Do you Need a Blockchain?

By Karl Wüst, Arthur Gervais. Crypto Valley Conference on Blockchain Technology, 2018

1,024 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Blockchain is being praised as a technological innovation which allows to revolutionize how society trades and interacts. This reputation is in particular attributable to its properties of allowing mutually mistrusting entities to exchange financial value and interact without relying on a trusted third party. A blockchain moreover provides an integrity protected data storage and allows to provide process transparency. In this paper we critically analyze whether a blockchain is indeed the appropriate technical solution for a particular application scenario. We differentiate between permissionless (e.g., Bitcoin/Ethereum) and permissioned (e.g. Hyperledger/Corda) blockchains and contrast their properties to those of a centrally managed database. We provide a structured methodology to determine the appropriate technical solution to solve a particular application problem. Given our methodology, we analyze in depth three use cases - Supply Chain Management, Interbank and International Payments, and Decentralized Autonomous Organizations and conclude the article with an outlook for further opportunities.

Subfields: Artificial Intelligence, Information Systems

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/ad9760ea1568263d4f670edc52e8d91875c95e42

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Citations in the corpus

Blockchain's adoption in IoT: The challenges, and a way forward (2019, methodology): “Moreover, if there is no trust, then the complete supply chain is compromised, and any malicious node can inject false data [149].”
A Systematic Review of the Use of Blockchain in Healthcare (2018, methodology): “Regarding storage, there are several factors (questions) that need to be considered [41]: • Is there a need for storing data (with regard to the authors of a speciﬁc state)?”
A Vademecum on Blockchain Technologies: When, Which, and How (2019, background): “a blockchain can revolutionize a business [38], [39], [73], benefits and drawbacks of both permissioned and permissionless blockchains [36], [45], [74], [75], [76], and links with traditional solutions [3], [77], [78], [79], [80].”
A systematic literature review of blockchain-based applications: Current status, classification and open issues (2019, neutral): “For instance, if there is a need for multiple mutually mistrusting entities to interact and change the state of a system, then blockchain may be a viable solution (Wüst and Gervais, 2017).”
Blockchain Technology Overview (2018, background): “[35] Peck, Morgen E. “Do You Need a Blockchain?””
Survey on blockchain based smart contracts: Applications, opportunities and challenges (2021, background): “[8] critically analyzed the applicability of blockchain for a particular application scenario proposing a structured methodology to determine the relevant technical solutions and evaluated with some significant real-world applications.”
Boundary conditions for traceability in food supply chains using blockchain technology (2020, background): “In order to be able to control the users and their rights, permissioned blockchains have been introduced recently (Wüst & Gervais, 2017).”
A Survey of Distributed Consensus Protocols for Blockchain Networks (2019, background): “Meanwhile, the limited size of a permissioned blockchain’s consensus body allows for the deployment of more efficient consensus protocols that achieve higher transaction capacity [22], [67].”
When Intrusion Detection Meets Blockchain Technology: A Review (2018, background): “Wüst and Gervais [31] outline a very general decision process that allows to determine whether— and if yes, which”
Applications of Blockchains in the Internet of Things: A Comprehensive Survey (2019, methodology): “In order to ascertain which application scenarios justify a blockchain integration, the methodology presented in [88] can be used.”