Do Not Be Fooled: Towards a Holistic Comparison of Distributed Ledger Technology Designs

F. Gräbe, Niclas Kannengiesser, Sebastian Lins, Ali Sunyaev (2020). In Proceedings of the 53rd Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS 2020), (Wailea, Maui, HI, USA.

DOI: 10.24251/HICSS.2020.770
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Abstract:
Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) enables a new way of inter-organizational collaboration via a shared and distributed infrastructure. There are plenty of DLT designs (e.g., Ethereum, IOTA), which differ in their capabilities to meet use case requirements. A structured comparison of DLT designs is required to support the selection of an appropriate DLT design. However, existing criteria and processes are abstract or not suitable for an in-depth comparison of DLT designs. We select and operationalize DLT characteristics relevant for a comprehensive comparison of DLT designs. Furthermore, we propose a comparison process , which enables the structured comparison of a set of DLT designs according to application requirements. The proposed process is validated with a use case analysis of three use cases. We contribute to research and practice by introducing ways to operation-alize DLT characteristics and generate a process to compare different DLT designs according to their suit-ability in a use case.