23.

  Leveraging trust on sharing economy platforms:

reputation systems, blockchain technology and
cryptocurrencies
Mareike Möhlmann, Timm Teubner and Antje Graul

INTRODUCTION
The spread of online and mobile technology has fostered opportunities for communica-
tion, connection, and coordination, fueling the rise of the sharing economy (Hawlitschek
et al. 2016; Sundararajan 2016). Widespread acceptance of the sharing economy is
reflected in the continued growth of a plethora of high-value start-ups such as Uber,
Airbnb, BlaBlaCar, and TaskRabbit. From an information systems and management
perspective, the sharing economy can be seen as a landscape of digital platforms that
enable peer-to-peer exchange. Such platforms connect spare capacity with demand and
foster access-over-ownership schemes such as renting or lending (Möhlmann 2015). In
the peer-to-peer context, trust has been identified as a key enabler of sharing activities
and a key construct in transactions between strangers (Botsman and Rogers 2010;
Sundararajan 2016; Zervas et al. 2015). Trust is pivotal to sharing economy transactions,
particularly because they are characterized by high uncertainty and dynamic changes
(Mazzella et al. 2016; Möhlmann and Geissinger 2018). As such, trust can be understood
as a willingness to commit a collaborative effort before knowing whether another person
will behave appropriately (Coleman 1988).
For most of human history, trust has evolved in the private context of families and
communities (Burt 2000; Coleman 1988; Greif 1989; Masum and Tovey 2011). However,
recent developments in information systems and technology have triggered novel ways
to extend the creation of trust into digital environments. In placing individual exchange
at their core, many digital sharing platforms now successfully mitigate perceptions of
“stranger danger” by designing for digital trust between peers (Möhlmann and Geissinger
2018). Indeed, digitally enabled trust mechanisms, such as reputation scores and review
systems, have become crucial in facilitating interactions on peer-to-peer exchange plat-
forms (Möhlmann 2016; Usrey and Graul 2017).
In this regard, scholars suggest that the spread of blockchain technology has the poten-
tial to establish “trust-free” (Beck et al. 2016; Greiner and Wang 2015), or “trust-in-no-
one” (Humayun and Belk 2018), secure and transparent systems, obviating the need for
costly trust mechanisms established by intermediaries. Blockchain technology allows for
decentralized and public distribution of digital information through distributed ledgers
(Huckle et al. 2016; Swan 2015). With the help of so-called smart contracts, blockchains
may facilitate validated transactions across a number of network participants referred to
as nodes (Glaser 2017). In this context, mediating platform providers may be eliminated
and potentially replaced by decentralized autonomous organizations (Avital et al. 2016;
Beck et al. 2016; Beck et al. 2018; Jarvenpaa and Teigland 2017).

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 Leveraging trust on sharing economy platforms  291

Despite the promises of blockchain technology, it is important to recognize that experts

call for caution. Blockchain technology and cryptocurrencies should not be considered
silver bullets (Beck et al. 2016), and it is important to critically evaluate their potential in
the explicit context of sharing economy scenarios (Hawlitschek et al. 2018). Research on
the implications of blockchain technology and cryptocurrencies is still in its infancy and
academics have only recently begun to uncover and discuss associated theoretical aspects.
Furthermore, following theories of the diffusion of innovation, it remains unclear when
blockchain technologies will be widely accepted and able to serve broad, mainstream
markets. More profound knowledge of the current discourse may help to evaluate users’
needs and to draw conclusions about sharing economy platforms’ potential to flourish
using these technologies.
The objectives of this chapter are: (1) to outline the historical evolution of trust; (2)
to capture the status quo regarding sharing economy platforms maintaining reputation
systems to leverage digital trust between peers; and (3) to explore the trust potential of
blockchain technology and cryptocurrencies in the particular context of the sharing
economy.
The chapter begins by setting trust and reputation in historical perspective, forging a
bridge from our early ancestors to today’s internet users. Next, we discuss how rating and
review systems are currently the dominant mechanism for establishing and maintaining
trust on peer-to-peer platforms commonly found in the sharing economy. We then explore
opportunities for and challenges to fostering trust based on blockchain technology and
cryptocurrencies in the sharing economy. Drawing on public evaluations of the potential
associated with blockchain technology, we analyze data from Reddit, a United States
(US)-based platform that allows users to aggregate news and other publicly available
content, which is then commented on and discussed in forums. We conclude by touching
on avenues for further research.

