Blockchain as an Enabler of Generic Business Model Realization

The paper presents business models (BMs) for blockchain-based businesses. The paper is a study of IT-aligned BMs categorized by the concepts and possibilities of blockchain business applications. The research aimed to recognize and analyze the extent and directions in which blockchain architectures influence the means of conducting businesses. A set of almost 40,000 decentralized applications is examined to justify the rationale behind the presented analysis. This is an argumentative study that uses the design-oriented approach, as it is suitable for addressing real-world problems, like analyzing business models, while ensuring that artifacts are created and evaluated under methodological standards. Firstly, the concept of a business model is analyzed. Then, a theoretical analysis of different business models is made to identify the ones that are well aligned with the decentralized vision of business and the ones that are obsolete or inoperative from the blockchain business-conducting perspective. In the end, the outcome is applied to examples of existing business startups. Fifteen identified BMs in 7 business sector groups are recognized and 55 cases are detected.