 36 percent of Communication Service Providers (CSP) are already considering or actively engaged with blockchain, 41 percent of CSP may support their strategy by assuring data management, and 46 percent of CSP are already exploring or engaging with blockchain and already invested in it to develop new business models. Carriers in telecommunications Industry Hong Kong are mainly private-owned, and thus they must follow the Telecommunication Ordinance (Cap. 106) governed by Office of the Communications Authority (OFCA) of HKSAR. Telecommunications services such as fixed-line, internet broadband and mobile service support business and residential customers. Hong Kong Telecom (HKT), Hutchison Telecommunications Hong Kong Holdings Ltd (HTHK) and Hong Kong Broadband Network Limited (HKBN) are selected by this study as a number of operators (fixed-line and broadband, mobile, or a mix of both fixed-line, broadband and mobile). HKT (Stock Code: SEHK: 6823), is the major operator to meet the needs of public, local and international businesses with a wide range of services such as local telephony, local data and broadband, international communications, mobile service and enterprise solutions. HKT employs approximately 17,400 staff, the headquarters are located in Hong Kong, and telecommunications network covers more than 3,000 cities and 140 countries (HKT, 2019) Hutchison Telecommunications Holdings Hong Kong Limited (Stock Code: SEHK215), conglomerate of CK Hutchison Holdings, is the leading operator provides mobile service in Hong Kong and Macau. HTHK employs 1,180 staff and the headquarters are located in Hong Kong (HTHK, 2019). Hong Kong Broadband Network, Stock Code: SEHK: 1310), is the foremost operator provides broadband service to commerce and residential customers. HKBN is an aggressive operator with merger and acquisition with New World Telecommunications in February 2016 and WTT Holding Ltd in February 2019. HKBN employs approximately 3,000 staff, and the headquarters are located in Hong Kong (HKBN, 2019). An example of two dominating carrier representatives, Marc Halbfinger, Chief Executive Officer of PCCW Global (subsidiary of HKT) and the Chairman of the GLF, and Andrew Kwok, CEO of Hutchison Global Telecommunications (ex-mega conglomerate of CK Hutchison Holdings sold to Asia Cube Global in Jul 2017) partnering with Colt Technologies Service to conduct trial blockchain technology to re-shape business practices (Colt Technology News, 2018). Other example of blockchain, HKT and PCCW obtained a virtual banking license in early 2019 to expand finance business (South China Morning Post, 2019). Given examples of operators actively study on blockchain technology to its core business and the role of blockchain plays a tremendous role in telecommunications landscape. The research paper is focussed on blockchain/blockchain technology impact to Human Resources hiring and off-boarding practices in telecommunications sector in Hong Kong.
Summary Difficulties in financing and low utilization of funds are main financial problems that plague the development of small and medium‐sized enterprises. The key to solving this problem lies in opening up the social data circulation between enterprises. It is a good solution for enterprises with frequent data interactions to form groups. Using group loans, the borrowing enterprises could solve the funding difficulties and the loan enterprises could improve the utilization rate of funds. In this article, we construct a group loan system based on blockchain technology, which can promote the free flow of funds among enterprises in the group. We combine the blockchain with the trusted execution environment to realize the automatic determination of loan conditions and realize the automatic execution of smart contracts. We also use the linkable group signature technology to ensure the traceability of loan users while protecting the anonymity. In addition, we use homomorphic encryption technology to make the statement confidential and computable.
Crowdfunding is an innovative way of financing projects that allows anyone to contribute money online and support various initiatives, such as businesses, causes, or solutions. However, traditional crowdfunding platforms face some challenges, such as lack of transparency and security, high fees, and limited control over the funds by the contributors and the project owners. Blockchain technology, which is a P2P, decentralized ledger, which is distributed can offer a more reliable, secure, and transparent solution for crowdfunding. Blockchain-based crowdfunding can leverage smart contracts, which are self-executing agreements that encode the rules and conditions of the funding process and ensure that the funds are released only when the predefined criteria are met. This paper aims to propose a concept for designing efficient smart contracts for crowdfunding, which can enable both the contributors and the project owners to have more control and influence over the funds and the project outcomes. Unlike the existing literature-based ideas, our proposed method not only allows the contributors to invest their own money, but also guarantees them that their token values will be preserved. This method can be integrated without disrupting the existing logic of the blockchain. The methodology provides higher control and transparency for all the parties involved in the crowdfunding process.
Technische Universität Berlin, Chair for Information and Communication Management, Berlin, Germany, Johannes Werner, Rüdiger Zarnekow
Blockchain technology may disrupt industries by disintermediation. Hence, it challenges market-oriented platforms like Amazon or Facebook as intermediaries. In the case of blockchain-based platforms, if there may be no platform owner as an intermediary, the different sides of a platform will still need to be orchestrated by platform governance. Following this, blockchainbased platforms must also have mechanisms for orchestrating their platform sides. These mechanisms of blockchain-based platforms may differ from traditional platform governance. This research aims to enhance the understanding of governance mechanisms of blockchain-based platforms. For this purpose, a case study is conducted to analyze the governance mechanisms and their manifestations. Therefore, the initial governance mechanisms were taken from research on platforms. As a result, blockchain specific characteristics of governance mechanisms were identified.
David Dann, Christian Peukert, Carl Martin, Christof Weinhardt · 6 authors
Blockchain technology is an innovation of the 21st century that is supposed to act as a trust-building factor and may provide the foundation for trust-free systems as well as market exchanges. We investigate how the trustrelated properties of blockchain technology influence trust relationships of participants in the platform economy. Building on the pilot study of Hawlitschek [1], we conduct a scenario-based online survey with participants taking the role of a customer on a blockchain-based peer-to-peer rental platform. Our results confirm that while trust in peers and shared products have no overall significant effect on rental intentions, trust in blockchain technology and the community of blockchain users drive rental intentions mediated by trust in the blockchain-based platform. Our study sheds light on how established trust relationships shift from a peer and product focus towards trust in platforms and their underlying technology.
The fundamental purpose of agri-food supply chain management is to restrict opportunism caused by information asymmetry. Traditional Chinese agri-food supply chain management introduces a contract mechanism and a trust mechanism to manage the uncertainty of the agri-food quasi-organization. However, it is almost impossible to improve the efficiency of transactions and maintain agri-food supply chain stability in the case of asymmetric information. Nowadays, blockchain, Internet of Things technology and big data drive the agri-food supply chain into a vast smart network which would break the information constraints. This paper analyzes the coupling between blockchain-based digital system and the agri-food supply chain. In addition, this paper presents two cases from China, indicating that the proposed blockchain-based system can achieve disruptive transformation in agri-food supply chain management.
Blockchain technology is the cornerstone of FinTech. Blockchains offer the infrastructure for online platforms which store information and digital assets. Distributed ledgers are about to be employed everywhere. Regulators have opted for a regulatory sandbox approach which demonstrates the need for efficient private law rules to fill potential lacunae. This paper identifies the crucial parameters for ascertaining the private law foundations of blockchain technology and its applications. Aspects of contract and property laws will be assessed in order to determine whether digital assets are capable of acquiring erga omnes status. This will include a survey of current blockchain statutes and potential negative externalities of a blockchain which might trigger liability of its members.