Our article on blockchain innovators in the Global South has been recently published in Technological Forecasting and Social Change. In this paper, we utilized a mixed-method approach based on web mining and topic modeling to explore blockchain-based innovations and research in the context of economic and sustainable development. We analyzed data on blockchain innovators from Crunchbase, their websites, and academic publications to identify the innovation activities of blockchain start-ups and their potential impact on the Sustainable Development Goals.
How can blockchain technology drive Economic Development in the Global South?
Blockchain technology has the potential to drive economic development in the Global South by addressing trust-related problems, promoting transparency, increasing efficiency, and facilitating financial inclusion. Blockchain-based solutions can provide an immutable system of record such as property title registries and digital identities. They can also enable new forms of collaboration based on sharing assets, as well as pooling and coordinating efforts. Blockchain can increase the transparency and efficiency of international trade and provide transparency to the value chains of products or services, reducing corruption risks. In terms of financial inclusion, blockchain can lower access barriers to financial markets, help overcome information asymmetries, provide solutions for microfinance, and allow for financial services without profit-seeking intermediaries involved, significantly reducing transaction costs. However, the oracle problem is a major challenge for non-financial blockchain applications, and adequate public policies and enforcement are necessary to address problems related to corruption and value chain transparency.
The results indicate that blockchain innovators in the Global South are already engaging in various application areas beyond the financial sector, addressing critical development issues. Hence they can contribute to the achievement of various Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) what is further discussed in the paper. However, the findings also suggests that there is still a largely untapped potential for blockchain innovations in various promising application areas relevant to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), such as sustainable energy or integrity verification, where our analysis did not find much innovation activity.
If you want to learn more about this research, blockchain innovations role for Economic and Sustainable Development, or avenues for future research in this area, you can access the article in Technological Forecasting and Social Change until April 28, 2023, the paper is acccessible without an Elsevier subscription here.