Research Article
Blockchain Consensus Protocols
@INPROCEEDINGS{10.1007/978-3-319-98827-6_29, author={Hadja Ouattara and Daouda Ahmat and Fr\^{e}deric Ou\^{e}draogo and Tegawend\^{e} Bissyand\^{e} and Oumarou Si\^{e}}, title={Blockchain Consensus Protocols}, proceedings={e-Infrastructure and e-Services for Developing Countries. 9th International Conference, AFRICOMM 2017, Lagos, Nigeria, December 11-12, 2017, Proceedings}, proceedings_a={AFRICOMM}, year={2018}, month={8}, keywords={Blockchain Developing countries Adoption constraints}, doi={10.1007/978-3-319-98827-6_29} }- Hadja Ouattara
Daouda Ahmat
Fréderic Ouédraogo
Tegawendé Bissyandé
Oumarou Sié
Year: 2018
Blockchain Consensus Protocols
AFRICOMM
Springer
DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-98827-6_29
Abstract
There is currently a big rush in the research and practice communities to investigate the blockchain technology towards leveraging its security, immutability and transparency features to create new services or improve existing ones. In developing countries, which are seen as a fertile ground for field testing disruptive technologies, blockchain is viewed as the “trust machine” that is necessary for accelerating development. Unfortunately, the internal working of blockchain as well as its constraints are often overlooked in the design of services. This, in conjunction with a poor regulatory framework, slows down any concrete attempt to build upon the technology. In this paper, we contribute towards accelerating the concrete adoption of blockchain by making explicit the constraints that affect their practical use in the context of developing countries such as African sub-saharan countries. Overall we recommend that the technology should be adjusted to the real-world constraints, in particular those that we currently witness on network latency, computation power as well as cultural gaps.