Blockchain for development: a guiding framework

ABSTRACT

To understand opportunities Blockchain offers for development, we propose a novel framework that considers Business-, Society-, Economy & Finance-, Technology-, and Policy-related factors. It illustrates the complex and multifaceted role of Blockchain in development and is useful in guiding research efforts, formulating actionable advice, and promoting development. We created it methodically, drawing from systematic literature reviews and the authors’ experience with Blockchain and development. Adequately designed and deployed Blockchain systems are relevant contributions that can help address problems that afflict our society, making it more inclusive, fair, and resilient. Solutions that many countries have already adopted in various sectors (e.g. public, financial, business, technology, education) demonstrate the importance of Blockchain to advance development. Further, less developed countries have a window of opportunity to avoid the typical lag in the adoption of Information and Communication Technologies and make quantum leaps that will put them on par with more developed counterparts.

KEYWORDS:

• Blockchain
• development
• cryptocurrencies

1. Introduction

Blockchain, the technology underlying cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, has been receiving increasing attention in recent years. The same mechanisms that enable trustable transactions among complete strangers on the Internet seem promising for various other use cases. Basically, any desired information (transactions, in the case of Bitcoin) is registered on a synchronized, shared, append-only database (ledger), replicated across a distributed network of peers, who only add new records to the existing ones after agreement using a consensus protocol. The use of timestamps and cryptographic mechanisms render the ledger virtually immutable. This approach enables transparency (as to what and when is written), auditability (since previously written information cannot be deleted or modified), and resilience (due to the distribution of the copies across various peers). Additionally, more recent blockchains can store and enforce smart contracts, which are pieces of machine-readable code that execute automatically once predetermined conditions are met (Swan, 2015). With this addition, blockchains further reduce uncertainty and promote confidence among stakeholders that would not normally trust each other. Blockchains are, thus, a good fit for situations where distributed parties need trusted record-keeping, without involving a central authority but instead sharing control over a Peer-to-Peer (P2P) network, especially when it is crucial to maintain the full history of the data (Christodoulou et al., 2020; Yaga et al., 2019). Blockchain has been implemented in many high-profile areas, such as financial services, insurance, healthcare, value chains, shipping and logistics, intellectual property rights licensing, and crowdfunding.

This technology has come a long way since its role in supporting Bitcoin. Swan (2015) made one of the first attempts to describe its evolution in three different waves. We share her views on the first two but have a different perspective for the third and introduce a fourth one. We suggest that Blockchain has evolved through four main waves:

• Blockchain 1.0 – Cryptocurrencies: Blockchain 1.0 was introduced in 2009 and focused on solving the double-spending problem by introducing cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin. Soon after the Bitcoin launch, other cryptocurrencies (alternative coins) emerged and joined this first wave.

• Blockchain 2.0 – Smart Contracts: 2015 marked the beginning of a new era in Blockchain with the introduction of smart contracts and the concept of general-purpose programable blockchains, of which Ethereum is a prime example. Hyperledger and Corda also support this concept.

• Blockchain 3.0 – Decentralized Applications (DApps): In 2017, a new generation of Blockchain applications appeared. Dapps have their backend code running on a Blockchain (a decentralized network of computers) where storage and communications can also be decentralized.

• Blockchain 4.0 – Interoperability and scalability: Since 2019, considerable work has been done to (a) improve scalability, (b) increase interoperability among different blockchains, (c) integrate Blockchain applications with existing business solutions and IT infrastructures, (d) integrate Blockchain technology with other advanced technologies (e.g. Artificial Intelligence, Internet of Things). All these seek to spread and speed up the adoption of Blockchain technology. Additionally, two emerging trends deserve close attention: the discussions and experiments with Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs) (Auer et al., 2020) and Decentralized Finance (DeFi). The former speaks to the efforts to complement or replace traditional physical money with digital equivalents issued by the central banks of countries or economic areas (e.g. European Central Bank, US Federal Reserve, Bank of China, among others). These currencies aim to retain the advantages of cryptos, like Bitcoin, while providing traditional fiat money security (Sebastião et al., 2021). The latter – DeFI – is a form of finance that does not rely on traditional institutions but instead on Blockchain and smart contracts.

Blockchain holds potential for development in general and for emerging economies in particular, where Blockchain-based alternatives can replace dysfunctional, weak, or inefficient institutions and processes. Such systems will be more open, democratic, and trustable by virtue of the technology's characteristics described above. For example, Blockchain can support secure and lean digital identification (ID) mechanisms (Pisa, 2018). It can increase inclusion and reduce the number of unbanked by enabling efficient digital financial instruments with reduced commissions on emigrants’ remittances and viable microfinancing (e.g. Hernandez, 2017; Mukkamala et al., 2018). It can be used to make humanitarian aid funding more efficient by controlling donations and charity initiatives (e.g. Zwitter & Boisse-Despiaux, 2018). The resilience and inalterability of Blockchain can also be used to improve government management of public benefits and ensure the integrity of public records such as land registries, voting data, and tax-related records. Increasing transparency and raising trust help fight off corruption, as mentioned in Pilkington et al. (2017) and Themistocleous (2018).

The papers published in this special issue present additional interesting examples. In the past, we have seen emerging economies lag in the adoption of ICT compared with developed counterparts. However, with Blockchain, the opportunity exists for them to implement the technology simultaneously to address afflicting areas and even leapfrog established solutions in others.

However, we must be careful to avoid the misinformed adoption of Blockchain that sometimes happens (Yaga et al., 2019) as risks and limitations exist. For instance, its key strengths can be challenged if a coalition of malicious actors manages to control more than 50% of the peers; care must be taken to ensure that data to be recorded reflects actual world events (what is known as the oracle problem); mechanisms must exist to ensure that the system and smart contract code does not contain unintended loopholes and defects. Other problems related to resources exist, namely if the Proof-of-Work(PoW) consensus algorithm is used. By design, PoW requires considerable processing power, which, in turn, draws a significant amount of electricity from the public grid. Appropriate governance mechanisms must also be set up for these shared information systems. Last but not least, we should be mindful of unpredicted ethical challenges as Blockchain disrupts the status quo (Tang et al., 2019). For these reasons, rigorous and extensive research needs to be conducted on Blockchain in general and its use for development (Risius & Spohrer, 2017).

This editorial is organized as follows: In Section 2, we discuss the understanding of development in the Blockchain for Development field. In Section 3, we present a systematization of motivations, opportunities, and challenges for Blockchain adoption. In Section 4, we present our proposed framework for Blockchain-supported Development, highlighting how factors in Business, Society, Economy and Finance, Technology, and Policy categories influence each other and development when using Blockchain. In Section 5, we describe the papers included in this special issue, their primary contributions, and how they fit with the previously introduced framework. This work leads us to a series of possible directions for future research that we consolidate in Section 6. We resume and discuss the contributions to development in Section 7, just before closing with the conclusions.

2. Understanding of development in the Blockchain for Development (B4D) field

In our previous work, we reviewed existing research on Blockchain for Development (Cunha et al., 2020). The data showed that many countries across regions such as Africa, Caribbean islands, Asia, Middle East, and Latin America are considering using the technology. Additionally, numerous Blockchain-related initiatives from countries in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region were studied. It is worth noting that a global leader (United Arab Emirates) in Blockchain adoption comes from the MENA region. Interestingly, according to the World Bank categorization, countries from the regions mentioned above are almost equally split between low plus lower-middle income and upper-middle plus high-income economies. This seems to support the idea that the traditional lag in ICT adoption by developing and emerging economies may not be occurring with Blockchain adoption. The opportunity exists for them to address afflicting areas and even leapfrog established solutions effectively. The development goals for which Blockchain is being leveraged vary a lot, though, ranging from access to capital to political participation.

