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This study aimed to investigate and analyze the level of awareness and adoption of distributed ledger technologies (DLTs) within the Nigerian construction industry. The focus was on addressing the current state of DLT utilization, identifying challenges and opportunities and proposing strategies to enhance the integration of DLTs into the construction processes and practices of Nigerian professionals and organizations.

The research was underpinned by a robust theoretical and conceptual framework, drawing from established theories of technology adoption. A comprehensive literature review guided the identification of various DLT types. This informed the development of a well-structured questionnaire, which was then distributed to Nigerian construction professionals. The collected data underwent analysis using percentages, frequencies, mean scores, the Kruskal–Wallis H-test and the Shapiro–Wilk test.

A significant finding of this study reveals a generally low awareness and implementation of DLT among construction professionals in Nigeria. These findings emphasize the urgent need for comprehensive strategies to bridge the gap between awareness and adoption of DLT within the Nigerian construction industry.

Industry associations, regulatory bodies and educational institutions can collaborate to develop specialized programs aimed at familiarizing professionals with the benefits and applications of DLTs. Additionally, technology providers and policymakers can leverage these findings to design user-friendly interfaces and guidelines for seamless DLT integration into construction processes.

This study contributes to the existing body of knowledge by providing a comprehensive assessment of the awareness and adoption of DLTs specifically within the Nigerian construction industry. While the global recognition of DLT’s potential in construction is acknowledged, this research delves into a regional context, shedding light on the specific opportunities within Nigeria. Furthermore, the study’s identification of a gap between awareness and implementation highlights a critical area for future exploration and development in the field of construction technology adoption.

The purpose of this article is to clarify current and widespread misconceptions about the properties of blockchain technologies and to describe challenges and avenues for correct and trustworthy design and implementation of distributed ledger system (DLS) or Technology (DLT).

The authors contrast the properties of a blockchain with desired, however emergent, properties of a DLS, which is a complex and distributed system. They point out and justify, with facts and analysis, current misconceptions about the blockchain and DLSs. They describe challenges that these systems will need to address and possible solution avenues for achieving trustworthiness.

Many of the statements that have appeared on the internet, news and academic articles, such as immutable ledger and exact copies, may be misleading. These are desired emergent properties of a complex system, not assured properties. It is well-known within the distributed systems and critical software community that it is extremely hard to prove that a complex system correctly and completely implements emergent properties. Further research and development for trustworthy DLS design and implementation is needed, both practical and theoretical.

This is the first known published attempt at describing current misconceptions about blockchain technologies. Further collaborative work, discussions, potential solutions, evaluations, resulting publications and verified reference implementations are needed to ensure DLTs are safe, secure, and trustworthy.

Interdisciplinary teams with members from academia, business and industry, and from disciplines such as business, entrepreneurship, theoretical and practical computer science, cybersecurity, finance, mathematics and statistics, must be formed. Such teams must collaborate with the objective of developing strategies and techniques for ensuring the correctness and security of future DLSs in which our society may become dependent.

The value and originality of this article is twofold: the disproving, through fact collection and systematic analysis, of current misconceptions about the properties of the blockchain and DLSs, and the discussion of challenges to achieving adequate trustworthiness along with the proposal of general avenues for possible solutions.

The purpose of this paper is to argue for the role of the blockchain, i.e., distributed ledger technology, in building innovative business models, including machine money, autonomous economic agents and decentralised organisations.

The paper is conceptual/argumentative. As such, it draws on research on (e-)commerce, theories of markets, disruptive innovation and extant studies and conceptual work at the intersection of cryptocurrencies, machine-to-machine commerce and the Internet of Things.

The authors highlight three application areas for blockchains, whereby they can function as applications, can help develop autonomous economic agents and can lead the development of decentralised autonomous organisations. With regards to the question of market disintermediation, the authors suggest that, rather than complete disintermediation, the most probable scenario is that of new types of intermediaries finding previously unthinkable roles to play in mediating blockchain-based economic transactions. With regards to the inhibitors that slow down the technology’s adoption and, therefore, the development of new business applications, the authors posit that these relate mainly to the inherent risk of the technology, infrastructure requirements, scepticism of early decision makers and the lack of required new skills and competencies.