FROM COMMUNITY-BASED TRUST TO DIGITAL TRUST: A

HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE

For most of human history, trust has been built in the private context of families and com-
munities, as social capital theorists argue (Burt 2000; Coleman 1988; Greif 1989; Masum
and Tovey 2011), on social capital shared amongst members. Sharing of personal belong-
ings and material goods—such as accommodation, cars, bikes, clothing, and food—plays
an important role in this process, as it may be seen as a pro-social act between community
members that fosters trust amongst them. This idea can be explained in terms of a basic
assumption of general reciprocity, which suggests that when an individual shares personal
belongings as a good deed, this act of kindness will be returned or compensated in the
near future (Albinsson and Perera 2012; Putnam 2000). However, sharing within families
and close communities often has no specific timeframe or guidance on when the good
deed should be reciprocated, and restitution may even involve a completely different
situation unrelated to the original sharing transaction. Thus, trust is the key component
that allows trusted community members to share “without calculating returns” (Price
1975, 4), making the social and emotional component paramount. Only through trust can
individuals successfully deal with the resulting uncertainty and short-term imbalance of

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 292  Handbook of the sharing economy

good deeds (Hellwig et al. 2015). Consequently, there must be a high level of trust between
community members, strengthened through positive experiences and re-engagement in
sharing. Recurrence of this reinforcing process may translate into social capital, under-
stood as a “connection among individuals’ social networks and the norms of reciprocity
and trustworthiness that arise from them” (Putnam 2000, 19), which may in turn foster
community and bonding through sharing (Albinsson and Perera 2012).
In view of this self-reinforcing circle, researchers unsurprisingly argue that interper-
sonal, pro-social forms of sharing increase providers’ moral self-perceptions (Hellwig et
al. 2015), relate to altruistic behavior (Belk 2010; Hellwig et al. 2015), and may sometimes
be motivated by social desirability (Ariely and Norton 2009). Overall, trust has evolved
as an important aspect of human and interpersonal relationships, building the founda-
tion for effective transactions in a range of environments. Trust enables exchanges and
transactions to take place, particularly when individuals encounter situations that are
unpredictable and bear a certain potential for risk.
Over time, trust in close communities evolved into trust in institutions. With the
development of long-distance economic trade beyond close communities, a reputation as
a trustworthy transaction partner became necessary for economic success (Greif 1989).
Later, governmental and political institutions and large corporations were formed, caus-
ing a shift toward institution-based trust. In contrast to social trust, institution-based
trust is based on regulation, property rights, and contracts, as well as on brand values and
promises that vouch for current and future credibility (Mazzella et al. 2016; Möhlmann
and Geissinger 2018).
With regard to commercial transactions and risky financial operations, scholars
emphasize the important role that information systems and digital technology play in
building trust, and in enabling economic exchanges among strangers online (Masum
and Tovey 2011). In this regard, digital technology is considered to have been helpful in
unlocking the potential for building trust in the sharing economy (Mazzella et al. 2016).
Indeed, platform-mediated trust is particularly salient in the sharing economy, where
online platforms function as mediators between peers. Thus, online platforms enable
peer-to-peer transactions involving products and services by implementing a variety of
trust-building tools (Möhlmann 2016; Mazzella et al. 2016).
More recently, a trend for decentralization has been driven by a vision to “eliminate
intermediaries, thereby lowering operational costs and increasing the efficiency of a
sharing service” (Sun et al. 2016, 6). Blockchain is a technology that seems to respond
promisingly to this phenomenon. Before shedding light on this particular technology, we
consider the means employed by platform operators to enhance their users’ reputation
and hence facilitate the emergence of trust.

DESIGNING REPUTATION SYSTEMS TO LEVERAGE DIGITAL

TRUST

Many sharing economy platforms are now successfully acting as brokers between peers by
designing for digital trust. Platforms act as intermediaries that facilitate trusted transac-
tions between strangers, mainly by implementing a variety of tools that allow peers to
engage in online transactions (Möhlmann and Geissinger 2018). For instance, a platform

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 Leveraging trust on sharing economy platforms  293

may allow peers to display profile pictures or self-descriptions, present certifications and
verifications, provide insurance cover, or implement escrow services in order to assure the
safety of financial transactions (Ert et al. 2016; Ma et al. 2017; Möhlmann and Geissinger
2018; Teubner and Hawlitschek 2018).
The most frequently discussed trust tools in research so far are reputation systems
based on mutual star ratings and text reviews (Usrey and Graul 2017; Teubner and Glaser
2018; Zervas et al. 2015). Since transactions on sharing economy platforms typically
involve first-time encounters between strangers, trust cannot be leveraged from personal
histories and experiences, as was historically the case in families and communities. Peers
often have no opportunity to build a history of personal interactions or gain first-hand
experience of their peer’s expected behavior. Rating systems and text reviews serve to
build reputation and offer peers access to information about how others have behaved in
the past. Thus, ratings and reviews display accumulated social capital that offers valuable
and independent signals about another individual’s behavior (Bolton et al. 2008; Mazzella
et al. 2016).
These tools were pioneered by online platforms such as Amazon, Booking.com, and
eBay, which implemented ratings and review systems in order to establish trust between
unknown buyers and providers (Belk 2015; Bolton et al. 2008; Pavlou and Gefen 2004;
Masum and Tovey 2011; Rice 2012). Similar systems have since been implemented by
sharing economy platforms, whereby users are typically enabled to rate their transaction
partners once a transaction has been completed, and these ratings are then made publicly
available. Such simultaneous reviews are a first attempt to address challenges such as
skewed reviews, review fraud, and even gossiping and shaming on digital platforms
(Solove 2007). This contrasts with the rating systems of some larger platforms such as
Amazon (and Google, Facebook, TripAdvisor, app stores, and so on), where there is no
restriction, and every consumer is able to write a review or rate a product for the com-
munity, even if they have not actually purchased or used a product or service. Although
platforms such as TripAdvisor may review comments before posting them publicly, lack
of control is recognized as a drawback in the electronic word-of-mouth literature on
digital reputation (Jensen et al. 2013).