The concept of socioeconomic development has been referred to in much previous research in the ICT for Development (ICT4D) field. However, it has not always been clearly defined, and, as suggested by Roztocki and Weistroffer (2016), there seems to be a lack of a general framework to handle this concept. Therefore, to address this shortcoming, Roztocki and Weistroffer (2016) proposed a conceptual framework of ICT-supported socioeconomic development. The nature of socioeconomic development is, somewhat by definition, multidimensional and requires considering various aspects related to society and economy. As highlighted by Avgerou (2010), development should be understood as a change of socioeconomic conditions rather than economic growth.

The multidimensional nature of socioeconomic development is recognized by the United Nations’ Human Development Index (HDI), which is composed of three indicators: life expectancy, education index, and Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita (UNDP, 2019). The multifaceted understanding of socioeconomic development also appears to be prevailing in prior research employing clear conceptualizations of this term (e.g. Ashraf et al., 2017; Madon, 2000; Tibben, 2015). Overall, the conceptualizations of socioeconomic development employed by extant research include first and foremost aspects related to the country's economic standing and, to a lesser extent, social considerations and opportunities.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, a major issue with extant studies in Blockchain for Development is that they often do not clearly define development. In particular, in the majority of prior works, the conceptualization can only be inferred from the studies’ content. For instance, among 35 papers analyzed in our systematic literature review (Cunha et al., 2020), 16 provided clear definitions of development, while four did not include any conceptualizations of development. The studies providing a clear definition of development tend to focus on economic aspects of development (e.g. Kinai et al., 2017; Mukkamala et al., 2018; Pisa & Juden, 2017; Savelyev, 2018; Zharova & Lloyd, 2018). Nevertheless, some sparse studies define development through social considerations (e.g. Tse et al., 2017). The main aspects of development present in prior B4D studies have been summarized in Table 1.

Table 1. Understanding of development in the B4D field.

Development category	Development aspect	References
Economic development	Economic considerations	Global Investor (2017); Interfax (2017); Kshetri and Voas (2018); Nguyen (2016); Pisa and Juden (2017); PRNewswire (2018a); PRNewswire (2018b); Savelyev (2018); van der Westhuizen (2016); Zharova and Lloyd (2018)
	Growth	Chinaka (2016); Interfax (2017); Mitchell (2018); Pantielieieva et al. (2018); PRNewswire (2017b); Savelyev (2018); Shin (2017); Themistocleous (2018)
	Access to capital	Kinai et al. (2017); PR Newswire (2017a); Thomason et al. (2018); PRNewswire (2017c); Koh et al. (2018)
	Business opportunities	Gupta and Knight (2017); Parino et al. (2018); Tuomisto and Saeed (2018)
	Easy transfer of money	Economist (2018); Kshetri (2017); Pisa and Juden (2017)
	Government participation in building financial infrastructure / cryptocurrency	Bank for International Settlements (2020); McLellan (2018); PRNewswire (2018b)
	Wealth	Gupta and Knight (2017); Mukkamala et al. (2018); Thomason et al. (2018)
	Employment	Pantielieieva et al. (2018)
Social development	Well-being	Pantielieieva et al. (2018); Pisa (2018); Tse et al. (2017)
	Freedom	Malaya and Lazebnyk (2018); Pisa (2018); Shin (2017)
	Fraud prevention	Crosman (2018); Kshetri (2017); Themistocleous (2018)
	Health	Kamau et al. (2018); Pisa (2018); Thomason et al. (2018)
	Corruption prevention	Kshetri (2017); Themistocleous (2018)
	Education	Shin (2017); Themistocleous et al. (2020)
	Political participation	Chaieb et al. (2019); Shin (2017)
	Poverty alleviation	Pilkington et al. (2017); Schmidt (2017)
	Environmental considerations	Marke and Sylvester (2018)
	Peace	Irwin and Milad (2016)
	Social development	Nguyen (2016)

In general, the review of extant studies in the B4D field revealed that the dominant understanding of development relates to the economic aspects, as it happens in the more general ICT4D field. The economic aspects of development are present in virtually all papers discussing the concept of development in the B4D field, while social aspects of development were less prevalent among prior studies. Regarding the former, the general understanding of economic development appears to prevail among prior works in the B4D field, which is followed mainly by growth and access to capital. Social aspects of development focused on ideas associated with people's well-being, legal, political, and environmental issues, but to a limited extent.

It is worth noting that several aspects of socioeconomic development, summarized in Table 1, appear to be emphasized by B4D researchers. These include, first and foremost, economic growth and personal security, which is mainly associated with fraud and corruption prevention. Such an understanding of personal security appears typical or even unique to the B4D field.

The aspects of development that appear uniquely emphasized by B4D studies also include access to capital and simplified and cheap transfer of money. These are facets that can be analyzed from both social and economic perspectives. From a social standpoint, access to capital and easy transfer of money can be perceived as different aspects of empowerment, which, in turn, is not clearly emphasized by B4D studies. On the other hand, from an economic perspective, access to capital and simplified and cheap transfer of money are associated with business competitiveness, which is emphasized to a certain extent by B4D studies.

Another aspect of development specific to the B4D field is government participation in building a financial infrastructure or cryptocurrency. This aspect falls within the broader concept of infrastructural advancement, which, as explained earlier, can be associated with both economic and social perspectives of development. At the same time, there are aspects of development that are emphasized to a lesser extent by B4D studies. These include employment, environmental considerations, and peace.

Regarding the multifaceted conceptualization of development, it should be noted that the single perspective understanding of development appears prevailing in the B4D field. The multifaceted understanding of development is present only in sparse works (Kshetri, 2017; Nguyen, 2016; Pantielieieva et al., 2018; Parino et al., 2018; Shin, 2017; Thomason et al., 2018). However, except for the Parino et al. (2018) study, the conceptualization of development in these works is not explicitly presented and can only be inferred from the papers’ content. Also, except for the study by Pantielieieva et al. (2018), conducted in Ukraine, most of the works mentioned above discuss studies conducted in multiple countries. In this respect, Parino et al. (2018) conducted a data analysis at the international level.

3. Motivations, opportunities, and challenges for Blockchain adoption

Not only is the extant literature on B4D unclear about definitions of development, but it is also frequently unclear about the motivations for the use of Blockchain technology. Several papers either omit or are vague in explaining exactly how specific characteristics of Blockchain technology support the reported motivation (e.g. “increase security” or “reduce costs”). Motivations are also presented at different levels of abstraction, ranging from lower-level operational issues (e.g. “decentralization”) to higher-level end uses (e.g. “public administration and economy at large”). That said, we can identify the trust fostered by the technology as the most significant driver for adoption. The second most important category of motivations is associated with technical and architectural considerations of Blockchain, mainly emphasizing expected gains in efficiency of operation and decentralization. The following analysis draws upon a systematic literature review in Cunha et al. (2020). The main motivations for the use of Blockchain for Development have been summarized in Table 2.

Table 2. Motivations for Blockchain adoption.

