Blockchain Regulations and Decentralized Applications: Panel Report from AMCIS 2018

Blockchain represents one of the 21st century’s most impactful inventions. In addition to creating cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, this technology enables smart contract functionality and supports decentralized, secure, and private transactions. By design, blockchains enable decentralized functionality for many of today’s business applications and transform traditional centralized information systems. In this paper, we summarize four research areas that will appeal to IS scholars that a panel at AMCIS 2018 discussed: 1) cryptocurrency regulation, 2) Etherisc (a smart contract-based application), 3) decentralized blockchain applications in healthcare, and 4) Bitcoin as a blockchain application and issues with decentralization. To account for the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation’s requirements to provide people with the right to be forgotten and modify personal data, we modified Pedersen et al.’s (2019) framework to accommodate off-chain data storage requirements. We deployed Pedersen et al.’s (2019) modified framework to evaluate whether one can use blockchains for three different applications. We summarize several research questions and present a research agenda that emerged from the issues highlighted during the panel discussion

Big Data and the Internet of Things

Advances in sensing and computing capabilities are making it possible to embed increasing computing power in small devices. This has enabled the sensing devices not just to passively capture data at very high resolution but also to take sophisticated actions in response. Combined with advances in communication, this is resulting in an ecosystem of highly interconnected devices referred to as the Internet of Things - IoT. In conjunction, the advances in machine learning have allowed building models on this ever increasing amounts of data. Consequently, devices all the way from heavy assets such as aircraft engines to wearables such as health monitors can all now not only generate massive amounts of data but can draw back on aggregate analytics to "improve" their performance over time. Big data analytics has been identified as a key enabler for the IoT. In this chapter, we discuss various avenues of the IoT where big data analytics either is already making a significant impact or is on the cusp of doing so. We also discuss social implications and areas of concern.Comment: 33 pages. draft of upcoming book chapter in Japkowicz and Stefanowski (eds.) Big Data Analysis: New algorithms for a new society, Springer Series on Studies in Big Data, to appea