Abstract In this paper, we use a Delphi strategy to research whether or not, and to what extent, blockchain-based functions might have an effect on firms’ organizations, innovations, and techniques by 2030, and, consequently, which societal areas could also be primarily affected. We provide a deep understanding of how the adoption of this technology might result in modifications in Europe over a number of dimensions, starting from enterprise to culture and society, policy and regulation, financial system, and technology. From the projections that reached a significant consensus and got a excessive probability of prevalence by the consultants, we derive four scenarios constructed round two primary dimensions: the digitization of belongings and the change in enterprise models.Citation: Levis D, Fontana F, Ughetto E (2021) A look into the method forward for blockchain technology. PLoS ONE 16(11): e . /10.1371/journal.pone. Editor: Alessandro Margherita, University of Salento, ITALY
Received: June 1, 2021; Accepted: October 9, 2021; Published: November 17, Copyright: © 2021 Levis et al. This is an open access article distributed beneath the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which allows unrestricted use, distribution, and replica in any medium, supplied the unique author and supply are credited.
Data Availability: All related information are throughout the paper.
Funding: The authors acquired no particular funding for this work.
Competing pursuits: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.
1 Introduction Over the previous few years, the hype and curiosity around blockchain technology have constantly elevated. Practitioners from many industries and sectors have joined an open, but mainly unstructured, dialogue on the potential disruptive capabilities of this newly born technology [1–3]. In precept, the scale of the phenomenon could possibly be large, with latest estimates predicting blockchain to store, by 2025, the ten per cent of the world’s GDP (about $88tn in 2019) [4]. However, the complexity of the technology itself and the difficulties in assessing its impact throughout the totally different application fields have prevented the social, industrial and scientific communities to agree upon a shared imaginative and prescient of future blockchain-based situations. Very elementary questions are still to be answered. Which blockchain-enabled applications will see the light within the subsequent few years? Which industrial sectors shall be primarily affected? How will firms react to potential industry-disruptors? How will the current societal paradigm shift? Which position will coverage makers play in enhancing this new paradigm? Despite the great and undoubted technological innovation linked to this technology, uncertainties and speculation on the potential situations nonetheless animate the commercial and scientific dialogue [5]. In specific, it’s not yet clear which functions will see the light, and, ultimately, what results these modifications may have at a societal level. In this paper, we use a Delphi strategy to analyze whether, and to what extent, blockchain-based purposes will affect firms’ organizations, innovations and techniques by 2030, and, consequently, which societal areas shall be primarily affected. With this technique, we purpose at reaching experts’ consensus to gain new insights and assess the chance about the means forward for the technology. This is a related issue, as blockchain technology purposes cowl a wide spectrum of areas. Blockchain can be applied vertically within an industry (e.g. disrupting its provide chain) or horizontally throughout totally different industries or within single firms (e.g. modifying the interior buildings and the modus operandi of the completely different firm functions). Given the variety of potential applications and the complexity of the technology, stakeholders are divided into skeptics, who consider the technology remains to be too immature to become a paradigm within the close to future, and fanatics, who as an alternative believe that this radical innovation will disrupt many industries and utterly change enterprise fashions and people’s behaviors, like internet did during the 90s. The literature on blockchain is also broadly fragmented. Different works have investigated potential blockchain functions within particular domains, similar to finance [6–8], logistics [9], healthcare [10, 11] and education [12]. However, a holistic strategy on attainable blockchain-enabled future situations remains to be lacking. To our knowledge, the only contribution in this course is the one by White [13], who explores blockchain as a supply of disruptive innovation exclusively with regard to the business field. We depart from his work to undertake a much wider perspective in this study. In fact, our aim is to obtain a deep understanding on how the adoption of this technology in Europe will lead to adjustments over multiple dimensions, starting from enterprise to culture and society, policy and regulation, economy and technology. Thus, our research goals at exploring if a convergence between the two divergent perspectives on blockchain could be found, bringing collectively experts at present engaged on blockchain tasks to discover the possible changes that the technology will convey to the society by 2030. Our research outlines an total agreement amongst consultants that the blockchain technology will have a deep impression on a number of dimensions. In the near future individuals will probably start using and exploit the blockchain technology potential, without really knowing how the technology behind works, in the same means as they send emails right now, ignoring how the digital architecture that permits to change bytes of information works. Policy makers and governments will play an important role in this respect, by enabling productivity boosts and aggressive features from the businesses operating underneath their jurisdictions. As such, a decent and cooperative relationship between industrial actors and regulatory our bodies