Motivation category	Subcategory	References
Technological trust	Ensure privacy	Crosman (2018); Kamau et al. (2018)
	Increase security	Crosman (2018); Gupta and Knight (2017); Kamau et al. (2018); Kinai et al. (2017); Kshetri (2017); Kshetri and Voas (2018); Pantielieieva et al. (2018); PR Newswire (2017a); PRNewswire (2017d); Thomason et al. (2018)
	Increase transparency	Kshetri (2017); Kshetri and Voas (2018); Marke and Sylvester (2018); Nguyen, 2016; Pantielieieva et al. (2018); Thomason et al. (2018)
	Increase trust	Gupta and Knight (2017); Kamau et al. (2018); Kshetri (2017); Kshetri and Voas (2018); Thomason et al. (2018)
Technical / Architectural	Decentralization	Kamau et al. (2018); Kshetri (2017); Thomason et al. (2018)
	Enable peer-to-peer transactions	PRNewswire (2017c); PRNewswire (2017d); Thomason et al. (2018)
	Fault tolerance and disaster recovery	Kamau et al. (2018)
	Increase efficiency	Nguyen, 2016; Pantielieieva et al. (2018); PR Newswire (2017a); PRNewswire (2017d); Thomason et al. (2018)
	Sharing data	Kamau et al. (2018)
Renew / Create infrastructure	Financial infrastructure	Global Investor (2017); McLellan (2018); PRNewswire (2017c); PRNewswire (2018b); van der Westhuizen (2016)
	Refresh legacy (banks)	Economist (2018); PR Newswire (2017a); Zharova and Lloyd (2018)
	Support for Fintech	Pantielieieva et al. (2018); PRNewswire (2017c); PRNewswire (2018a)
Economic / Business	Enhancing trade	Mitchell (2018); PRNewswire (2017b)
	Reduce costs	Economist (2018); Kshetri (2017); Kshetri and Voas (2018); Nguyen (2016); Pantielieieva et al. (2018); PR Newswire (2017a); PRNewswire (2017d)
Legal / Public administration	Public administration	Wei and Pokrovskaia (2017)
	Economy at large	Interfax (2017)
	Public infrastructure (land registry)	Kshetri and Voas (2018)
	Regulatory framework	Savelyev (2018)
Societal	Food safety	Tse et al. (2017)
	Women empowerment	Shin (2017)

Our overview of the field enabled us to synthesize opportunities and challenges in the use of Blockchain for Development, which we present in Tables 3 and 4, respectively. Column 1 of Table 3 lists the opportunity category, column 2 the subcategory, and column 3 concrete opportunities. This clustering is not definitive nor orthogonal, as some opportunities can be grouped under several categories and subcategories (e.g. financial services for the unbanked can be classified under Inclusion and Financial categories). Nevertheless, in the case of such items spanning across several categories, we classified them under the category capturing the issues’ predominant meaning. This synthesis is illustrated in Table 3 below:

Table 3. Blockchain opportunities for development.

Opportunity category	Opportunity subcategory	Blockchain opportunities for development	References
Environment	Climate trading and finance	Water trading	Thomason et al. (2018)
		Carbon trading	Thomason et al. (2018)
		Climate finance flows	Marke and Sylvester (2018)
Financial	Payments	Mobile payments	Cao et al. (2017); Gupta and Knight (2017); PRNewswire (2017c)
		P2P payments	Cao et al. (2017); Kshetri (2017)
		Online payments	Cao et al. (2017); Kshetri (2017); PR Newswire (2017a); PRNewswire (2017c); PRNewswire (2018a); PRNewswire (2018c)
	Money transfer	Facilitating money transfer	Malaya and Lazebnyk (2018); PR Newswire (2017a); PRNewswire (2017d); PRNewswire (2018c); Shin (2017); Thomason et al. (2018)
		Faster and cheaper remittances	Economist (2018); Kshetri (2017); Thomason et al. (2018)
		Financial transparency	Thomason et al. (2018)
	Fundraising	Lending to SMEs	Crosman (2018); Kinai et al. (2017)
		Fundraising through cryptocurrencies and DeFi	Thomason et al. (2018)
	Management	Blockchain public finance management	Kshetri (2017); Pantielieieva et al. (2018)
		Blockchain and traditional finance	Cao et al. (2017); Kshetri (2017); PR Newswire (2017a); Cao et al. (2017); Kshetri (2017); PR Newswire (2017a)
Healthcare	Document management	Health records	Kamau et al. (2018); Thomason et al. (2018)
Inclusion	Financial	Financial services for the unbanked	Chinaka (2016); PRNewswire (2017c); Thomason et al. (2018)
		Microfinancing	Kshetri (2017); Thomason et al. (2018)
		Microinsurance	Kshetri (2017)
	Empowerment	Women empowerment	Shin (2017)
		e-Identity	Kshetri (2017); PRNewswire (2018a); PRNewswire (2018b); PRNewswire (2018c); Thomason et al. (2018)
Legal and Regulatory	Security	Fraud detection	Crosman (2018); Kshetri and Voas (2018)
		Money laundering prevention	Cao et al. (2017); Irwin and Milad (2016); Kshetri (2017); Mukkamala et al. (2018); PRNewswire (2018a); PRNewswire (2018b); PRNewswire (2018c)
		Tracking donations and aid­	Kshetri (2017); Thomason et al. (2018)
	Financial	Prevention of tax avoidance	Mukkamala et al. (2018)
		Corruption prevention	Kshetri (2017); Mukkamala et al. (2018); Themistocleous (2018)
Public Administration	Property management	Land registry	Kshetri (2017); Kshetri and Voas (2018); Shin (2017); Thomason et al. (2018); Zharova and Lloyd (2018)
	Finance	Public finance management	Gupta and Knight (2017); Pantielieieva et al. (2018)
	Social services	Social security	Kshetri (2017)
	Democracy empowerment	e-voting	Kshetri (2017)
Trade	Cross border trade	Expediting cross-border trade	Kshetri (2017); Kshetri and Voas (2018); Mitchell (2018); PRNewswire (2017b); Tuomisto and Saeed (2018)
	Logistics	Supply chain management	Cao et al. (2017); Kshetri (2017); PRNewswire (2017b); Thomason et al. (2018); Tse et al. (2017); Tuomisto and Saeed (2018)
Transformation	Disruption	Blockchain potential for developing economies	Gautham (2017); Gupta and Knight (2017); Interfax (2017); Kshetri and Voas (2018); Pantielieieva et al. (2018); Tuomisto and Saeed (2018)
		Blockchain disruption	Nguyen (2016)
Utilities	Water	Water management	Kshetri (2017); Thomason et al. (2018)
	Energy	Renewable energy	Kshetri (2017); Thomason et al. (2018)

Table 4. Blockchain challenges for development.

Challenge category	Challenge subcategory	Challenges	References
Adoption	Awareness	Lack of awareness of Blockchain among key stakeholders	Kshetri (2017); Thomason et al. (2018)
		Negative perceptions of Blockchain due to its association with Bitcoin	Kshetri (2017)
	Diffusion	Costs of setting up and running systems	Thomason et al. (2018)
		Not enough investment in the Blockchain field	Kshetri (2017)
		Lack of absorptive capacity to benefit from Blockchain	Kshetri (2017)
	Resistance to change	Resistance from those that benefit from lack of transparency	Thomason et al. (2018)
		Resistance from middlemen that will be disintermediated	Thomason et al. (2018)
	Technical skills	Required technical competencies	Tuomisto and Saeed (2018)
		Global shortage of Blockchain developers	Thomason et al. (2018)
Legal and regulatory	Regulation	Regulatory aspects	Kshetri (2017); Thomason et al. (2018); Tuomisto and Saeed (2018)
		Dark side of Bitcoin	Irwin & Milad, 2016; PRNewswire (2018a); PRNewswire (2018b)
		Regulation of cryptocurrencies	Malaya and Lazebnyk (2018); Zharova and Lloyd (2018)
		Governance of personal data	Thomason et al. (2018)
Operational	Technical	Infrastructure barriers	Kshetri (2017); Thomason et al. (2018); Tuomisto and Saeed (2018)
		Operational barriers	Kshetri (2017); Thomason et al. (2018); Tuomisto and Saeed (2018)
		Congestion of the Bitcoin network	Kshetri (2017)
		Interoperability and standardization	Kshetri (2017)

Financial applications are still the most popular category among the reported opportunities. However, the landscape has changed. We can now see new cryptocurrency-based services that offer cheaper and faster remittances to emigrants and enable more democratic access to fundraising. Examples are crowdsourcing, Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs), or Decentralized Finance, which do not rely on traditional financial actors but rather enables distributed lending and borrowing. Some of these new services are notable for their role in inclusion, as they are available to the previously unbanked. The traditional financial system excludes significant portions of the population for reasons such as the inability to keep minimum balances or even provide a government-issued ID compliant with existing Know Your Customer (KYC) regulations. In some countries, women are not allowed to own a traditional bank account. These new services empower those individuals, enabling them to overcome discrimination and gain financial access. In other countries, Bitcoin garners considerable interest due to distrust in centralized financial systems and traditional forms of investment. Nigeria, for instance, is third in the world in trading volume mainly because the cryptocurrency is being used as an investment tool to hedge against the devaluation of the official currency and increasing inflation. It is also seen as a means to sidestep foreign currency restrictions (BBC, 2021). Russia prohibits domestic payments in any other currency than the ruble (be it Bitcoin or foreign money, such as the euro) and is generally wary of the unsupervised and volatile nature of Bitcoin. Authorities are currently debating alternative regulatory paths (Zharova & Lloyd, 2018). Meanwhile, as the country ranks second globally in Bitcoin trading volume, Russia's anti-money laundering agency is starting to monitor bitcoin-to-fiat transactions (Baydakova, 2021).

