On the Understanding of Gamification in Blockchain Systems

Blockchain is a new trend rising fast from the community and the enterprise world. As an infrastructural technology it is finding its way into a growing number of domains like finance, medical, digital marketplace, pharmaceutical and government agencies. While blockchain technology is primarily thought as the foundation of Bitcoin, it has grown far beyond underpinning the virtual currency. It promises building better trust, transparency, and integrity without a third-party and the risk of censorship. These remarkable advantages do however come at a price. The blockchain ecosystem is riddled with human-centric and economical issues for its participants, leading to unintended consequences in decentralized networks. Gamified software engineering is a growing field that in particular taps into gamification technology, the application of game mechanics in non-game contexts, to address human-related concerns. There are currently no studies around blockchain that have been identified to have a clear view of existing research and solutions for utilizing the gamification in the emerging blockchain systems. As a first step towards filling this gap, this paper discusses and identifies two major human-based problems in the blockchain decentralized applications and development. For those problems, it proposes a preliminary gamified model to provide a basis for expanding future research and applications in this joint domain.