A structured framework to assess the business application landscape of blockchain technologies.

Abstract

Blockchain is emerging as a game changing technology in many industries. Although it is increasingly capturing the business community's attention, a comprehensive overview of commercially available applications is lacking to date. This paper aims to fill this gap. Firstly, we propose a structured approach to assess the application landscape of blockchain technologies. To build our framework, we relied on largely accepted classifications of blockchains, based on protocols, consensus mechanisms and ownership, as well as on the most cited application areas emerging from the literature. Secondly, we applied the framework on a database of 460 released blockchains. The analysis confirms a dominance of applications for cryptocurrencies, financial transactions and certification purposes, with a prevalence of permissionless platforms. We also found new application fields that go far beyond the seven initial areas addressed by the current body of knowledge, leading to some interesting takeaways for both practitioners and IS researchers.

From Hype to Reality: A Taxonomy of Blockchain Applications

“…Investigations of blockchain application areas start with the idea that blockchains can be useful beyond the financial sector. Extant research focuses predominantly on applying blockchains for digital payments, certification, cloud storage, identity management, energy distribution, and advanced tracking [30]. Business reviews of blockchain startups reveal new application areas including customer loyalty, cybersecurity, digital rights management, digital voting and government, gaming, content distribution, platform development, prediction markets, and smart contracts [12,30].…”

Requirement-driven Taxonomy Development – A Classification of Blockchain Technologies for Securities Post-Trading

“…On the global DLT and blockchain market, many different blockchain systems are available [5]. While each of them share the same building blocks, their the individual designs reflect the requirements imposed by a specific application context [6].…”

“…In recent years, the disruptive potential of distributed ledger (DLT) and blockchain technology [1,2,3] and its adoption to practical application contexts [4,5] were one of the most discussed topics in the field of information systems (IS) [6]. To leverage the disruptive potential, many organizations intensify their blockchain and DLT activities by increasing their investments in external knowledge acquisition [7] as well as internal R&D efforts [8].…”

Towards Distributed Clouds: A Review About the Evolution of Centralized Cloud Computing, Distributed Ledger Technologies, and A Foresight on Unifying Opportunities and Security Implications

“…Contemplating innovation diffusion [31] we can consider that cryptocurrencies have already escalated from the innovator segment to early adopters (in some countries such as Korea perhaps into early majority). Although the early application landscape is currently forming [31], the 2G smart contracts are trapped in the innovation segment as the technology required for their widespread dissemination is limited. Based on project release estimates, such as Ethereums PoS and sharding (2019-20) we can expect that 3G DLT enabled solutions are available in the near future (1-2 years).…”