Another interesting category of opportunities for Blockchain use is associated with public administration. We might find here applications in the areas of property management (Dubai Land Department, 2021; Themistocleous, 2018), social security, public finance management (Chantanusornsiri, 2020), and e-voting (Chaieb et al., 2019). A related category of opportunities includes legal and regulatory aspects, where Blockchain's most promising uses focus on fraud and corruption detection, money-laundering prevention, and reducing tax avoidance (Mukkamala et al., 2018).

There are also interesting opportunities associated with utilities and environmental issues. Worthy of note here are applications in water management and trading, carbon trading and climate finance flows, and Blockchain-based solutions for off-grid solar power (Themistocleous et al., 2019). There is also a significant push towards using Blockchain to facilitate trade, namely in making supply chain operations and financing more efficient, with a particular emphasis on cross-border commerce. Finally, significant opportunities from an ICT4D standpoint relate to transformative power of Blockchain with its disruptive potential being emphasized together with its promising capacities for developing economies.There are also significant challenges to the adoption of Blockchain technology. These are listed in Table 4.

A very relevant challenge is that of regulation. Legal frameworks are required to seize some opportunities, such as smart contracts adoption and acceptance, which requires changes to the existing contract law. The same can be said for the mainstream use of cryptocurrencies, which nowadays evade traditional controls, facilitating illegal uses (e.g. money laundering and financing terrorism). Although the extant literature review mentions the dark side of Bitcoin in money laundering, in reality, many other cryptos are involved in the process. Interestingly, many countries and economic zones have learned from existing cryptocurrencies and are making strides to release Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs), also called digital fiat currency (Sebastião et al., 2021).

Both at the individual and country levels, diverse technical and operational issues can significantly impact diffusion, demanding case-by-case strategies. Increased awareness of key stakeholders (e.g. decision-makers) about Blockchain's possibilities is required, including deconstructing the negative perceptions caused by its association with the dark side of Bitcoin. Resistance to change also needs attention since the increased transparency and disintermediation, typical of Blockchain-based systems, can run counter established interests.

4. Proposed framework for Blockchain-supported development

Drawing from the data collected in our previous studies, part of which is a systematic literature review published in (Cunha et al., 2020), we drafted the framework for Blockchain-supported socioeconomic development. The framework has been further supplemented by several relationships that appear missing or overlooked in prior studies but, in our understanding, present interesting associations for future considerations. In addition, we augmented the framework with several relationships illustrated by the papers in this special issue. This framework is depicted in Figure 1.

Figure 1. Framework for Blockchain-supported development.

In building the framework, we departed from factors used in strategic and macro-environment analyses to organize the influences of Blockchain on socioeconomic development. These factors are categorized around various groups associated with political, economic, social, technological, legal, cultural, and ecological considerations (Morrison, 2011; Wach, 2014). Depending on the number and scope of categories used, the approaches to strategic analysis are defined by such acronyms as PEST (Political, Economic, Social, Technological), PESTEL (Political, Economic, Social, Technological, Environmental, Legal), or PLESCET (Political, Legal, Economic, Social, Cultural, Ecological, Technological) (Johnson & Scholes, 1999; Morrison, 2011; Yüksel, 2012). During our analysis of the B4D field, we arrived at slightly different categorization than those in the strategic analysis approaches mentioned above. We believe that our categorization, presented in Figure 1, better reflects the intricacies of Blockchain technology and its impacts on development at various levels. Subsection 4.1 describes the categories and factors, which are detailed in Table 5.

Table 5. Definition of categories and factors in the framework.

Category	Factor	Definition/Operationalization
Business		Business-related considerations at the level of local businesses and industries.
	Business operations/conditions	Considerations improving business operations / conditions, including reduction in fraud, lowering costs of money, processes and transactions across the supply chain.
	Disruption	Radical change of business models and practices. Innovations that make previous alternatives obsolete.
	Enablement of business opportunities	Possibilities such as new markets, new job opportunities, disintermediation, platforms for international trade, enabling automated and agile contracts.
	Innovative business models	Novel approaches to doing business, including dispensing with third parties and ensuring fairer trade.
Economy & Finance		Economic and financial considerations at the country or international level.
	Economy digitalization	Opportunities for development of digital economy such as the introduction of Central Bank Digital Currencies and FinTech solutions.
	New financial instruments	New financial products, assets, and services such as ICOs, Initial Exchange Offerings (IEOs), Security Token Offerings (STOs), cryptocurrencies, crypto-assets, and Decentralized Finance.
	Reduction of informal economy	Extending financial services to a broader segment of the population and reducing tax evasion.
	Transformation of financial industry	Modernizing systems and services in the traditional financial industry. Facilitating international payments.
Policy		Policy-related factors at different levels, mainly national and international.
	Dark side	Taking advantage of anonymity in cryptocurrencies to conduct illegal activities (e.g. money laundering, funding of terrorism).
	Government	Increase in the efficiency of public administration including digitization of government services and replacement of legacy institutions.
	International considerations	Cross-border aspects such cooperation between central banks and averting international sanctions.
	Legal considerations	Updating laws and regulations including recognition of smart contracts and digital evidence.
	Prevention of fraud and corruption	Lowering the level of fraud and corruption in various organizations including charities and NGOs.
	Transparency	Increasing the dissemination and availability of relevant information such as public records.
Society		Societal considerations at various levels, i.e. individual-, family- community-related, and national
	Empowerment of the disadvantaged	Providing new opportunities to the disadvantaged including women empowerment and children education, introducing digital identity, and improving efficiency of humanitarian aid funding.
	Financial inclusion	Facilitating access to financial products and services to both individuals and businesses (e.g. introducing microfinancing).
	Reinforcement of democracy	Strengthening democratic mechanisms including political empowerment and greater political freedom.
	Safety	Increasing traceability in supply chains mainly related to food production.
Technology		Blockchain technology-related considerations.
	Blockchain characteristics	Blockchain technology attributes or components such as transaction anonymity or pseudo anonymity, immutability of the ledger, smart contracts and consensus.
	Governance	Controls, rules, processes, and structures used to ensure desired functioning of the Blockchain-based solutions.
	Improved systems	Trustable and streamlined IT solutions.
	Infrastructure	Improved technical infrastructures, namely for interoperation in areas such as healthcare and finance.

4.1. Categories in the framework

The category “Policy” is related to various policy-related factors at different levels, mainly national and international. As such, it includes several political and legal considerations. In particular, we included factors associated with the dark side of Blockchain (e.g. citizens invigilation, enabling criminal activities), the role of government (e.g. improvement and digitization of government, replacement of legacy institutions, enhancing land registration), international considerations (e.g. circumventing international sanctions, improving the external image of a country, cross-border cooperation between central banks), legal considerations (e.g. improving enforcement of laws and regulations, legal challenges, need for regulation, and recognition of smart contracts), prevention of fraud and corruption, and increasing transparency.

