Unblocked

Chapter 11. NEW MODELS

The worst place to develop a new business model is from within your existing business model.

Clayton Christensen

Summary

Blockchains open up the possibility for unprecedented business models driven by decentralization. These new models flip the rules for what it takes to be successful, will influence today’s incumbents, and could drive new competitors to power.

The success of decentralized models will be driven in great part by how powerfully an organization attracts the support of the crowd and an ecosystem of partners. This changes the dynamics of what drives dominance—but it will be a long road of trial and error to determine how to drive sustainable long-term revenue from these new models. We may see a shift, in many areas, to businesses that trade margin for scale or operate under new structures designed to return more value to a community at large. 

Flipping Conventional Wisdom

Every one of the examples we have looked at so far, of course, represents a new business model. But the models we’re about to look at deserve their own dedicated section. This is because these models have a tendency to flip and twist conventional wisdom of what an effective business looks like, and it takes some study to understand the implications. Eva Kaili, the member of the European Parliament who chairs the Science and Technology Options Assessment panel, asserts that these emerging blockchain-driven models could “democratize value chains, remove transaction costs, ...