Classification of Sources for Blockchain Value Creation: A Review of Financial Technology Taxonomies

Blockchain technology is expected to have on the one side of the coin a substantial impact on financial services design and delivery and a promising driver for the value creation logic on the other side. Over the last years, especially by means of startup business model taxonomies, researchers and practitioners tackled numerous topics and use cases of blockchain technology in finance, encompassing the domains of Decentralized Finance (DeFi), Initial Coin Offering (ICO), and Non-Fungible-Token (NFT). Building on a taxonomies review, the contribution recognizes, scrutinizes, and classifies the sources of value in a blockchain-based and financial contexts. The study emphasizes the role of blockchain as a financial technology, its underlying sources, and propositions of value. The contribution also provides a threefold classification of value sources in the context of blockchain-enabled financial services and concepts. The taxonomies review and the classification would assist researchers and practitioners in structuring their grasp of both FinTech and blockchain-enabled value creation knowledge.