Impediments to Blockchain Adoption

Abstract

Satoshi Nakamoto (2008) published a seminal paper on a promising digital currency application and proposed a distributed ledger technology (DLT) to support it. Shortly thereafter, in 2009, bitcoin and the customized DLT that supports it were established. Although the DLT described by Nakamoto (2008), which packages data into blocks that are then cryptographically chained together (i.e., "block chain", or "blockchain"), possesses features that are desirable for some business applications and/or their auditors, over a dozen years later there is not yet a widescale adoption of blockchain for business operations. This paper explores functionality, data and process integrity, and regulatory concerns as potential explanations for the lag in mainstream business and accounting adoption. We also contextualize some of the concerns that are likely to have delayed blockchain implementation by providing a framework of questions directed at both researchers and practitioners.