Abstract
Blockchain has been used primarily in cryptocurrency applications like Bitcoin and Ethereum. These use cases show the staying power of blockchain technology and suggest additional uses such as smart contracting. We suggest these use cases, while producing knowledge, do not forecast the future of blockchain. Learning-by-doing reveals the evolution of blockchain as a sociotechnical system, suggesting that there is more to learn. Predicting how sociotechnical systems will evolve is difficult, but historical and lexical analyses suggest two areas for blockchain growth. One is provenance, authentication through recording of ownership or other control state, applicable to jewels, real property, art works, food stuffs, designer items, and anything else where genuineness is valued. The other is chain-of-custody, proving that duty of care has been faithfully executed regarding living beings (children, people in legal custody, research subjects, research animals, pets), or that inanimate things (evidence, data, representations such as photographs) have not been tampered with.
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Notes
Some prefer “exploit” to “hack.” This paper uses the terms synonymously to mean a person doing something with a computer that is not allowed by laws or rules.
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The authors thank Roman Beck, Roger Ehrenberg, David Kobrosky, and Victoria Lemieux for their help.
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Ehrenberg, A.J., King, J.L. Blockchain in Context. Inf Syst Front 22, 29–35 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10796-019-09946-6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10796-019-09946-6