NYU/Stern Blockchain


PROJECT: Commercial Uses of Blockchain Technology

Project leaders: Profs. Yannis Bakos and Hanna Halaburda

In this project, we systematically collect and analyze information about blockchain projects intended for commercial use. In addition to information available from public sources, we seek information provided to us confidentially by the project leaders, implementers and/or other project participants. Our database includes blockchain projects in large companies, smaller established companies, as well as start-ups, including start-ups funded by ICOs. We are collecting data on all projects that have been identified as blockchain projects by their developers, participants or the source of our information. In our analysis, however, we assess whether the projects indeed use blockchain technology.

For the pilot stage of our analysis we collected data on more than 150 projects. Interestingly, we found that several projects identified as “blockchain projects” do not use blockchain technology. Furthermore, we found that only about 10-15% of the announced or otherwise identified projects were actually implemented as of March 2020. All but one of the implemented projects use blockchain technology for supply chain management, certification or payments. Our analysis covers multiple technical and functional dimensions for these projects.

We have expanded beyond our pilot data and are currently inviting any parties that can provide information about a commercial use project of blockchain technology to participate in our study. That includes any participants in the project, including sponsors, implementers, users or third parties. All information provided will be strictly confidential, and neither the provider of the information nor the responsible organizations will be identified without explicit permission.


Invitation to participate:

If you are able to provide information about the technical and/or functional implementation of an announced, partially implemented or fully implemented blockchain project in commercial use (either for profit or non-profit), please contact us by filling the form below, and we will send you a link to our project information form, which takes about 15 minutes to complete. In exchange for your participation, you will receive the aggregate level results of our analysis as they become available.