Publication

Governing the Use of Blockchain and Distributed Ledger Technologies: Not One-Size-Fits-All

Abstract

Blockchain and distributed ledger technologies (DLTs) have the capacity to improve how many companies and organizations conduct transactions or store information securely, among many other potential benefits. However, their development and implementation does not occur in a contextual vacuum and instead must adapt to the needs and requirements of their given user. As such, we argue that the governance of DLT and blockchain must be applied against two core questions: who should have access to information within a given DLT/blockchain, and should management of that system be open or restricted/permissioned? While the technology is still emerging, its application to and success within various organizations will be largely dependent upon these key governance concerns.

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Related concepts (35)
Governance
Governance is the process of making and enforcing decisions within an organization or society. It is the process of interactions through the laws, social norms, power (social and political) or language as structured in communication of an organized society over a social system (family, social group, formal or informal organization, a territory under a jurisdiction or across territories). It is done by the government of a state, by a market, or by a network.
Blockchain
A blockchain is a distributed ledger with growing lists of records (blocks) that are securely linked together via cryptographic hashes. Each block contains a cryptographic hash of the previous block, a timestamp, and transaction data (generally represented as a Merkle tree, where data nodes are represented by leaves). Since each block contains information about the previous block, they effectively form a chain (compare linked list data structure), with each additional block linking to the ones before it.
Distributed ledger
A distributed ledger (also called a shared ledger or distributed ledger technology or DLT) is the consensus of replicated, shared, and synchronized digital data that is geographically spread (distributed) across many sites, countries, or institutions. In contrast to a centralized database, a distributed ledger does not require a central administrator, and consequently does not have a single (central) point-of-failure.
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