Going Beyond the Blockchain Hype: In Which Cases are Blockchains Useful for IT Applications?

Abstract

Blockchain technology is today proposed as a new technical infrastructure for several types of IT applications. This interest is due to its unique property that allows two entities to perform transactions, in a very secure manner, without going through a TTP. However, a blockchain comes along a number of other intrinsic properties, which may not be suitable or beneficial in all the envisaged application cases. Consequently, we propose in this paper a decision tree to identify when a blockchain may be the appropriate technical infrastructure for a given IT application, and when another system (centralized or distributed peer-to-peer) is more adapted. This tree is based on a comparative study between the blockchain and classical "centralized and distributed peer-to-peer" systems.

A decision tree for building IT applications

“…− The ledger L constitutes a chain of several blocks interconnected with each other and with the addition of new blocks, this chain increases more and more. Each block contains the history of one or more exchanges as well as other important information [16]. In addition, each user has a copy of L and there is a consensus algorithm ensuring that each user owns the same copy of L as the other users (see section 3.2).…”

“…In addition, the attacker needs to repeat all these changing operations for all the other users. So, the information stored in the blocks are indeed reserved forever and cannot be changed unless an attacker can gather of more than 51% of the computational power network [16]. 3.…”

“…(15) As in boxes (5) and (10), we don't have a solution if the IT application needs to apply the data transparency with the choice of the property of "response time is always a fast option even in the case of network overload". Otherwise, we go to the box (16). (16) At this stage, if the IT application does not need for the "Data Immutability", then the implementation of a blockchain infrastructure is not necessary because the "Data Immutability" is an intrinsic property in this infrastructure (see section 3.1).…”

“…Otherwise, we go to the box (16). (16) At this stage, if the IT application does not need for the "Data Immutability", then the implementation of a blockchain infrastructure is not necessary because the "Data Immutability" is an intrinsic property in this infrastructure (see section 3.1). Therefore, we will have only the choice to implement a distributed peer-to-peer system.…”

“…-Case F: (1) true, (2) true, (7) true, (13) true, (15) true: it an impossible decision because we cannot choose neither a centralized system with data transparency, nor a peerto-peer system with the need for a fast response time, nor a blockchain technology with the need for a fast response time. -Case G: (1) true, (2) true, (7) true, (13) true, (15) false, (16) true, (19) true, (20) true: it an impossible decision because we cannot choose neither a centralized system without the need for a fast response time, nor a peerto-peer system with the need for the data immutability, nor a blockchain technology with the need for prior trust between users.…”