The authors examine how new forms of digital money and technologies embedding trust in decentralised networks will alter markets and commerce, at a time when many regulatory issues remain unresolved; in doing so, the authors focus on how blockchain-enabled technologies can be used to enable and further develop decentralised trusted peer-to-peer transaction ledger systems and applications and lead to sustainable business models.

The purpose of this paper is to present a concept of the protocol for public registries based on blockchain. New database protocol aims to use the benefits of blockchain technologies and ensure their interoperability.

This paper is framed with design science research (DSR). The primary method is exaptation, i.e. adoption of solutions from other fields. The research is looking into existing technologies which are applied here as elements of the protocol: Name-Value Storage (NVS), Berkley DB, RAID protocol, among others. The choice of NVS as a reference technology for creating a database over blockchain is based on the analysis and comparison with two other similar technologies Bigchain and Amazon QLDB.

The proposed mechanism allows creating a standard database over a bundle of distributed ledgers. It ensures a blockchain agnostic approach and uses the benefits of various blockchain technologies in one ecosystem. In this scheme, blockchains play the role of journal storages (immutable log), whereas the overlaid database is the indexed storage. The distinctive feature of such a system is that in blockchain, users can perform peer-to-peer transactions directly in the ledger using blockchain native mechanism of user access management with public-key cryptography (blockchain does not require to administrate its database).

This paper presents a new method of creating a public peer-to-peer database across a bundle of distributed ledgers.

This study aims to evaluate the drivers influencing the integration of distributed ledger technologies (DLTs) in the Nigerian construction industry to provide a comprehensive analysis of the factors that shape the adoption and utilization of this transformative technology within the sector.

This objective was achieved through a quantitative research approach, utilizing a structured questionnaire to systematically gather data from various stakeholders in the Nigerian construction sector. Data obtained were analyzed using descriptive statistics, alongside inferential statistical techniques like the Kruskal-Wallis H-test, the Shapiro-Wilk test and exploratory factor analysis.

The most highly ranked drivers for DLT within the construction industry are security and fraud resistance, traceability and transparency, government support, compliance and reporting and trust building. Further analysis unveiled five distinct factors of application areas, namely: technological and operational drivers, economic and financial drivers, regulatory and government drivers, collaborative and stakeholder drivers and environmental and sustainability drivers.

The practical implications emphasize the need for construction industry stakeholders to focus on security, transparency and trust-building when considering DLT adoption. This study also offers valuable insights for investors and technology providers seeking opportunities in the Nigerian construction sector.

This study sheds light on the factors most critical for DLT adoption in the Nigerian construction sector. Unlike previous research, this study pinpoints security and fraud resistance, along with traceability and transparency, as the most influential drivers. This highlights the Nigerian construction industry’s particular vulnerability to fraud and its emphasis on clear audit trails.

The emergence of new digital technologies in the era of the Fourth Industrial Revolution presents a turning point that could change the fate of the traditional ways of designing, build and manage asset data. Disruptive technologies such as Blockchain and theInternet of things (IoT) are one of the main pillars that are driving this revolution. The integration of decentralised networks and automated workflows has the potential to become a pivotal factor in construction projects, especially in supply chain ecosystems within the off-site manufacturing field. Obstacles related to fragmented information, interoperability, transparency and “big data” management are the main drivers for change that the industry needs to address. Whilst organisations and users can automate workflows and processes by utilising IoT technology to transfer data without human-to-human or human-to-computer interaction, the interaction, storage and management of the data generated are not safe or reliable.

The approach outlined in this paper addresses the challenges that IoT and centralised networks present. Blockchain, a peer-to-peer distributed database, offers the possibility to support and maintain the asset information without interruptions in all the stages of the life cycle. The synergy between these technologies, along with other techniques, methods and platforms (such as building information modeling (BIM)), based on a single environment, will support information traceability from the strategic definition to end of life.

The framework of this study presents an excellent opportunity to apply new workflows and processes with the application of new technologies and protocols. It benefits from a well-established platform such as BIM to enable the coordination and management of digital assets as well as giving illustration and collaboration to the supply chain members. IoT and Blockchain are the other layers that work together with the third layer (BIM). This framework proposed the use of these platforms to ensure the information traceability of physical and digital assets, data automation and information management, in a dynamic supply chain ecosystem, bringing efficiency and transparency to stakeholders and users.