will be extremely essential and auspicial. To this aim, it is going to be of key importance for all players to understand the real competitive advantage that blockchain can deliver to their very own business and market. This work goals at contributing to the elevating blockchain literature by providing a holistic view on possible blockchain-enabled future eventualities in Europe, and to analyze which of the proposed scenarios is extra prone to occur. As extensively agreed by the tutorial literature, technological developments dictate the pace and pace at which societies change [14]. Under this assumption, technological forecasting appears to be a method of basic significance to know “ex-ante” the potential development of technological modifications, and their impact on completely different societal aspects [15]. Foreseeing future technological trends could help society in understanding possible future scenarios, thus contributing to a greater knowledge of the new paradigms our society is heading in path of. The work is structured as follows. Section 2 supplies an summary on the principle analysis streams upon which this work relies. Section three presents the methodology. Results are described in Section four and Section 5 concludes the work.2 Background literature 2.1 The blockchain technology As outlined by Crosby et al. [3] a blockchain could be conceptualized as a shared and decentralized ledger of transactions. This chain grows as new blocks (i.e. read transactions or digital events) are appended to it continuously [16, 17]. Each transaction within the ledger must be confirmed by the vast majority of the individuals within the system [3, 18–21]. This means for the group to verify the truthfulness of the new piece of knowledge and to keep the blockchain copies synchronized between all of the nodes (i.e. between all the participants to the network) in such a means that everybody agrees which is the chain of blocks to follow [19]. Thus, when a consumer executes a transaction (e.g. when it sends some worth to another client), it broadcasts the transaction encrypted with a particular method to the entire community, so that every one users within the system obtain a notification of the transaction in a few seconds. At that moment, the transaction is “unconfirmed”, because it has not yet been validated by the community. Once the users confirm the transaction with a process known as mining, a new block is added to the chain. Usually, the miner (i.e. the person taking part to the verification process) receives a reward beneath the form of digital coins, called cryptocurrencies. Examples of cryptocurrencies are Bitcoins, Ether, Stellar Lumens and lots of others. Virtual cash can then be used on the blockchain platform to transfer worth between customers [17–19]. Thanks to a mix of arithmetic and cryptography, the transactions between users (i.e. exchange of information and value), once verified by the community and added to the chain, are “almost” unmodifiable and may be thought-about true with an inexpensive level of confidence [17, 19, 22]. These attributes of the technology make it extraordinarily environment friendly in transferring worth between customers, solving the problem of belief and thus doubtlessly eliminating the necessity of a government (e.g. a bank) that authorizes and certifies the transactions [7, 23, 24]. The technology can be easily utilized to kind legally binding agreements among people. The digitalized asset, which is the underlying asset of the contract, known as token. A token is often a digitalized share of an organization, as well as an actual property property or a automotive. Through the setting of smart contracts (i.e. digitalized contracts between two parties), the blockchain technology allows customers to freely trade digital tokens, and consequently to trade their underling physical property with out the need of a government to certify the transaction (OECD, 2020).2.2 Blockchain technology applications The academic literature has investigated a variety of potential blockchain applications inside particular domains, corresponding to finance [6–8], logistics [9], healthcare [10, 11] and education [12]. As talked about, one of many undoubted benefits of the blockchain technology is the chance to overcome the issue of belief while transferring value [25]. Not surprisingly, the technology seems to find extra purposes in markets the place intermediation is presently high, like the financial sector, and specifically the FinTech sector, that has just lately experienced a constant make-over due to the diffusion of digital technologies [7, 26, 27]. The implementation of the blockchain technology in the financial markets could provide traders and entrepreneurs with new tools to successfully change worth and capitals with out relying on central authorities, ideally fixing the issue of belief. This is among the many explanation why many observers imagine that the blockchain would become a possible mainstream financial technology sooner or later [28]. Blockchain represents an innovation able to completely rework our present financial system, breaking the old paradigm requiring trusted centralized parties [6–8]. With new blockchain-based automated types of peer-to-peer lending, individuals having restricted or no access to formal monetary services might acquire access to fundamental financial services beforehand reserved to people with certified financial records [29]. Indeed, blockchain technology can present worth across multiple dimensions, by reducing information asymmetries and reducing associated transactional prices [30]. Initial coin offerings (ICOs) symbolize one of the successful blockchain-based applications for financing which has been presently developed. Virtual currencies like Bitcoins can disruptively change the best way in which players active in the business of financing new ventures operate [7, 30–33]. Through an ICO, an organization in want of new capital provides digital shares (named token) to the basic public. These digital tokens will then be used by buyers