Workflow Management on Proof-of-Work Blockchains: Implications and Recommendations

Blockchain technology, originally popularized by cryptocurrencies, has been proposed as an infrastructure technology with applications in many areas of business management. Blockchains provide an immutable record of transactions, which makes them useful in situations where actors must cooperate but may not fully trust each other. In this paper, we examine the use of proof-of-work blockchains for executing inter-organizational workflows. We discuss architectural options and describe two prototype implementations of a blockchain-based workflow management system (WfMS), highlighting differences to traditional WfMS. Our main contribution is the identification of potential problems raised by proof-of-work blockchain infrastructure and recommendations to address them.