The Drivers Behind Blockchain Adoption: The Rationality of Irrational Choices

There has been a huge increase in interest in blockchain technology. However, little is known about the drivers behind the adoption of this technology. In this paper we identify and analyze these drivers, using three real-world and representative scenarios. We confirm in our analysis that blockchain is not an appropriate technology for some scenarios, from a purely technical point of view. The choice for blockchain technology in such scenarios may therefore seem as an irrational choice. However, our analysis reveals that there are non-technical drivers at play that drive the adoption of blockchain, such as philosophical beliefs, network effects, and economic incentives. These non-technical drivers may explain the rationality behind the choice for blockchain adoption.

[1]  Fred D. Davis.  A technology acceptance model for empirically testing new end-user information systems : theory and results , 1985 .

[2]  Lemuria Carter,et al.  Blockchain applications in government , 2018, DG.O.

[3]  Malte Möser.  Anonymity of Bitcoin Transactions An Analysis of Mixing Services , 2013 .

[4]  Sarah Underwood,et al.  Blockchain beyond bitcoin , 2016, Commun. ACM.

[5]  Karl J. O'Dwyer,et al.  Bitcoin mining and its energy footprint , 2014 .

[6]  Jan Top,et al.  Blockchain for agriculture and food: Findings from the pilot study , 2017 .

[7]  Christian Cachin,et al.  Architecture of the Hyperledger Blockchain Fabric , 2016 .

[8]  Morgen E. Peck,et al.  Blockchain world - Do you need a blockchain? This chart will tell you if the technology can solve your problem , 2017, IEEE Spectrum.

[9]  Sachin Shetty,et al.  ProvChain: A Blockchain-Based Data Provenance Architecture in Cloud Environment with Enhanced Privacy and Availability , 2017, 2017 17th IEEE/ACM International Symposium on Cluster, Cloud and Grid Computing (CCGRID).

[10]  Andrew Urquhart,et al.  Price Clustering in Bitcoin , 2017 .

[11]  Marcel Antal,et al.  Blockchain Based Decentralized Management of Demand Response Programs in Smart Energy Grids , 2018, Sensors.

[12]  J. H. Davis,et al.  An Integrative Model Of Organizational Trust , 1995 .

[13]  Stefan Seebacher,et al.  Blockchain Technology as an Enabler of Service Systems: A Structured Literature Review , 2017, IESS.

[14]  Emin Gün Sirer,et al.  Decentralization in Bitcoin and Ethereum Networks , 2018, Financial Cryptography.

[15]  Radia J. Perlman,et al.  Blockchain: Hype or Hope? , 2017, login Usenix Mag..

[16]  Adi Shamir,et al.  Quantitative Analysis of the Full Bitcoin Transaction Graph , 2013, Financial Cryptography.

[17]  Markus Bick,et al.  Cryptocurrencies as a Disruption? Empirical Findings on User Adoption and Future Potential of Bitcoin and Co , 2015, I3E.

[18]  Sooyong Park,et al.  Where Is Current Research on Blockchain Technology?—A Systematic Review , 2016, PloS one.

[19]  Marc Pilkington,et al.  Blockchain Technology: Principles and Applications , 2015 .

[20]  Melanie Swan,et al.  Blockchain: Blueprint for a New Economy , 2015 .

[21]  Daniel Davis Wood,et al.  ETHEREUM: A SECURE DECENTRALISED GENERALISED TRANSACTION LEDGER , 2014 .

[22]  Ghosh Debabrata,et al.  A Framework for Implementing Blockchain Technologies to Improve Supply Chain Performance , 2018 .

[23]  Gareth W. Peters,et al.  Understanding Modern Banking Ledgers Through Blockchain Technologies: Future of Transaction Processing and Smart Contracts on the Internet of Money , 2015, ArXiv.

[24]  Catherine Mulligan,et al.  Distributed ledger technology: Applications and implications , 2017 .

[25]  Jan Holmström,et al.  Product-centric Information Management: A Case Study of a Shared Platform with Blockchain Technology , 2016 .

[26]  N. L. Chervany,et al.  What is Trust? A Conceptual Analysis and an Interdisciplinary Model , 2000 .

[27]  Kai Zimmermann,et al.  Bitcoin - Asset or Currency? Revealing Users' Hidden Intentions , 2014, ECIS.

[28]  Arthur Gervais,et al.  Do you Need a Blockchain? , 2018, 2018 Crypto Valley Conference on Blockchain Technology (CVCBT).

[29]  Chin-Lung Hsu,et al.  Why do people play on-line games? An extended TAM with social influences and flow experience , 2004, Inf. Manag..

[30]  Satoshi Nakamoto.  Bitcoin : A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System , 2009 .

[31]  Mark M. Lennon,et al.  Braving Bitcoin: A technology acceptance model (TAM) analysis , 2016 .

[32]  Jongsu Lee,et al.  Technology adoption: A conjoint analysis of consumers' preference on future online banking services , 2015, Inf. Syst..

[33]  M. Henke,et al.  Blockchain-driven supply chain finance: Towards a conceptual framework from a buyer perspective , 2017 .