to pay the future merchandise developed by the financed firm [30, 34, 35]. ICOs represents a disruptive tool: entrepreneurs can now finance their ventures without intermediaries and consequently lower the price of the capital raised [31, 36]. However, some threats coming from the technology adoption may additionally be identified, as blockchain can even result in greater risks associated to the lower degree of management intrinsically related to the technology, especially within the case of uneven data between the events concerned. Disintermediation performs a key position in the healthcare sector as well, the place blockchain has lately found numerous applications. Indeed, many gamers currently must change an enormous amount of data to effectively handle the whole sector: from hospitals, to physicians, to sufferers. The capacity to trustfully change data and data becomes of undoubted value in this context [10, 11]. It shouldn’t be tough to check blockchain functions in different fields as nicely. In every sector during which information, worth, or items are alleged to circulate between events, blockchain can enable a trustful connection between the gamers, with the need of a central physique entrusting the transaction. Within supply chain, it can improve safety and traceability of goods [9, 37]. Within education, it could possibly help in certifying students’ acquired abilities, reducing, for example, degree fraud [12]. To conclude, a recent work from Lumineau et al. [38] highlights potential implications of the technology in the best way collaborations are ruled and executed, shading mild on new organizational paradigms. Indeed, the authors present how the intrinsically diverse nature of the technology could strongly have an effect on organizational outcomes, heavily influencing and modifying (possibly improving) the means in which in which completely different entities cooperate and collaborate.3 Research methodology three.1 Forecasting technique: the Delphi methodology In the past decade, an growing variety of forecasting techniques has been employed within the educational literature to predict the potential developments induced by technological modifications. In explicit, the Delphi technique, whose time period derives from the Greek oracle Delphos, is a scientific and interactive method of prediction, which is predicated on a panel of consultants and is carried out by way of a sequence of iterations, known as rounds. Many tutorial works have adopted this method since its development [14, 39–44]. As the core of the Delphi approach, specialists are required to evaluate projections (representations of possible futures) and assess their societal impression and the chance that they’ll happen inside a selected time horizon. While the majority of forecasting methods does not account for the technological implications on the social, financial and political contexts, the Delphi technique permits subjective consideration of modifications in interrelated contexts [45]. Many completely different variants of the Delphi methodology have been developed based on the needs and objectives of every research. For the aim of this analysis, we determined to comply with the four-steps process suggested by Heiko and Darkow [46] (Fig 1). The first step of the method requires to develop and envisage projections and attainable situations which may come up through the adoption of the technology. These projections should be quick, unequivocal, and concise [14]. This part requires researchers to deeply perceive the technology by analyzing the prevailing literature, attending courses and workshops and conducting a quantity of face-to-face interviews with experts (Fig 2). Once the insights are gathered, the outcomes are synthetized in future projections that may assist develop the survey. The second step consists in presenting the study to the panel of selected experts who will take part within the first spherical of the survey. The primary problem throughout this part is to select an applicable panel of experts and keep their commitment and response price. The third step consists in a statistical and quantitative analysis of the answers acquired and in the selection of the second-round scenarios that consultants might want to consider once more. Through the evaluation of the second round of solutions, up to date eventualities are developed adding to the projections the qualitative and quantitative insights supplied by the research. The final goal of this iterative course of is to reach consensus among the consultants on the situations that are most likely to happen in the future.3.2 Formulation of the Delphi projections The formulation of the projections represents a key side of the methodology and requires a selected attention and energy. In this section, the projections which might be later tested by the panel of experts are generated. Vagueness and inaccuracy might generate confusion in experts, resulting in much less significant outcomes. To keep away from this case, we developed the projections via triangulation: literature evaluate, interviews with consultants and participation to workshops and conferences. The evaluation of the literature on blockchain technology (and its benefits) allowed us to grasp which industries and businesses might be primarily impacted by the technology. We chose 2030 as a time horizon for the generation of the scenarios. This is a recommended time span for a Delphi examine, since a superior interval would have turn out to be unmanageable to provide relevant advice for strategic development. As reported in Table 1, projections span amongst different areas. To the scope of the work, i.e. to understand a holistic view of the most probably scenarios, it was needed to investigate a quantity of a number of dimensions. Projections are associated to socio-cultural, coverage and regulations, economic, technological and business features. As it could be observed, projections are all structured in the same method, to facilitate their understanding by experts. three.2.1 Interviews with specialists. Twelve