The category “Economy & Finance” includes economic and financial considerations at the country or international level. In our framework, the issues in this category generally focus on the transformative potential of Blockchain. The particular factors include economy digitalization with a special focus on Central Bank Digital Currency, introducing new financial instruments such as DeFi, reducing the informal economy, and transforming the financial industry with a particular emphasis on the revival of the financial sector and facilitating international payments. In this category, we can also include the banks’ intention to provide services that support the cryptocurrency holders and crypto community. Although low at the moment, we see new developments in the area from other new organizations (e.g. Kraken, a United States-based cryptocurrency exchange and bank (Kraken, 2021)) that attempt to cover this gap. Thus, it is expected that sooner or later, traditional banks will respond to this need, or they will be forced to provide services in this domain due to increased competition.

The category “Business” refers to various business-related considerations at the level of local businesses and industries. The particular factors include improving business operations/conditions, business disruption caused by Blockchain, enablement of business opportunities, and innovative business models. Improvement of business operations/conditions relates mainly to simpler, more efficient, and cheaper processes. Enablement of business opportunities boils down to Blockchain use in situations where, traditionally, third parties are needed, providing platforms for international trade, enabling automated and agile contracts between national and international companies, and fostering more business activities. Finally, innovative business models mainly refer to dispensing with third parties and ensuring fairer trade.

The category “Society” includes societal considerations at various levels, i.e. individual-, family-, community-related, and national. The factors within this category are empowerment of the disadvantaged, financial inclusion, safety, and reinforcement of democracy. Empowerment of the disadvantaged boils down to women empowerment, children education, introducing digital identity, and improving the efficiency of humanitarian aid funding. Financial inclusion applies to individuals and businesses and easier access to credit, for instance, by introducing microfinancing (e.g. lending very small amounts of money). Reinforcement of democracy refers to political empowerment and greater political freedom. Finally, safety-related factors mainly boil down to food safety.

The category “Technology” includes Blockchain technology-related considerations. The particular factors include technology characteristics, governance, improved systems, and infrastructure. The first refers to Blockchain particularities that are central to the solutions. Governance refers to controls, rules, processes, and structures used to ensure the desired functioning of Blockchain-based solutions. Improved systems apply to building trustable and streamlined solutions. Infrastructure mainly refers to building digital financial infrastructure and building and improving healthcare infrastructure.

The category “Development” plays the role of a dependent variable in our framework and includes various socioeconomic aspects of development. The particular items include human development, healthcare improvement, ability to leapfrog developed economies, wealth, and growth.

4.2. Relationships in the framework

The thickness of the lines in the figure expresses the strength of the identified relationships that we found among the framework components and their contribution to development. For example, technological issues appear to strongly influence policy-related factors, while the impact of business-related considerations on societal considerations is limited, as prior studies suggest. The relationships in the framework have been explained in the following paragraphs starting from those directly influencing development, which is the dependent variable in the framework.

The “Economy & Finance” category appears to have the most significant direct impact on socioeconomic development. It can be realized by reducing the informal economy (Kinai et al., 2017) and supporting the development of the digital economy (Zharova & Lloyd, 2018). Blockchain can also bring new development to the traditional financial industry, as in the case of the Caribbean, by transforming the traditional tax-avoidance offshore finance to Blockchain digital finance, which meets the development demand of the time (PRNewswire, 2018a). Blockchain-enabled Bitcoin transactions can positively impact human development (Qureshi & Xiong, 2018, 2019).

The second most important category having a direct impact on development is “Technology.” Blockchain enables leaner, less complex systems than the legacy ones present in developed countries, which may help leapfrog them (Gupta & Knight, 2017). Blockchain can also enhance healthcare by improving the interoperability and security of electronic medical records (Kamau et al. 2018), resulting in significant advances in the quality of patient care.

The business-related considerations, grouped within the category “Business” can also directly influence development. In this context, Blockchain technology may be used to provide new answers to old problems, such as dispensing with third parties (Gupta & Knight, 2017). By so doing, nations can leapfrog countries with established, rigid, legacy systems. Adopting Blockchain technology may lower transaction costs and increase economic activity, which, in turn, should result in opening world markets and an increase in GDP (Gupta & Knight, 2017; Shin, 2017).

There is also some influence of policy-related aspects on development. In particular, Blockchain technology can be employed to handle land registration, supporting entrepreneurship and countries’ economic development (Kshetri & Voas, 2018).

Technological considerations strongly influence the factors within the “Policy” category. On the one hand, characteristics such as the anonymity of cryptocurrency transactions make them attractive for criminal ends and funding of terrorist activities (Irwin & Milad, 2016; PRNewswire, 2018b). On the other hand, Blockchain properties such as write by consensus and immutability enable creating more trustable and secure systems which are more transparent and resilient to corruption and fraud (Gupta & Knight, 2017; Pisa & Juden, 2017). In the same vein, increased communication between banks and better tracking of digital assets supported by Blockchain technology may reduce fraud in invoice financing while improving privacy (Crosman, 2018).

The impact of the category “Economy & Finance” on the category “Policy” mainly boils down to the role of state-issued cryptocurrencies, which may bring various benefits depending on the country. Some less developed economies look for cryptocurrencies to promote higher financial inclusion, even if others see it as a means to circumvent international sanctions and imposing greater control on citizens. Advanced economies (e.g. Sweden), in turn, consider cryptocurrencies because they are more efficient than coins and banknotes (McLellan, 2018). There is also an impact of policy-related considerations on the category “Economy & Finance.” This can be illustrated by the cooperation between central banks, which may impact the transformation of financial industry and the economy at large.

It is interesting to note that the relationship between “Policy” and “Business” appears bidirectional. On the one hand, dispensing with third parties may render some institutions obsolete and result in the replacement of poor-quality ones with more efficient organizations, which illustrates the impact of business-related issues on policy considerations (Kshetri, 2017). On the other hand, making Blockchain-based operations valid from a legal standpoint may result in more efficient processes replacing old institutions, thus reducing operational costs (Tuomisto & Saeed, 2018). In the same vein, recognition of smart contracts as a legal instrument enables automated and more agile contracts between national and international companies. Further, cross-border cooperation between central banks may have an impact on business operations and conditions.

The category “Business,” similar to the category “Policy,” plays a pivotal role in the framework, being both impacted by other categories and exerting an influence on other items. The relationship between “Business” and “Society” appears bidirectional. The impact of societal issues on business can be illustrated when a greater financial inclusion (e.g. of women in some countries) enabled by Blockchain-based financial infrastructures results in more economic activity (Shin, 2017). In a similar vein, greater financial inclusion caused by better access to credit can make cross-border trade faster and cheaper (Mitchell, 2018). Also, greater women empowerment results in greater job participation (Shin, 2017). On the other hand, better access to lending for SMEs results in their greater financial inclusion (Kinai et al., 2017), which illustrates the impact of business-related aspects on societal issues.

The business-related aspects are strongly influenced by issues from the category “Economy & Finance.” A simpler Blockchain-enabled financial infrastructure enables more efficient interconnection of processes and lower costs (Economist, 2018). By the same token, connecting Blockchain with existing payment protocols reduces processing times and costs in a transparent and secure manner (PRNewswire, 2017a). Further, state-issued cryptocurrencies enable more efficient financial transactions (McLellan, 2018). Finally, introducing ICOs as a financial instrument results in enabling new business opportunities and innovative business models.

The impact of technological factors on business-related considerations is mainly illustrated by the role of the Blockchain-enabled digital and payment infrastructures. Such infrastructures help build a platform for and enable international trade (PRNewswire, 2018a, 2018b). In general, access to Blockchain-based financial infrastructure and cryptocurrency use create greater business opportunities (Malaya & Lazebnyk, 2018) and foster innovative business models (Qureshi & Xiong, 2018, 2019). Analyzing the impact of Blockchain at the more general level of the national economy, which is captured by the category “Economy & Finance” in the framework, we might emphasize the transformation of the financial industry by facilitating international payments (Pisa & Juden, 2017). In addition to the four areas of disruption suggested in Pisa and Juden (2017), we observe overall ten disruptions of Blockchain in digital banking and payments like (a) cryptocurrencies as a new form of money, (b) cross border transactions, (c) interbank transactions, (d) smart contracts enforcement, (e) cryptobanking and cryptocurrency financial management services, (f) record sharing and storage, (g) Anti-Money Laundering (AML) and KYC, (h) serving the unbanked, (i) bonds issuance through blockchain and (j) DeFi.

