해상운송 거래실무의 블록체인 적용에 관한 연구

A Study on the Blockchain Application in the Transaction Practice of Maritime Transport Services

This study explores the way how to apply blockchain in the transaction practice of maritime transport services. The application of blockchain has mainly been examined focusing on bitcoin. Considering the merit of blockchain related to decentralization and immutability, blockchain is expected to be applied in various industries. According to the diffusions of innovations theory, the current level of blockchain application is considered as the transition stage between decision and implementation. Nevertheless, it is obvious that blockchain application in shipping industry brings several positive changes especially in transaction practice. These changes ultimately lead to the efficiency improvement of maritime transport and the total volume of trade in the world significantly increased. As a result, several major global firms such as IBM and Maersk have been competing to play a leading role in the blockchain platform in shipping industry. The limitation of this study is merely exploratory study on the blockchain application by examining existing studies and summarizing a few cases. A quantitative empirical study on the effect of blockchain application should be conducted in the future.