Jumping on the Blockchain Bandwagon: Lessons of the Past and Outlook to the Future

The panel focuses on blockchain, the technology behind Bitcoin and a topic that has drawn much attention recently in business and academic circles alike. The blockchain is a distributed immutable digital record system that is shared among many independent parties and can be updated only by their consensus. The implications of establishing such record systems are still beyond grasp. Nowadays, we have to trust others humans with constructing and maintaining key records that virtually define the resources at our disposal. This could become unnecessary when we have an option to rely on unbiased and incorruptible blockchain-based digital agents. Overall, if the blockchain lives up to its potential, it can provide a decentralized information infrastructure in which no one is in full control, no one has absolute power, and no one can distort past or current records. Subsequently, the panel explores blockchain related challenges and opportunities from the IS research perspective.