Managing mistrust in construction using DLT: a review of use-case categories for technical decisions

Abstract

Blockchain, or more general distributed ledger technology (DLT), is seen as an opportunity to integrate digital information, management, and contracts to increase trust and collaboration within the construction industry. However, little research has analyzed and confirmed this linkage through case-studies. There seems to be a gap between use-case ideas and the technical system implementation. This paper aims to reduce this gap through a review of both DLT and its applications in construction. It proposed six use-case categories through clustering of analyzed use cases and a basic framework to match the categories to a suitable DLT design. For that, the trust level of the user group was used as a proxy for the needed fundamental properties of the system. The categories and framework can lead to a more connected and structured thinking between technological properties of DLT’s and use cases in construction.