Managing Distributed Ledgers: Blockchain and Beyond

Abstract

The Internet of Value based on Distributed Ledger Technology strives for a strictly decentralised organisation of interactivities between peers without any centralised platform or intermediary. The technology is disruptive because core elements of the current organisation of value exchange will change radically. This applies in particular to four areas: (1) Proof of identity of customers, of clients, of users, of patients and the associated handling of private data; (2) Recording, documenting and certifying transactions, the change of value and entrepreneurial success; (3) Organisation of the value exchange and the transfer of values and utilities; (4) Integration of ob-jects, of machines and of robots in communication and transaction processes.

Distributed Ledger Technology is therefore not an innovation which comes overnight. The diffusion period takes longer – probably years or a decade – as radical changes within society are needed before distributed and shared ledgers become standard. Many technological aspects are not yet fully developed, so that the DLT is currently still in experimental mode. But the cases of use so far already show that the technology has the potential to revolutionize the nominal world of registration, certification, accounting and exchange of digital value and thereby enable completely new forms of collaboration and organization.

Keywords: Distributed Ledger Technology, Blockchain, Tokens, ICOs, Cryptoassets, Distributed Ledgers, DLT

JEL Classification: L14, L16, L17, L20, M4