Mapping potential impact areas of Blockchain use in the public sector

Abstract

While the financial sector was the first to investigate the potential of Blockchain, and in more general terms, Dis- tributed Ledger Technology (DLT), with an initial focus on digital currencies including cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin and Ether, the study of potential uses of this technology is gradually expanding to also include other areas of application including public-sector applications. Academic and non-academic publications on the subject have so far burgeoned mainly in and around the so-called fintech (financial technology) area, a fact that is underlined by a surprisingly high number of literature reviews already performed in this relatively novel area of research. For the public sector and the study domain of Digital Government, Blockchain and DLT have remained under-researched topics, and the number of respective publications is still relatively low. The aim of this meta-level literature study is to map the existing Blockchain and DLT-related body of knowledge and link its prevalent concepts to known needs and requirements studied in the context of the public sector and in Digital Government. Among the concepts, which intersect the existing literature on Blockchain strongly with the public sector-related research and practice, the study found cost reduction, innovation, regulation, taxation, security, privacy, transparency, among others, all of which deserve increased attention from scholars active in the domain of Digital Government research.