Blockchain: Data Malls, Coin Economies and Keyless Payments

TL;DR

This paper explores diverse applications of blockchain technology beyond cryptocurrencies, including data marketplaces, data provenance, keyless payments, and voting, emphasizing practical uses and referencing extensive academic and industry sources.

Contribution

It provides a pragmatic overview of blockchain applications outside cryptocurrencies, highlighting data malls, provenance, and keyless payments with a comprehensive reference list.

Findings

Blockchain enables data marketplaces and provenance tracking.

Keyless payments offer user-friendly transaction methods.

The paper surveys diverse blockchain applications with extensive references.

Abstract

We discuss several uses of blockchain (and, more generally, distributed ledger) technologies outside of cryptocurrencies with a pragmatic view. We mostly focus on three areas: the role of coin economies for what we refer to as data malls (specialized data marketplaces); data provenance (a historical record of data and its origins); and what we term keyless payments (made without having to know other users' cryptographic keys). We also discuss voting and other areas, and give a sizable list of academic and nonacademic references.