Understanding the Formation of Trust in Blockchain

Trust plays a crucial role in our daily lives. With the advent of blockchain technology, the issue of trust has become a more important topic to mankind. This revolutionary change in the technological context enables new forms of human, social, economic, and humane interactions. It also empowers individuals to leverage the value of their participation. The subversive nature of blockchain challenges the existing notion of trust, which is the basis of our research. This interpretive study based on interview data, using an inductive process of theory generation revealed three interconnected trusting-beliefs: Technical features, Functionality, and Valuableness as the dimensions of trust in blockchain. There is a remarkable similitude between the definitions of these dimensions and the conventional trusting beliefs. However, the latter is more expansive; they are explicitly infused and extended to delineate trust dimensions of blockchain. Furthermore, this research highlights a close bond between the trusting-beliefs and the characteristics of blockchain.