blockchain experts were interviewed among teachers, startups’ founders and professionals working in consultancy firms, banks and legal establishments. The number of the specialists was made to be able to get totally different points of view and a excessive stage of experience, as offered by the Delphi method pointers. We conducted interviews that took between thirty and forty-five minutes on average, based on the interviewee’s availability. Each single interview was tailor-made for every participant by offering pointers and reflection tricks to encourage dialogue. However, a sure diploma of freedom was given to the skilled to permit his/her spontaneous contribution and to gain some original insights that helped within the ultimate design of the future eventualities. Some frequent features have been mentioned in all interviews producing redundancy and repetition of already emerged scenarios (e.g. ICOs, business model evolution, safety and utility tokens, and legal issues). This is certainly one of the explanation why twelve interviews were thought of to be sufficient for the purposes of our research.3.2.2 Conferences. One of the authors attended three major occasions to find a way to strengthen the data about blockchain and have a broader view of its implications in different fields and industries: one in Milan and two in Paris. Of specific notice, the Community Blockchain Week, a blockchain tech-focused initiative organized voluntarily by actors engaged into the technology and with the need and vision to unfold the data among citizens. Thanks to numerous workshops and speeches during the week, it was possible to dive deeper into many features of the technology, in addition to to meet some educated specialists of assorted fields, a few of which agreed in participating to the research. The occasion was extremely useful not only to understand how the technology is evolving, but in addition to see how the neighborhood engages itself to spread the knowledge to be able to generate increasingly interest around it.3.2.3 Desk research. We performed desk analysis to formulate the preliminary set of projections. Through the survey of the literature, we gained a comprehensive view of all of the potential scenarios of the technology. The analysis of consulting companies’ reviews also offered a broader vision of future eventualities, thanks to their strategic quite than technical method [1, 2]. This process led to determine seventy six projections that represented the basis for a reflection through the expert face-to-face interviews. After screening the relevant articles and reviews, a primary filtering of the recognized seventy six projections was made to find a way to dismiss redundant or incomplete projections, and to maintain solely essentially the most full and varied ones. This process reduced the number of projections to 33 and to twenty after the evaluation of two experts.three.3 The Delphi projections The formulation of the projections represents probably the most sensitive a half of the analysis because it influences the whole study. A detailed evaluation was carried out in order to keep away from errors and confusion. In order to facilitate the respondents filling the questionnaire and to keep away from any sort of ambiguity, an introduction explaining the which means of the terminology used within the questionnaire was offered before starting the survey. The developed scenarios had been damaged down into six macro classes (the identical as proposed by Heiko and Darkow [46]) to ensure a extra full and systemic view of how the blockchain ecosystem and community can change and form the long run. The alternative of 20 projections to be evaluated by consultants is consistent with prior research exploiting the Delphi method [46, 47]. Parente and Anderson-Parente [47] have proposed to limit the variety of Delphi questions (e.g. to 25 questions) so as to assure a excessive response fee and properly filled-in questionnaires, including solely closed solutions. We decided to add the chance to remark the given answers in order to gather extra qualitative knowledge to improve the quality of the outcomes, in line with the methodology proposed by Heiko and Darkow [46].3.4 Selection of the panel of experts As blockchain experts that took half to the survey, we chosen people working in corporations and establishments on the basis of their experience and information of the field. Following Adler and Ziglio [48] and Heiko and Darkow [46] 4 necessities for “expertise” were thought of: * information and experience on blockchain technology; * capacity and willingness to take part to the Delphi research; * enough time to participate to the Delphi research; * effective communication abilities. A minimal panel size of 15–25 participants is usually required to lead to constant results. In our case, a panel of 35 specialists was reached for the first round. For the reliability of the research the panelists have been selected with different backgrounds and profiles. To be aligned with the European focus of the examine, we thought of experts working in twelve European countries, being France and Italy those with the best number of respondents. The panel traits are reported in Figs 3, four and 5.3.5 Execution of the Delphi surveys In line with the methodology proposed by Heiko and Darkow [46], two rounds of surveys had been executed. We decided to carry not extra than two rounds as a outcome of taking part to a Delphi examine requires a lot of effort and is a time-consuming task for panelists. By limiting the rounds to two, we reached a adequate number of respondents that led to have priceless results and constant conclusions. Moreover, since for each state of affairs the chance to include a qualitative argumentation was included, the smaller variety of iterations worked as a stimulus for the specialists to elucidate the explanations of their quantitative solutions. The survey was carried out following the requirements of the Internet-based Delphi, also called e-Delphi [39, 40]. Giving the possibility to respondents to reply