Decentralized transactions for open digital markets: Exploring the potential of decentralized and open transaction protocols for digital and digitally mediated services and goods

Physical as well as digital services are increasingly offered to customers through the internet. Platforms like AirBnB, Amazon, and Uber support discovery of providers of their domain specific services, and handle and guarantee the transactions between providers and consumers. Other platforms support discovery, (price) comparison and rating of service providers. A customer needs to use different apps or connect to different platforms to compare offers. Providers tend to become dependent on such semi-monopolistic platforms and must adhere to their conditions. This makes it harder for new platforms and providers to enter the market, which hurts the market overall. Decentralized, open business transaction protocols address these shortcomings by using platform independent standards supporting service provider discovery and transaction management. With deployment of a decentralized and open infrastructure, providers can offer their services through different platforms avoiding lock-in and exploitation; consumers can more easily compare services and goods; new providers of platforms and networks can easily join the market. This research thus supports the intentions of the EU Markets Act (DMA) and Digital Services Act (DSA). Combined with digital ledger technology like e.g.Block Chain, decentralized electronic markets should also be suitable in domains like in FinTech with high security and accountability requirements.