This study provides an exploratory framework to be used by the supply chain members in offsite manufacturing, and the architecture, engineering and construction (AEC) industry in general, to track asset information throughout their entire life cycle securely and transparently.

This paper contributes to the knowledge of IoT, Blockchain technology and BIM use in offsite manufacturing under the AEC industry. It provides a basis for future research by professionals, experts and academics regarding these technologies and their workflows.

This paper aims to design, build and evaluate a blockchain platform in the accounting domain, taking an ecosystem perspective. To achieve this aim, the research provides evidence for developing a decentralised architecture rooted on blockchain technology, designing a proof of concept and modelling an accounting blockchain-based system.

Moving from the analysis of previous literature and leveraging on the design science approach, this paper provides a framework grounded on the main pillars of blockchain and accounting functions, identifying technical and non-technical issues that must be addressed embrace blockchain technology's full potential.

We propose and discuss a conceptual framework for a blockchain-based accounting context, moving from the identification of a typical accounting scenario. The framework is organised around three scalable levels: the first level is a technological infrastructure based on a distributed database with peer-to-peer storage; second, in the intermediate level, increasing control levels are assured through permissions and validation and third, in the higher level, the system provides the integration of business and security applications. The deployment of this system relies on a private network of nodes that validates transactions.

The proposed conceptual framework about blockchain development in accounting allows closing the knowledge gap between blockchain developers and accounting experts by suggesting technological and strategic issues for practitioners.

We provide practical guidelines to design and adopt blockchain in the accounting domain.

Many recent social media posts and news may create a perception of big success in the use of blockchain for the real estate industry, land registration and protection of titles and property rights. A sobering outlook is crucial because misleading concepts may bury the whole idea of blockchain use. This paper aims to research the possibilities of blockchain and other distributed ledger technologies (DLT) and applicability of these technologies for different purposes in real estate, property rights and public registries.

This research is framed with policy studies and focuses on property rights, land registration regulatory framework and information and communication technologies innovations. The context of this paper is decentralization which has been developed in political science studies and the role of blockchain and DLT in it. Therefore, the provided analysis of blockchain and DLT is interdisciplinary research to interpret the facets of DLT technologies in the context of real estate and land title registration.

Permissioned and private DLT systems cannot be considered a significant evolutionary step in government systems. Blockchain, which is distinguished from permissioned systems as the technology of the immutable ledger that does not require authorities, is a new word in governance. However, this technology has some principal features that can restrain its implementation at the state level and thus require further research and development. The application of blockchain requires a proper architecture of overlaid technologies to support changes of outdated and mistaken data, address issues of digital identity and privacy, legal compliance and enforceability of smart contracts and scalability of the ledger.

This paper shows the constraints of the technology’s properties which were not explained before in the context of title rights and land registration even though technological limits are known in more specific technical sources. Along with the known benefits this meant to help to avoid misinterpretation of some DLT features by non-technical people. A multidisciplinary approach in analyzing the technology and laws helped to better understand what can and cannot be beneficial for public registries and the protection of property rights. The presented outcomes can be laid down as requirements for the technical protocols aimed at addressing the issues of DLT and public policies to put blockchain at the service of society.

This paper aims to examine the key regulatory challenges impacting blockchains, innovative distributed technologies, in the European Union (EU) and the USA.

A qualitative perspective underpins the study. This paper relies on primary data from applicable statutes and secondary data from the public domain including relevant case study insights.

The smart regulatory hands-off approach adopted in the EU and the USA to a large extent bodes well for future innovative contributions of blockchains in the financial services and related sectors and toward enhanced financial inclusiveness.

The paper’s findings provide support for blockchain technology to advance with minimum regulatory brakes for greater value-adding and efficiency advancement, especially for financial services, thereby expanding accessibility and therefore financial inclusiveness.

This paper helps to draw greater attention to the technology underpinning virtual currencies. It also highlights other economic potentials flowing from blockchain advancement.