digitally allowed experts to be extra versatile in responding to the survey, making certain a greater participation. The method the questionnaire was structured was precisely as the e-Delphi website suggests, but for practical reasons we edited the survey using Google Form. Other requirements, such as the real-time Delphi resolution proposed by several studies [14, 42, 43, 49] may have led to a greater comparability among experts, but would have probably caused more withdraws to the survey. three.5.1 First spherical. In the first spherical of the survey, the consultants assessed the expected probability and impression of the twenty outlined projections. Some Delphi studies [50, 51] include a 3rd issue that helps to evaluate the desirability of a situation (i.e. how a lot an skilled is in favour of the conclusion of a prediction). However, we decided not to embody this final side to make the questionnaire lighter and quicker to be stuffed in, and to reduce back drop-outs (Table 2). Impact, evaluated at the trade stage, was measured on a five-point Likert scale [52]. Since there is not a general consensus amongst experts regarding the variety of factors the dimensions ought to have, and because of the basic nature of the situations, we most well-liked to use a five-point Likert scale. The corresponding chances are: 0%, 25%, 50%, 75% and 100%. Gathering quantitative data allowed to perform a first set of analyses based mostly on descriptive statistics (e.g. imply, median and interquartile range-IQR). We used qualitative information, instead, to construct the ultimate eventualities in the course of the fourth step of the forecasting approach. Even although the literature relating to the Delphi methodology does not counsel a standardized way to analyze consensus, central tendency measures, such as median and mean values, are useful to know a first understanding and are regularly accepted and adopted (Table 3). Scenarios with an IQR equal or decrease than 1.5 have been thought-about as having reached an appropriate diploma of consensus. It ought to be seen that most of the projections that achieved the highest likelihood, having a median value of 75% achieved also the consensus, i.e. IQR beneath 1.5. This was the case for projections 3, 4, 8, 9, 10, thirteen, 15, 19, 20. These results present that it was simpler for consultants to find a consensus over the projections that resulted as very prone to occur. Only projection quantity 18 achieved a excessive probability score but could not attain a consensus.3.5.2 Second spherical. During the Delphi’s second round only the projections with an IQR above 1.5 (i.e. which did not attain consensus in the first round) had been tested. In order to permit the respondents to easily understand the solutions that the panel gave as a whole in spherical one, for every projection a quantitative report was offered. This report was made of a bar chart with the distribution of the primary round’s solutions and the correspondent qualitative details, i.e. some of the argumentations provided by a few of the panelists. Experts were asked to rethink the likelihood of incidence of the projections number 1, 5, 7, 11, 12, 14 and 18. The second round was once more structured using Google Form. Following the Delphi’s method, we did not ask once more to estimate the influence for each projection, since this may have presumably been not topic to any change. Moreover, we determined to go away the opportunity to supply once more some qualitative feedback in help of the answers for a better evaluation of the results. The number of experts who successfully accomplished the second spherical of the survey dropped to 28, i.e. the 80% of the specialists that completed Round 1 and 56% of the chosen preliminary panel. Again, we evaluated the central tendency measures for the projections examined during the second round (Table 4).four Results In order to supply a more effective and structured analysis of the outcomes, we first report the ultimate summary desk of the Delphi survey after which describe the insights obtained from the evaluation. It must be observed that Table 5 reviews quantitative information only, while during the survey qualitative knowledge have been collected as properly. In presenting the results of this research, each quantitative and qualitative data are used to provide the absolute best picture of what the blockchain-based future will look like. Alongside with standard statistics, we construct on qualitative insights obtained during the interviews carried on with specialists. Firstly, it is attention-grabbing to investigate which projections, out of the preliminary 20, reached a major consensus (IQR By 2030, it is going to be simpler, quicker and leaner to change worth and data among users, establishments and countries. Efficiency will increase and uncover innovation potential inside corporations and societies if these latter will be capable of exploit such a brand new opportunity. Policies shall be a necessary pre-requisite for companies to have the power to build a competitive edge globally. From this angle, the capability of central governments to spur innovation with lean and versatile rules might be a key driver in explaining the ex-post productiveness differential among companies belonging to totally different nations. From the interview with an investment banker part of the BPCE French group (one of the biggest banks in France), it emerged how effectivity is commonly hampered by the dearth of an equally environment friendly regulation. To provide the reader with an attention-grabbing example, in 2018, Natixis, the worldwide company and funding banking, asset management, insurance and monetary providers arm of BPCE, entered the Marco Polo consortium, an initiative born to supply a newly conceived commerce and supply chain finance platform, leveraging Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) and blockchain technology. Many different main banks joined the consortium as well. However, as highlighted by the investment banker, the primary limiting factor of