Workflow Management on the Blockchain --- Implications and Recommendations
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Blockchain technology, originally popularized by cryptocurrencies, has been proposed as an infrastructure technology with applications in many different areas of business management. Blockchains can provide an immutable record of transactions, which makes them useful for applications in situations where business actors may not fully trust each other. The distributed nature of blockchains makes them particularly suitable for interorganizational e-Business applications. In this paper we examine the use of blockchains for executing interorganizational workflows. We discuss architectural options and describe prototype implementations of blockchain-based workflow management systems (WfMS). We highlight differences to traditional WfMS that are introduced by blockchain technology. Our main contribution is the identification of potential problems raised by blockchain infrastructure and possible ways to address them.
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