Blockchain futures: With or without Bitcoin?

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Cited in

Date	01 September 2017
Published date	01 September 2017
Author	Peter Michael Ward,Beth Kewell
DOI	http://doi.org/10.1002/jsc.2149

RESEARCH ARTICLE

DOI: 10.1002/jsc.2149

Abstract

Blockchain technology is considered, in some quarters, to have outgrown its primary associaon

with the Bitcoin payments ecosystem. This belief has fostered numerous predicons of blockchain

futures, in which the Bitcoin ecosystem is largely absent. It is nevertheless wholly possible to imag‐

ine a future for blockchain in which Bitcoin plays a presiding role. In drawing aenon to subtexts

of this kind, expectaons of the future can prove highly persuasive within the context of technology

selecon and adopon processes of the present, lending an invisible hand to the design of busi‐

ness models, while also guiding strategic choices and the purchasing decisions made by managers.

INTRODUCTION

Promise is implicated in the majority of decisions and transacons

that businesses engage with, including those related to state‐of‐the‐

art technology and incipient raonales for their acquision (Borup,

Brown, Konrad, & Van Lente, 2006). These decisions are frequently

contemplated as part of a strategy for business model development

and organizaonal and ecosystem renewal, within which technology

procurement plays a central role. These new acquisions are loaded

down with demonstrave expectaons, long before they have begun

to cross ecosystem thresholds (Borup et al., 2006), becoming focal

points for hope, opmism, and fulllment (Edwards, Jackson, Bowker,

& Williams, 2009; Hyysalo, 2009; Pollock & Williams, 2010; Pollock,

Williams, & D’Adderio, 2007).

While Bitcoin is, in eect, the rst public working prototype of block‐

chain cryptography (Godsi, 2015; Lemieux, 2013; Nakamoto, 2008),

many future‐orientated narraves (Reijers & Coeckelbergh, 2016), com‐

mentaries, and use cases focus on the development of privately run ver‐

sions of the same technology (entled “distributed ledgers”).

Opinion is therefore currently divided between future forecasts

for blockchain, in which Bitcoin—as a public ulity—is either relegated

to the status of a “fringe enterprise” (Saks‐McLeod, 2016, p. 3) or

regarded as a useful experiment that is being overtaken by rival, pri‐

vately run blockchain projects and alternave cryptocurrency‐based

systems, including Ethereum (Gardner, 2017; Krisan, 2016; Pymnts,

2017; Rizzo, 2017). Commentators who foresee the relegaon of

Bitcoin frequently do so on the basis that the experts and experse

behind it will naturally be absorbed by these private distributed ledger

technology (DLT) projects (Prisco, 2016; Sco, 2017; Uhr, 2016).

These compeng projecons—of relegaon, redundancy, and

absorpon—take the form of arcles and “use cases” that are mostly

postulated via business newswire reports and related blog entries

from the nancial sector, wherein they envision an ostensibly hope‐

ful and posive account of the future in which blockchains free up

clogged informaon systems, while also purging counterfeit goods

from supply chains, revoluonizing payments, and subverng Internet

cyber crime (Bateman, 2015; Fanning & Centers, 2016; Heires, 2016;

McWaters, Galaski, & Chaerjee, 2016; Surowiecki, 2011; Ta, 2016;

Tsukerman, 2015; Turpin, 2014; Walport, 2016; Welch, 2015).

Assumpons about blockchain futures are thereby taking shape

at a me of ebullient interest in the blockchain, which could be gura‐

vely situtated at the base of the “Gartner Consultancy’s hype cycle”

(Borup et al., 2006: 291). Blockchain soluons could thereby feature

prominently on organizaonal shopping lists of the future, represent‐

ing an essenal prerequisite that ensures arcial intelligence (AI),

“5G” mobile communicaons technology, and Internet of Things (IoT)

capabilies funcon cooperavely within a reinvented IT stack (Cam‐

rass & Nelson, 2016). Working out which systems and soluons to

buy, and which expectaons to trust, has become remarkably com‐

plicated in an informaon‐saturated digital era, typied by the pro‐

liferaon of “4G” technologies, plaorms, and “apps” (Brynjolfsson &

McAfee, 2014; Evans & Gawer, 2016; Gawer, 2016). The arrival of AI,