Impact of System Design Features on Blockchain Use Cases

Bachelor Thesis from the year 2018 in the subject Economics - Other, grade: 1,7, University of Freiburg, language: English, abstract: Information technology has already impacted business and industry practices in a profound way. With the rise of the Internet the world industries can interact easily with each other. A new technology that recently has gotten a lot of attention is the blockchain - the technology behind Bitcoin and most other cryptocurrencies. There is a big hype (and potentially bubble) about the cryptocurrencys market which draws a lot of attention to the blockchain technology. But the blockchain is much more than just the technology behind bitcoin. It lays the foundation for a new economic system, the "crypto-economy". It is "not defined by geographic location, political structure, or legal system, but which uses cryptographic techniques to constrain behaviour in place of using trusted third parties" (Babitt and Dietz 2014). Cryptoeconomics is the practical science, that focuses on the design of the protocols, that make cryptoeconomy possible. Cryptography is used to prove prove properties established in the past (e.g. account balances, identities, ownership). Economic incentives defined inside the system encourage desired properties to hold into the future (e.g. Bitcoin mining).