Interestingly, the category “Society” is the only group of factors that do not directly influence development, as prior studies suggest. However, it plays a pivotal role among the relationships being both impacted by all other categories except “Policy” and exerting an influence on business-related considerations.

The technological impact on society is mainly associated with financial inclusion, safety, and empowerment of the disadvantaged. Particularly, greater financial inclusion can be achieved by building new Blockchain-based financial infrastructures (Shin, 2017) and platforms for the derivatives market (Global Investor, 2017), facilitating digital identity (Pisa & Juden, 2017), and introducing microfinancing (Mukkamala et al., 2018). Safety can be achieved by tracking, monitoring, and auditing the food supply chain, enabled by Blockchain-based systems and their properties such as traceability and immutability (Tse et al., 2017). By the same token, Blockchain-based solutions may influence people's political empowerment and political freedom. Furthermore, the governance structure of Blockchain may impact the adoption level and thus have an influence on financial inclusion and empowering the disadvantaged. Empowerment of the disadvantaged can also be enhanced by improving the efficiency of humanitarian aid funding with the help of smart contracts (Zwitter & Boisse-Despiaux, 2018).

The impact of the category “Economy & Finance” on societal issues can be exemplified by an increased financial inclusion, thanks to new financial infrastructures that are alternative to and more inclusive than traditional ones (Chinaka, 2016). Another illustration applies to reducing the cost of remittances due to the deployment of improved cross-border interbank payment systems (Economist, 2018).

5. Papers in this special issue

In our special issue, after a double-blind review process involving at least two reviewers, we finally accepted nine papers that examine various aspects of socioeconomic development. The research settings represent various geographical regions such as Africa, Asia, Europe, Middle East, and South America. They also represent diverse economic settings, including developing countries, emerging economies, and highly industrialized countries. Further, as shown in Table 6, the papers illustrate how, through Blockchain use, different areas of socioeconomic development (listed in rows) impact others (listed in columns). For example, Ning et al. provide an example of how the characteristics of Blockchain technology enable its use by the government in efforts of poverty alleviation, highlighting impacts of Technology on Policy and Society. Noticeably, no special issue papers report cases in which the use of Blockchain promoted impacts originating from Business or Society on other categories. Also, similarly to other papers analyzed in our study, no special issue papers report impacts on the technology itself.

Table 6. Impacts across areas of development enabled by Blockchain in the special issue papers.

	Impacted dimension
	Business	Society	Economy & Finance	Policy	Development
Economy & Finance	Cappa and Pinelli; Coffie et al.
Technology	Correa Tavares et al.; Papadaki and Karamitsos; Pawar et al.; Tomlinson et al.	Diniz et al.; Ning et al.; Pawar et al.; Singh et al.; Tomlinson et al.		Correa Tavares et al.; Ning et al.; Papadaki and Karamitsos; Pawar et al.; Tomlinson et al.	Correa Tavares et al.; Tomlinson et al.
Policy	Correa Tavares et al.; Papadaki and Karamitsos		Papadaki and Karamitsos		Correa Tavares et al.

Note: Follow the row for a dimension to find out which papers describe impacts on other dimensions (represented in columns).

The first paper, titled “Analyzing the sustainability of 28 “Blockchain for Good” projects via affordances and constraints,” is authored by Bill Tomlinson, Jens Boberg, Jocelyn Cranefield, David Johnstone, Markus Luczak-Roesch, Donald J. Patterson, and Shreya Kapoor. It is exploratory in nature and assesses the sustainability of 28 Blockchain projects in the development context that aim to use cryptocurrencies or tokens for “Good.” The authors evaluated and classified the selected projects into 12 categories, namely: useful mining, rewards and loyalty programs, tokenized impact, energy trading, land registry, health records, transparent charity, supply chain tracking, financial inclusion and remittances, voting, and open organizations, labor contracts and funding social good. The article contributes to understanding the broader impacts of Blockchain on society and provides an innovative way to conceptualize its research. Therefore, the paper highlights the relationship between technology and society in our framework. In addition, it also illustrates the influence of technology-related considerations on business and policy.

The second paper is written by Rohan Sanjay Pawar, Sarah Ashok Sonje, and Shekhar Shukla. It introduces a Blockchain-supported food subsidy distribution system to offer a rigorous solution to conventional approaches’ problems. The paper is entitled “Food subsidy distribution system through Blockchain technology: a value-focused thinking approach for prototype development.” It investigates research gaps in food subsidy distribution systems by reviewing the literature and conducting interviews with key stakeholders in India. The paper extends the body of knowledge by identifying strategic and fundamental objectives to achieve transparent and trusted food subsidies by developing a Blockchain prototype. With reference to our framework, the paper illustrates the impact of technology on various societal, business- and policy-related considerations.

In the third paper, Sandeep Singh, Mamata Jenamani, Diptiman Dasgupta, and Suman Das focus on food security and propose a model that aims to eliminate inefficiencies and increase trust in a public distribution system by using Blockchain. The paper is entitled “A conceptual model for Indian public distribution system using consortium blockchain with on-chain and off-chain trusted data” and it also introduces a model for off-chain big data and analytics to assist decision making. The authors employed a design science methodology to test their conceptual model. Their work contributes to both theory and practice. The paper highlights the impact of technology on societal issues within our framework.

Eduardo Diniz, Adrian Cernev, Denis Rodrigues, and Fabio Daneluzzi are the authors of the fourth paper, entitled “Solidarity cryptocurrencies as digital community platforms.” Solidarity cryptocurrencies support the principles of solidarity finance and its orientation towards cooperative values, local and human development, and inclusive policies (Singer, 2002, p. 128; Neiva et al., 2013). This paper analyses and classifies 20 solidarity digital currencies from different countries by using criteria such as scale, price, and territorial scope. The proposed classification assists in capturing specific characteristics that help in describing solidarity cryptocurrencies. The paper comes out with important findings like the alignment of architecture and governance in terms of solidarity cryptocurrencies. With reference to our framework, the paper mainly illustrates the impact of Blockchain governance on financial inclusion and empowering the disadvantaged, which highlights the relationship between the categories Technology and Society.

The fifth paper – “Determinants of FinTech payment services diffusion by SMEs in Sub-Saharan Africa: evidence from Ghana” – is authored by Cephas Coffie, Zhao Hongjiang, Isaac Mensah, Rebecca Kiconco, and Abraham Simon. It defines three research hypotheses and proposes a conceptual model on FinTech diffusion. The authors tested the model using a survey of 407 SMEs and concluded that the combined effects of human, business, and technology actors drive the diffusion of FinTech payment systems in SMEs. Their results highlight the impact of economy digitalization on business conditions, thus illustrating the relationship between Economy & Finance and Business categories within our framework.

Francesco Cappa and Michele Pinelli are the authors of the sixth paper: “Collecting money through blockchain technologies: first insights on the determinants of the return on Initial Coin Offerings.” Their study investigates 234 crypto tokens issued between 2017 and 2018 through various Initial Coin Offerings. The paper helps us to better understand and analyze the ICO phenomenon by paying attention to the investors’ return from their investment. With reference to our framework, the paper highlights the impact of new financial instruments on innovative business models and enabling business opportunities, thus illustrating the relationship between Economy & Finance and Business categories.