the consortium, strongly hampering its effectivity and skill to provide a competitive edge, was the “old-style” forms linked to it. Although transactions were in precept to be executed easily, a bulk of legal paperwork was required to approve them formally. In this case, it appears evident that technology typically runs quicker than coverage, persistently decreasing its potential. Interestingly, this view can also be shared by regulatory bodies. An skilled lawyer and notary, also member of a panel of consultants elected by the Italian government to define the national technique on blockchain, highlighted that, generally, regulators engaged on blockchain-related policies try to adapt present regulations to the brand new paradigm. Due to the intrinsically totally different nature of the technology, this might symbolize a wrong method. At the identical time, building a model new set of policies from scratches could represent a challenging task. From this angle, projections four and 5 confirm this perception: coverage and technology ought to come hand in hand to synergically boost productiveness. The three projections reached consensus after the 2 rounds and had been assigned a high likelihood of occurrence. Overall, it’s evident that regulatory features linked to the adoption of this new technology shall not be underestimated. As beforehand mentioned, security, and specifically cybersecurity, is another dimension round which blockchain may bring consistent advantages, as projections three, 10, 11 and 15 recommend. On this specific side, we interviewed a project leader of the World Economic Forum who beforehand labored for the United Nations for greater than ten years. She dealt specifically with digital laws, justice, and cybersecurity, and in the final three years earlier than the interview, she particularly labored on blockchain implications and the way the technology might be implemented in present ecosystems. Thanks to her experience in the domain, she clearly explained how the blockchain represents a meaningful technology to avoid cyberattacks to sensitive data and digital recordsdata. In her opinion, the avoidance of a single point of failure is the principle purpose behind a attainable blockchain adoption over the subsequent years, since cyberattacks are becoming extra frequent and dangerous and related prices for corporations are exponentially growing (e.g. 2020 has been a document year for cyber attacks). Consequently, corporations will be increasingly investing in distributed ledgers as a form of contingency finances to decrease the cybersecurity risk and its related cost. Given the centrality of data in today’s companies, severe attacks and lack of knowledge may characterize a severe threat to business long-term sustainability. The third relevant aspect on which blockchain may have a powerful impact is, not surprisingly, innovation. Although regulation could represent a non-negligible limiting factor, specialists foresee many sectors to be impacted by the technology adoption. For instance, the financial sector could be heavily affected by this new paradigm. Particularly, companies’ capital structures and their strategic interlink with business models will drive a differential aggressive power. Most likely, enterprises will have to rethink their enterprise models to account for the chance to digitize/tokenize their belongings (Projections eight and 18). The capability in flexibly adapting their service offerings to the new alternative and the flexibility to lift, and re-invest, new capitals will shape the global competition landscape throughout completely different industrial sectors and geographies. From one aspect, blockchain will allow new strategic selections, from the opposite side, it will be of fundamental significance to build technological capabilities to allow these choices. The underlying technology behind transactions, equity providing and equity share transfers will most likely be the blockchain (Projections thirteen and 16). Disintermediation and the flexibility to exchange worth, information, and information trustfully with out a central authority will allow a brand new method of funding and cooperation on open-source initiatives (Projection 19). Most probably, people will refer to blockchain methods as they now check with browsers such as Chrome, Firefox or Internet Explorer. Many blockchains are already available and are continually improved and developed, and it is foreseeable that this will remain the case in the future. Users will simply need to know the characteristics that a blockchain supplies to determine on probably the most appropriate one for their enterprise and functions. Blockchain-based techniques would require new skills and data that builders and engineers will need to develop. Big efforts might be wanted to make the blockchain more and more consumer friendly and engaging for many who just need to profit from the immutability, traceability, and security that it intrinsically brings. At the time of the writing and according to the Abernathy and Utterback model [53] many gamers are at present investing and innovating on blockchain to supply providers that will fulfill the new market wants. The opportunity for folks to deal freely will in fact generate alternatives that had been unforeseeable earlier than. Self-enforcing smart contracts (Projection 20) will let events to purchase and sell products or to lease them with pay-for-use schemes in an automated means, the digitization of shares and belongings will allow corporations to boost capital in new methods, with out the want to rely on banks, venture capitals or traditional IPOs. Indeed, you will need to understand how the digitization of belongings can problem present investments and the funding trade represented by traditional private fairness corporations and banks. Blockchain may permit the creation of platforms for the issuance of traditional monetary merchandise on a tokenized nature, making it simpler, extra clear and cheaper to manage and access these tools for everyone, together with both individual