blockchain: a structured analysis of a systemic review of a once salient technology
Mohan Bhandari’s paper on the literature surrounding finance through blockchain serves as an interesting bouncing point. It’s a meta-analysis of articles published between 2018 and 2023. Within its introduction, the paper highlights three key issues that the “world community” is facing: Social injustice, resource depletion, and climate change. This article aims to individually assess how blockchain’s integration in finance could even remotely affect each of these issues with the help of other contemporary research in the field. Social Injustice - In several scholarly research articles, transparency of blockchain is placed on the pedestal, deservedly, as the blue haired warrior. Transparency and traceability of funds does stand to reduce corruption, and financial inclusion means people can not be denied access to financial benefits on discriminatory basis. The risk of 51% attacks, and the lack of a safety net, however, stand as opposing forces. Resource Depletion - Blockchain removes intermediaries and surcharges (the need thereof, specifically) levied by them. However, beyond the preservation of financial resources, blockchain does not have much of a positive impact on physical resources. To be the devil’s advocate, it can be pointed out that complete integration of blockchain with finance can help with cyclic tracking of supply chains. Consequently preserving resources in the form of tokenized assets (see, the success of non-fungible tokens) Climate Change - It is argued that blockchain can enhance systemic integrity in sustainable finance. It can reduce greenwashing, verify carbon credits, track ESG metrics, and automate compliance through smart contracts. Regardless, “trust” is not the reason behind climate change and blockchain does not redo industrialisation, deforestation for dairy farming, or reconstruct the idea of the capital. Does people being able to verifiably say if apple products are carbon neutral or tata bought enough carbon credits change anything? The non-trivial problems that blockchain does solve validate its place in finance, given we find measures to bypass its drawbacks.
Research papers referenced: Bhandari, M., Tiwari, G, & Dhakal, M. (2025). Enhancing Transparency and Accountability in Sustainable Finance Through Blockchain Technology: A Systematic Review of the Literature. J. Intell. Manag. Decis., 4(1), 23-43. https://doi.org/10.56578/jimd040102 Mehra, P., Galhotra, B., & Lowe, D. A Study On Threats And Vulnerabilities Of Blockchain Technology Zhang, L., Xie, Y., Zheng, Y., Xue, W., Zheng, X., & Xu, X. (2020). The Challenges and Countermeasures of Blockchain in Finance and Economics. Systems Research and Behavioral Science, 3 (4), 691-698