The seventh paper of this special issue, written by Edson Corrêa Tavares, Fernando de Souza Meirelles, Eduardo Corrêa Tavares, Maria Alexandra Cunha, and Leandro Marcilio Schunk, is entitled “Blockchain in the Amazon: creating public value and promoting sustainability.” The paper explores how Blockchain technology can be used for the negotiation of environmental investments. It uses a case study to attempt to understand the relationship between Blockchain applications and public value theory. The paper has two main contributions as it: (a) provides insights on how to use Blockchain in the public sector to promote sustainability, and (b) proposes a framework that explains how Blockchain contributes to creating public value. Concerning our framework, the paper mainly illustrates the impact of technology on development and various business- and policy-related considerations. It also highlights the impact of policy-related factors on development and business-related considerations.

The eighth paper, written by Xue Ning, Ronald Ramirez, and Jiban Khuntia, “Blockchain-Enabled Government Efficiency and Impartiality: Using Blockchain for Targeted Poverty Alleviation in a City in China” accounts for Blockchain use in government-led social development focusing on poverty alleviation. The authors identify advantages in terms of efficiency, impartiality, coordination, accuracy, trust and transparency of the government processes. With regard to our framework, this paper discusses the use of Blockchain by the government, illustrating the link between Technology and Policy. The specific use for poverty alleviation also exemplifies the relationship between Technology and Society.

We conclude the special issue with a View from Practice paper written by Maria Papadaki and Ioannis Karamitsos entitled “Blockchain Technology in the Middle East and North Africa Region”. The paper initially reviews the literature and develops a bibliometric map that provides an overview based on the keyword “Blockchain AND Developing Countries.” It extends the body of literature by reporting Blockchain activities from 18 countries of the Middle East and Northern Africa region. In doing so, it sheds light on an area with limited literature. Additionally, based on the authors’ experience, two use cases from United Arab Emirates (UAE) are presented. The first one is about the land registry and the use of Blockchain technology and smart contracts in UAE, and the second one refers to Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) and cross-border payments between the Central Bank of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the Central Bank of UAE. The paper highlights the impact of technology on various societal, policy- and business-related considerations. At the same time, it nicely illustrates how cross-border cooperation between Central Banks may impact the transformation of the financial industry, thus introducing a new relationship into our framework: the one between Policy and Economy & Finance.

6. Directions for future research

The progress and evolution of Information and Communication Technologies is rapid, with many of its outcomes causing exponential effects like the Internet or Blockchain technologies. We can clearly define three important stages in ICT evolution, namely: (a) on-disk, (b) on-line, and (c) on-chain (Reddit.com, 2021). We moved from disconnected personal computers to the network, and we learned to share information, do business, or govern on-line. Now, we are moving to the next stage; to share critical information through networks of trust and value. To share information, do business, and govern on-chain. Some compare the current moment to that of the introduction of the World Wide Web. Then, as now, few could predict the extension of the disruptions that the new technology would cause (Mougayar, 2016). The Blockchain field will be different in five, ten, or twenty years from now. We will have blockchains that will be more efficient and effective, and we are confident that Blockchain technology is here to stay. The World Economic Forum includes Blockchain in the list of six Megatrends that will shape the world in the next decade (World Economic Forum, 2015). Developing countries face similar challenges in this ecosystem compared to the developed ones. These challenges include but are not limited to the following:

• Scalability: The current transaction processing speed is low. On average, Bitcoin processes 4.6 Transaction Per Second (TPS), Ethereum 15–45 TPS, and Visa 1700 TPS with a maximum capacity of 25,000 TPS. Scalability limitations result in high fees and latency problems; thus, many organizations and communities are working on this issue. New approaches such as Lighting Network or Sharding have been proposed and seem promising but need to be tested in practice. The challenge of scalability in Blockchain and the necessity for further work in this area is also discussed in the third article of this special issue, authored by Singh et al.

• Interoperability: Interoperability is another challenge, as there is an increasing need for different blockchains to talk to each other. This demand will be amplified in the near future with the adoption of Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs). The View from Practice paper presented in this special issue, written by Papadaki and Karamitsos, presents one of the first attempts for cross-border payments using CBDCs and highlights the demand for future research on this topic. Multiple initiatives are on the way to address interoperability, like the Interledger open protocol by Ripple, Cosmos, Polkadot, Wanchain, and others. Regardless of how interesting these networks are, they have to be evaluated in practice. We should also investigate their impact on security, privacy, efficiency, flexibility, and platform complexity.

• Convergence: To increase the performance and applicability of Blockchain, we need to focus on its integration with other technologies like the Internet of Things (IoT) and Artificial Intelligence (AI). This is also supported by the second paper of our special issue, authored by Pawar et al., which highlights the need for further research on AI, IoT, and Blockchain convergence. Early implementations that bridge these technologies provide increased performance and lead to disruptive innovation (e.g. in machine-to-machine commerce) (Themistocleous et al., 2018).

• Regulation: Although many countries have attempted to modernize their regulations, these efforts are mostly in their infancy. There is much work to be done in this area, and the sooner, the better. The lack of regulation harms the adoption of Blockchain technology. On the one hand, it prevents many organizations from investing in this technology as they consider that the lack of regulation or inefficient regulation increases the risk. Many organizations believe that it is difficult to invest in Blockchain and cryptocurrencies, since the absence of regulation creates a gray area with high risks. There are examples where organizations initiated a Blockchain or crypto activity that was later banned by national authorities. Besides, we observe cases where countries like India issued a national strategy on Blockchain but, simultaneously, there is a debate to ban the use of cryptocurrencies. Also, the absence of regulation and the gray areas may allow malicious entities (people or organizations) to take advantage and perform illegal activities. Regulation is also discussed in a couple of papers of this special issue, like those written by Cappa and Binelli, Papadaki and Karamitsos, and Tomlinson et al.

• Central Bank Digital Currency: It is estimated that around 80% of central banks worldwide have been involved in discussions for the development of CBDCs, with some of them implementing their own national digital currency. It is worth noting that the first movers in this area are developing countries. For example, the first CBDC ever issued is the “Sand Dollar”, by the Bahamas’ central bank. China is at the final stages of its Digital Currency Electronic Payment (DCEP) pilot. This reality demonstrates that, sooner or later, many countries will issue their national CBDCs, and these are expected to alter many parameters of the existing financial system (e.g. increase financial inclusion, serve the unbanked, affect monetary policy). The View from Practice paper presented in this special issue adds to the agenda the need for further research on this topic, especially to investigate cross-border CBDC transactions.

• Crypto as an asset class: Recently, there is an increasing trend to invest part of an organization's treasury in cryptocurrencies. For example, in August and September 2020, the US company Microstrategy invested $425 million in Bitcoin, and in October 2020, it claimed that it had a profit of $41 million. Also, Tesla invested $1.5 billion in Bitcoin on February 8th, 2021. Microstrategy followed Tesla's investment with an additional $1.041 billion at the end of February 2021, raising its Bitcoin stake to more than $4.5 billion. Other companies have adopted similar strategies (e.g. Square, Stone Ridge Holdings) to cope with the US dollar's devaluation and extremely low interest rates. In these cases, Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies have been seen as a reliable store of value. This trend may have an impact on the investments of national treasuries too.

• New players influence the market: The developments of multiple new players shake up the ecosystem and speed up the evolution and innovation in Blockchain. For instance, Facebook's Libra (recently renamed Diem) announcement resulted in speeding up the introduction of new Blockchain regulations and accelerating central banks’ efforts to create CBDCs. Similar effects may result from the announcement of Mastercard's launch of a platform for the testing and issuing CBDCs, or by PayPal's strategy to allow its customers to sell and buy cryptos through its platform. It will be interesting to see what the impact of Mastercard's platform would be on the issuance of CBDCs by developing countries that are incapable of doing it on their own. Also, PayPal may be of great help for the unbanked.

• Decentralized Finance has introduced a new way of doing business that removes financial intermediaries like banks and exchanges to offer monetary contracts between different parties (financial instruments). Instead of using intermediaries, DeFi employs smart contracts that run on blockchains like Ethereum. In doing so, DeFi allows a range of financial activities such as cryptocurrency trading, lending and borrowing fund. DeFi has recently attracted much attention, and hundreds of billions of US dollars have been invested in it.

