Together or Not? Exploring Stakeholders in Public and Permissionless Blockchains

Abstract

The emergence of blockchain projects enables new ways of collaboration between untrusted parties. Each of these projects, however , only exists because stakeholders of these projects find common ground. If this common ground is not found, blockchains are forked – organizationally and technically – which endangered major blockchain systems like Bitcoin or Ethereum. To assure the operation of such projects and, thus, to improve their governance, it is crucial to understand their stakeholders. This research conducted a literature review and a survey to (1) identify blockchain stakeholders and to (2) understand their interests as well as underlying motives for their interests. This research has two main contributions: a stakeholder map, which serves as a lens to study stakeholders of public blockchains, and exemplary insights from the application of this lens comprising of 74 survey responses. Consequently, this research provides a novel tool for stakeholder analysis in academia and practice to improve blockchain governance.