Blockchain's Potential to Destroy Corporate Strategy

A blockchain is a distributed ledger that records and secures transactions in a peer-to-peer network (P2P). P2P networks as an efficient method of content delivery and management (e.g., Napster). In the distributed ledger, transactions are organized into blocks that are linked together into a chain.  Transactions are validated and recorded by distributed consensus in the P2P network, eliminating the need for a trusted central entity (or third party). Once validated, transactions are irreversible, verifiable, permanent, and secure on the blockchain. Users who verify and validate blocks are often incentivized for doing so via tokens (but not always). People are often incentivized by being rewarded tokens, but knowledge can also be an incentive. So the debate about needing tokens on a blockchain is still, yet to be resolved. Consensus is how trust is generated in the blockchain.  Moreover, tokens are created on top of a blockchain and governed by a smart contract (Massey et al., 2017). Smart contracts self-execute the stipulations of an agreement when predetermined conditions are triggered. This is basically your crash course on how blockchains work in laymen's terms if you are unfamiliar with the process.

Consensus is how trust is generated in the blockchain. 

Generally, organizational theory was created based upon the fundamental assumption that organizations are the best way to solve certain market based trust coordination issues. 
The core assumption that organizations provide a centralized source of legitimacy underpinned the development of organizational ecology, institutional theory, and transaction cost economics.  Centralized positions were assumed to be a source of power in network theory and resource dependence theory. While historically these have been valid assumptions, the recent emergence of distributed trust systems such as blockchain databases fundamentally challenges these core tenets of organizational theory (Seidel & Greve, 2017). That is because blockchain is a disintermediator that commoditize trust through public protocols. But the most general service blockchains perform is that they decentralize, and information asymmetry is a central part of entrepreneurship and strategy.

As a result, any type of ledger - a record of economic exchange, a reputation rating or a certificate of authenticity - no longer requires a trusted third party to validate. This drastically impacts previous assumptions about the legitimacy and power benefits of central network positions, and the fundamental organizing principle of financial capital markets. This raises some challenging questions to corporate strategy literature.

Might the age of asymmetric information – for better or worse – be over? How does decentralization affect consensus effectiveness, and how the quintessential features of blockchain reshape industrial organization and the landscape of competition? Can smart contracts adequately mitigate the problem of informational asymmetry? Or does information symmetry during consensus building lead to greater collusion because of smart contracts?
Blockchains commoditize trust through public protocols. 

In what ways may the use of blockchain technology reshape the corporate governance as we know it? Blockchains and smart contracts remove the human factor in corporate governance of a company from certain processes while increasing the ‘transparency’ in its operations. 
If the agency problem can be removed entirely, the focus of corporate governance needs to be renewed? How companies can strike a balance between removing the agency problem and protecting the privacy within the same company? We really need to delve into the implications of new human-free governance processes in a company. Hence, if an institution could effectively and efficiently reduce the effects of those human imperfections, would it be expected to make more reliable decisions and perform better?
 

Might the age of asymmetric information – for better or worse – be over?

What are the implications of blockchain technology on markets and firms? The utopian view argues that blockchain technology will affect every market by removing the need for intermediaries. Reduced transaction costs between economic agents within the transaction phase (in regards to trust). Which formerly would have been only interested to interact with each other if an entrusted third party steps in. What are the implications of blockchain technology on markets and firms? How will blockchain change the nature of intermediation? 
Intermediaries add value to marketplaces by reducing information asymmetry and the risk of moral hazard through third-party verification. Intermediaries like lawyers, brokers, and bankers might no longer be necessary. Individuals, organizations, machines and algorithms would freely transact and interact with one another with little friction. Trust in the intermediary is replaced with trust in the underlying code and consensus rules.

A blockchain is a new rule-system for economic coordination (e.g., firms, markets, clubs, commons, and governments) It has the potential to create new foundations for our social systems. It could dramatically reduce the cost of transacting if it is adopted widely. Huge potential to change the way business is done in (e.g., supply chain management).
But the far more interesting question is how will it create new organizational and institutional forms of economic governance.