• Adoption: To achieve mass adoption of Blockchain, we should emphasize three different sets of parameters. The first includes awareness, education, training, certification, and sourcing. The second includes regulation, competition, and innovation. Finally, simplicity, user-centered approaches, standards, and operability complete the requirements. For mass adoption, we will need people who are Blockchain-educated and understand the technology. We will need countries that can build on their national regulations. We will need organizations that will implement and support solutions; that will innovate, compete and rest on legal and regulatory frameworks. Organizations will need skillful and knowledgeable employees to develop their solutions, but sourcing comes with education, training, and certification. These organizations will develop applications that will solve users’ problems, use standards and common protocols, are interoperable, and easy to use.

7. Contributions to development

Our research and special issue papers’ main contribution is illustrating the complex and multifaceted role of Blockchain in socioeconomic development. We propose a framework presenting development as a dependent variable and five main categories of variables touching upon various societal, technological, business, and policy-related considerations. The presented concepts are interconnected with suggested causal relationships, presenting several interesting paths leading to development and suggesting promising future research avenues. We believe that our framework might help structure and guide future research efforts in the Blockchain for Development field and formulate clear and actionable advice to key stakeholders such as executives, policy- and decision-makers.

Among the suggested relationships in the framework, however, it appears that some links are not well-researched and, thus, might present promising avenues for future investigations. A good example is the impact of policy-related considerations on the economy and finance, which generally appears under-researched in extant studies. However, as exemplified by one of the papers in our special issue, authored by Papadaki and Karamitsos, this relationship can be nicely illustrated by the influence of cross-border cooperation between Central Banks on transforming the financial industry.

Papers in our special issue also suggest a novel understanding of the reasonably well-researched and popular links between concepts. This applies, in particular, to the relationship between technology and society and the related impact of the governance structure of Blockchain on financial inclusion and empowering the disadvantaged, as discussed in a paper by Diniz et al., Another novel understanding of a well-known relationship, illustrated by papers in our special issue, applies to the link between economy and finance and the category business. In this respect, Cappa and Pinelli suggest that introducing new financial instruments such as ICOs results in enabling new business opportunities and innovative business models.

Interestingly, and somewhat surprisingly, our research suggests that societal aspects impact development only through business-related considerations, with the direct link missing in the framework. In fact, the category society is the only category that does not reveal an evident, direct influence on development. However, such a relationship appears potentially significant and suggests an interesting topic for future investigations. Another link of this type, worthy of investigation by future studies, is the direct impact of technology on the economy and finance.

An important contribution of our research is the proposition of an array of interesting and promising avenues for future research, as summarized in the previous section. The described various technological, economic, and policy-related considerations, in our opinion, present a fruitful ground for future investigations and describe the main challenges to the use of Blockchain in socioeconomic development. Addressing these considerations should have a positive effect on using Blockchain's potential for development.

8. Conclusion

This paper aims to introduce the reader to the special issue on Blockchain for Development. In doing so, we review the normative literature, examine the challenges and opportunities in the area, propose a guiding framework for Blockchain for Development, summarize the papers in this issue and draw connections between them and the proposed framework. The guiding framework for Blockchain for Development considers Business, Society, Economy & Finance, Technology, and Policy-related factors. Variations of these are frequently used in strategic and macro-environment analyses and, in our case, are used to frame influences of Blockchain on development. In designing Blockchain-based systems, the framework can help identify areas where the impact on development is expected to be stronger and where less evidence of returns exists. Of course, this is a dynamic artifact that we encourage other authors to use, but also to update and extend, as new effective uses for Blockchain are uncovered. Several directions for future research are suggested.

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank Philip Musa, Narcyz Roztocki, Heinz Roland Weistroffer, and Jason Xiong for their valuable comments on a preliminary version of this editorial. We would also like to thank Sajda Qureshi, ITD Editor-in-Chief, for her guidance throughout the process and making this special issue possible. Finally, we would like to express our sincere thanks to all the authors and to the reviewers that contributed their time and expertise in helping select the papers included in this special issue.

Additional information

Funding

This research was partially funded by (a) national funds through the FCT – Foundation for Science and Technology, I.P., within the scope of the project CISUC – UID/CEC/00326/2020 and by European Social Fund, through the Regional Operational Program Centro 2020, Portugal; (b) the project financed by the Polish Ministry of Science and Higher Education within “Regional Initiative of Excellence” Programme for 2019–2022. Project no.: 021/RID/2018/19. Total financing: 11 897 131,40 PLN; (c) the PARITY project, funded by the European Commission under Grant Agreement Number 864319 through the Horizon 2020 and by the Blockpool project, funded by the European Commission under Grant Agreement number 828888 through the Horizon 2020.

Notes on contributors

Paulo Rupino da Cunha

Paulo Rupino da Cunha is Associate Professor of Information Systems with Habilitation at the Department of Informatics Engineering of the University of Coimbra, Portugal. He has been Adjunct Associate Teaching Professor in the School of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon, USA, from May 2009 to Dec 2012, and Visiting Associate at Brunel University, UK, from 2008 to 2010. He has been the Vice-President of the Board of Instituto Pedro Nunes and of IPN-Incubadora - the recipient of the 2010 Word's Best Science-Based Incubator Award. Paulo serves in the editorial board of various journals and has published in outlets such as ICIS, ECIS, AMCIS, HICSS, Requirements Engineering, Information Systems Development, Journal of Enterprise Information Management, and Information Technology for Development, among others. Has been involved in information systems and software engineering projects for several private and public organisations and regularly participates in the evaluation of R&D projects and start-up pitches. Presently focused on Blockchain, cloud, service systems and business models.

Piotr Soja

Piotr Soja is associate professor in the Department of Informatics at the Cracow University of Economics (CUE), Poland. He holds a postdoctoral degree (habilitation) and Ph.D. in economics from CUE. Piotr also holds an M.B.A. from the School of Entrepreneurship and Management at CUE in association with the University of Teeside, UK. He has experience in industry as an ERP consultant, system analyst and software developer. His research interests include ICT for development, enterprise systems, and ICT for active and healthy ageing. Piotr has published in Enterprise Information Systems, Industrial Management & Data Systems, Information Systems Management, Information Technology for Development, and Journal of Enterprise Information Systems among many other journals, as well as in numerous conference proceedings such as AMCIS, HICSS, ICEIS, and ISD. He is currently member of the Editorial Board of AIS Transactions on Enterprise Systems, Frontiers in Blockchain, Information Technology for Development, Journal of Accounting and Management Information Systems, and Journal of Enterprise Information Systems. He has acted as Program/Organizational Committee member in numerous international conferences, including AMCIS, ECIME, EMCIS, EuroSymposium, and ICTM. Currently, Piotr serves as president elect of the Polish Chapter of AIS (PLAIS).

Marinos Themistocleous

Prof. Marinos Themistocleous is the Associate Dean of School of Business, Director at the Institute For Future (IFF) and the scientific coordinator of the world leading Blockchain and Digital Currency MSc programme at University of Nicosia. He also serves as a professor at the Department of Digital Systems of University of Piraeus, Greece. He is a member of the Parallel Parliament of Cyprus and president of the Digital Economy and Digital Government Committee of the Parallel Parliament. Marinos has collaborated with many organisations including the Greek Ministry of Finance, Bank of Greece, Greek Standardization body, Greek Federation of SMEs, ORACLE UK, B3-Blockchain Business Board UK, Intelen US, BTO Italy and Cyprus National Betting Authority. He retains close relationships with industry and serves as consultant in the areas of blockchain, ebusiness, ehealth, eGovernement and information systems integration. He has authored more than 175 refereed journal and conference articles, several teaching textbooks and has received citations and awards of excellence. His research has attracted funding from various organizations. Marinos is on the editorial board of academic journals as well as on the board of prestigious international conferences. In the past, he served as the managing editor of the European Journal of Information Systems (EJIS).