savers and SMEs. Two various varieties of firms can and will function in the market: these which have blockchain at their core since their foundation, and those which have (or will have) to embark in a digital transformation course of to reconvert themselves into blockchain-based enterprises. In each circumstances, companies are investing to get a aggressive advantage over rivals, betting on the technology that’s promising to scale back costs and increase effectivity. Once a dominant design in product and companies shall be achieved, companies that took a different path will probably exit the market, letting corporations following the dominant design to achieve market shares. To conclude and to conceptualize the insights we obtained from each quantitative and qualitative data, we derived 4 scenarios that we organized in a matrix framework, reported in Table 6. The framework was constructed round two major dimensions: on one hand the digitization of assets, and however the change in business models. The proposed framework results in the identification of 4 quadrants: situations which envision both the digitization of belongings and enterprise model changes and situations which don’t foresee neither of these two modifications. These 4 main development eventualities had been completed and analyzed in the mild of the conducted interviews and of the quantitative and qualitative knowledge gathered through the Delphi survey. Each quadrant was given a label: Internal Processes, Flow-less Coopetition, Suppliers Potential and Investment Opportunities. When discussing the quadrants, we try to highlight which of the three enchancment areas beforehand identified (efficiency, security, and innovation) are exploited in the discussed scenario. To derive related insights from the framework, it is useful to start from the bottom left quadrant, Internal Processes. This name was chosen to spotlight the absence of any particular evolution for the corporate at a strategic stage through the blockchain adoption. In this case, it is conceivable to make use of the technology to incrementally enhance firms’ operation performances. Blockchain’s main benefits are to extend traceability of transactions and guarantee their immutability. All these traits adopted on today’s processes will end in an automation of routine business capabilities, corresponding to settlements and reconciliation, customs clearance, heavy funds, invoicing, and documentation, boosting operational effectivity and price performance. In this scenario, safety and effectivity will see a constant enchancment. The top-left scenario shows as an alternative a special perspective, by considering a broader adoption of blockchain that generates new cooperative enterprise fashions among completely different stakeholders, probably even amongst competitors. This is why it’s called Flow-Less Coopetition. In this case, the advantages of blockchain will assist at producing a more democratic ecosystem when it comes to data. Those actors that base their enterprise fashions on information asymmetry, accessing key information earlier than others, will want to revisit their enterprise fashions in the occasion that they wish to keep aggressive. It is of curiosity to notice how huge financial institutions, historically competing, at the moment are exploring potential collaboration models in the light of this new technology (e.g. JP Morgan Chase, Morgan Stanley). This quadrant envisages an advance in all three blockchain-enabled dimensions: effectivity, security, and innovation. The bottom-right state of affairs, known as Suppliers Potential, highlights how, because of the digitization that blockchain permits, many actors could bounce available within the market offering options to these companies that wish to profit from the advantages of digitizing their belongings, but are missing means and competences to internally develop them. Those firms would rather outsource the event of blockchain-based solutions. For this purpose, the potential for the creation of a remunerative B2B market exists. Even although there are already protocols which are leaders available in the market (Hyperledger Fabric and Ethereum), new solutions with completely different configurations will likely be needed to help completely different industries and use case options. As for the primary situation, additionally on this context effectivity and safety will be mainly affected. Finally, the last state of affairs (Investment Opportunities) focuses on the combination between the whole digitization of the belongings of a company and the brand new enterprise models that this major change may generate. As already talked about in earlier paragraphs, industries are experimenting many ways to facilitate the access to capital. Since the explosion of ICOs in 2017, new and simpler methods to entry capital have become potential and achievable. However, because of their unregulated nature, ICOs nonetheless present numerous potential threats (Projection 14 didn’t attain consensus). For this purpose, other solutions, similar to STOs (Security Token Offerings), are on the method in which of being examined. Bringing a higher diploma of freedom to investments will enable corporations to obtain funds from numerous and non-traditional traders, and it will additionally boost investments by personal individuals into early-stage firms. Efficiency and innovation shall be on the core of this final situation.5 Conclusions In this paper, we studied completely different blockchain-based projections and we assessed their chance and influence thanks to the participation of a pool of consultants. We built our findings round three dimensions (efficiency, safety, and innovation) and we derived four eventualities based on experts’ shared imaginative and prescient. Being the present literature widely fragmented, we imagine this research represents a useful starting for conceptualizing blockchain potential and implications. While many research papers focus on blockchain specific purposes or general reviews of the state of the art, we attempt to