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Unveiling the importance and evolution of design components through the “Tree of Blockchain”


Spychiger, Florian; Tasca, Paolo; Tessone, Claudio (2021). Unveiling the importance and evolution of design components through the “Tree of Blockchain”. Frontiers in Blockchain, 3:613476.

Abstract

This study covers the evolutionary development of blockchain technologies over the last 11 years (2009–2019) and sheds lights on potential areas of innovation in heretofore unexplored sub-components. For this purpose, we collected and analyzed detailed data on 107 different blockchain technologies and studied their component-wise technological evolution. The diversity of their designs was captured by deconstructing the blockchains using the Tasca-Tessone taxonomy to build what we call the “tree of blockchain” composed of blockchain main and sub-components. With the support of information theory and phylogenetics, we found that most design explorations have been conducted within the components in the areas of consensus mechanisms and cryptographic primitives. We also show that some sub-components like Consensus Immutability and Failure Tolerance, Access and Control layer, and Access Supply Management have predictive power over other sub-components. We finally found that few dominant design models—the genetic driving clusters of Bitcoin, Ethereum, and XRP—influenced the evolutionary paths of most of the succeeding blockchains.

Abstract

This study covers the evolutionary development of blockchain technologies over the last 11 years (2009–2019) and sheds lights on potential areas of innovation in heretofore unexplored sub-components. For this purpose, we collected and analyzed detailed data on 107 different blockchain technologies and studied their component-wise technological evolution. The diversity of their designs was captured by deconstructing the blockchains using the Tasca-Tessone taxonomy to build what we call the “tree of blockchain” composed of blockchain main and sub-components. With the support of information theory and phylogenetics, we found that most design explorations have been conducted within the components in the areas of consensus mechanisms and cryptographic primitives. We also show that some sub-components like Consensus Immutability and Failure Tolerance, Access and Control layer, and Access Supply Management have predictive power over other sub-components. We finally found that few dominant design models—the genetic driving clusters of Bitcoin, Ethereum, and XRP—influenced the evolutionary paths of most of the succeeding blockchains.

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Additional indexing

Item Type:Journal Article, refereed, original work
Communities & Collections:03 Faculty of Economics > Department of Business Administration
08 Research Priority Programs > Social Networks
Dewey Decimal Classification:330 Economics
Language:English
Date:13 January 2021
Deposited On:25 Feb 2021 07:06
Last Modified:26 Nov 2023 02:36
Publisher:Frontiers Research Foundation
ISSN:2624-7852
OA Status:Gold
Free access at:Publisher DOI. An embargo period may apply.
Publisher DOI:https://doi.org/10.3389/fbloc.2020.613476
Related URLs:https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fbloc.2020.613476/full
Other Identification Number:merlin-id:20817
  • Content: Published Version
  • Licence: Creative Commons: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)