Taxonomy Innovation Award

Problem Statement:

Blockchain technology is a complex and rapidly evolving field, and as a result, there is a proliferation of terms and definitions used in Blockchain white papers. This can make it difficult for readers to understand the technology and its potential applications. A taxonomy of terms and definitions would help to standardise the language used in Blockchain white papers, making them more accessible and understandable to a wider audience. This would be beneficial for both developers and businesses who are interested in learning more about Blockchain technology.

Here are some specific problems that a taxonomy of terms and definitions could address:

• Lack of clarity: The use of different terms and definitions can create confusion and ambiguity, making it difficult for readers to understand the technology.
• Fragmentation: The lack of a common language can make it difficult for developers and businesses to collaborate on Blockchain projects.

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Solution:

A taxonomy of terms and definitions would help to address these problems by providing a standard set of terms and definitions that can be used in Blockchain white papers. This would make the technology more accessible and understandable to a wider audience, and it would help to promote collaboration between academia, developers, and businesses.

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The Goal:

To produce a technical taxonomy document and use this to label white papers. We would expect building out a detailed taxonomy of terms and definitions, as well as labelling 100 white papers, using the taxonomy as a guide. Please see the reference materials for a starting point.

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Award: 

$10,000 for work across two months

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Outcomes:

The expected outcomes of this award are:

• A full taxonomy document 
• 100 whitepapers to be labelled w/ the taxonomy

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Reference and Materials:

Alzhrani, F. E., Saeedi, K. A., & Zhao, L. (2022). A taxonomy for characterizing Blockchain Systems. IEEE Access, 10, 110568–110589. doi:10.1109/access.2022.3214837. 

Moezkarimi, Z., Nourmohammadi, R., Zamani, S., Abdollahei, F., Golmirzaei, Z., & Arabsorkhi, A. (2019). An overview on technical characteristics of blockchain platforms. Communications in Computer and Information Science, 265–278. doi:10.1007/978-3-030-33495-6_20. 

Tasca, P., & Tessone, C. J. (2019). A taxonomy of Blockchain Technologies: Principles of identification and classification. Ledger, 4. doi:10.5195/ledger.2019.140.

Xu, X., Weber, I., Staples, M., Zhu, L., Bosch, J., Bass, L., … Rimba, P. (2017). A taxonomy of blockchain-based systems for Architecture Design. 2017 IEEE International Conference on Software Architecture (ICSA). doi:10.1109/icsa.2017.33.

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