propose a unifying framework building on completely different typologies of insights and analyses. We merged quantitative observations derived from normal statistics with qualitative insights obtained immediately from experts’ opinions. Overall, we imagine our research can represent a great tool for so much of practitioners concerned within the innovation ecosystem and for managers of small, medium and large enterprises to take a look at future potential eventualities in a more rational and systematic way. From one facet, a company’s management can use these forecasts as a starting point for the implementation of latest methods. As beforehand highlighted, blockchain presents infinite possibilities. However, the flexibility to concentrate on activities and tasks with a positive return on investment might be crucial. Firstly, managers will face the selection between insourcing or outsourcing the technological development of the platform. While the previous selection ensures larger flexibility, it also generates high development and maintenance costs. Companies which can establish blockchain as their core service will be entitled to adopt this first strategy, whereas the majority of the enterprises will most likely acquire better aggressive advantages adopting Blockchain as a Service (BaaS) resolution. This latter method will boost companies’ performances, by enhancing new service offerings in addition to a model new stage of operational efficiency, with out carrying the burden and costs of technological complexity. As mentioned, we consider this analysis provides useful insights for policy makers as well. The adoption of blockchain represents an incredible technological change bringing alongside fascinating and tangible opportunities. However, different threats can be foreseen. Central authorities don’t solely clear up the issue of belief in certifying value transactions. They also provide important supervision on the method itself, for example guaranteeing that data asymmetry is saved at reasonable ranges between parties partaking in any type of contracts, especially in the monetary world. Letting individuals directly exchange worth between themselves or allowing companies to simply elevate capitals can increase monetary efficiency, but also supplies room for frauds and ambiguous behaviours. Today, corporations which are thinking about elevating capitals each via progressive tools such as crowdfunding or through conventional entities similar to public financial markets, have the duty to disclose related info and often undergo a deep process of due diligence. Regulators should guarantee the same degree of control on corporations that may raise money via Initial Coin Offerings or different sort of blockchain-enabled offerings. We consider that the first step towards a good regulation of this newly born technology is the understanding of its foreseeable impact on the society within the near future. This work goals to be a treasured enabler in this direction. As highlighted within the body of this research, it appears elementary for coverage makers, regulators and government to deeply perceive the potential upsides and threats of this new technology, and to appropriately navigate the completely different attainable blockchain-enabled situations. The successful cooperation between companies’ administration and regulators might allow important productiveness shifts in the financial tissue of many countries. Failing in efficiently greedy and enhancing these new paradigms from a regulatory perspective might result right into a heavy deficit for the competitive edge and productivity of the economic sectors of the governments’ respective international locations, doubtlessly leading to macroeconomic differentials in productiveness. To conclude, this analysis might be a helpful reference for orienting into this complex and dynamic environment, decreasing the perceived uncertainty associated to such a brand new technology. Thanks to the experts’ recommendation, it is now possible to have a clearer image of the evolution of blockchain technologies and of the opportunities and threats that the technology will generate. Certain limitations and traits of this research must be thought-about to correctly and effectively take advantage of its results. The primary goal of this work was to look at probably the most disrupting elements which may be prone to happen in Europe by 2030, with a selected give attention to how the technology will facilitate financing, cut back prices, increase transparency and, in general, affect firms’ business models. From this point of view, the objectives and assumptions presented firstly of this paper can be thought-about as absolutely achieved, but additional works exploring different industries and geographies are required to get an natural understanding of the brand new enhanced paradigms. Our research solely paves the best way for a greater understanding of what a blockchain-based future will seem like, as the differences between industries are too massive to be analyzed in a single work. Organizations and businesses in the financial world are consistently altering, however will in all probability be needed additionally for corporations belonging to different sectors to fully rethink their core actions. From this perspective, we believe additional works are wanted in these directions. We hope researchers will use and explode our framework to additional characterize and meticulously describe the new attainable paradigms across the a number of dimensions examined in this work.References 1. 1. Bender JP, Burchardi K, Shepherd N. Capturing the Value of Blockchain. Boston Consulting Group. 2019 Apr 9;9. 2. 2. Carson B, Romanelli G, Walsh P, Zhumaev A. Blockchain beyond the hype: What is the strategic business value. McKinsey & Company. 2018 Jun:1–3. 3. three. Crosby M, Pattanayak P, Verma S, Kalyanaraman V. Blockchain technology: Beyond bitcoin. Applied Innovation. 2016 Jun;2(6–10):71. 4. four. Zalan T. Born international on blockchain. 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