Trust Transfer and Reputation Portability

Many sharing economy platforms involve rather complex trust relationships. This
includes the interactions between trust in the mediating platform provider, trust in the
peers engaging in transactions on the platform, trust in the shared goods or services, and
even trust in the underlying technological infrastructure (Kumar et al. 2018; Möhlmann
and Geissinger 2018). In this regard, trust transfers and reputation portability represent
pivotal aspects in understanding trust formation processes in complex and multi-level
contexts such as peer-based sharing and the platform economy (Kumar et al. 2018).
Peers may build trust in a multitude of targets at different levels, and trust may refer to
interpersonal trust, institutional or organizational trust, and even trust in technology
(Jarvenpaa and Teigland 2017; Möhlmann and Geissinger 2018).
In this regard, “trust transfer” refers to potential cross-level effects between different
trust targets (Chen et al. 2015). This can refer to a situation in which one user trusts
the other on a platform based on their trust in the platform itself. For example, hosts

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 294  Handbook of the sharing economy

on Airbnb and sellers on eBay seem to “inherit” trustworthiness from the platform
environment. Various studies have found empirical support for the transfer of trust
from platform to users (Möhlmann 2016; Chen et al. 2015; Verhagen et al. 2006).
Although most researchers seem to accept this finding as rather obvious, it is actually
not straightforward, since platforms do not usually create particularly strict access
controls or barriers. We assume that trust transfers may actually be two-sided or work
in the opposite direction. For instance, the presence of particularly trustworthy users on
a platform may render the entire platform environment, and hence the platform itself,
more reliable and trustworthy.
Extending the notion of trust transfer, “reputation portability” refers to a signal’s
effectiveness when it originates in a different context from its current application (Teubner
et al. 2019). For example, new hosts on Airbnb (with no Airbnb-based track record) might
link to their long-standing history of eBay transactions as reputable sellers. Several studies
suggest that trust-building may in fact work across platform boundaries. For instance,
crowd workers’ performance (for example, in web development or translation) can be
predicted from prior feedback scores from different contexts (Kokkodis and Ipeirotis
2016). Similarly, extant social media data (for example, from Facebook or Twitter) can
be employed to infer a user’s legitimacy on novel or emerging platforms, distinguishing
legitimate from fraudulent users (Venkatadri et al. 2016). In this regard, the European
Union’s General Data Protection Regulation, and particularly its notion of the free
movement of data, effective from May 2018, addresses the issues of a lack of data sov-
ereignty, impaired platform competition, and consumer lock-in effects. As the notion of
“reputation portability” between consumer platforms is far from being fully understood,
many future scenarios are conceivable, including panopticon-like rating transparency
and surveillance as foreshadowed by the social credit system proposed by the Chinese
government (see Alessandro Gandini’s Chapter 29 in this book).

UNPACKING THE TRUST POTENTIAL OF BLOCKCHAIN

TECHNOLOGY AND CRYPTOCURRENCIES IN THE SHARING
ECONOMY

Recently, blockchain technology has been proposed as a promising and innovative

way to eliminate the need for trust between strangers, enabling novel organizational
structures in the form of decentralized autonomous organizations (Beck et al. 2016;
Jarvenpaa and Teigland 2017). It is designed with the intention of emulating a “trusted
computing service through a distributed protocol” (Cachin 2016, 1), which is expected
to be more accountable and less prone to the common risks of centralized transac-
tions (Zyskind and Nathan 2015). Indeed, blockchains promise to help streamline
value chains, as they enable different stakeholders to easily share verified information.
Employing blockchain technology allows the replacement of traditional hierarchies
with distributed systems (De Filippi 2017). Ultimately, “people do not have to assess
the trustworthiness of the intermediary or other participants in the network” (Nofer et
al. 2017, 184).

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 Leveraging trust on sharing economy platforms  295

Trust, Cryptocurrencies, and Bitcoin

While users have historically trusted in authorities such as central banks, the financial
crisis and other developments have led them to question the wisdom of centralized hierar-
chies. Decentralized payment systems based on blockchain-based peer-to-peer networks
are put forward as a response to this challenge (Lindman et al. 2017). Cryptocurrencies
are typically free from bank and governmental regulation (Sas and Khairuddin 2017), and
are considered suitable for transactions such as micro-payments, mobile payments, and
peer-to-peer lending as a surrogate for traditional forms of money (Lindman et al. 2017).
The most popular cryptocurrency example may be Bitcoin: an open, “transparent, fast,
cost effective, and irreversible” system that relies on decentralized transactions between
peers (Sas and Khairuddin 2017, 6499; see also Nakamoto 2008). Experts suggest that
Bitcoin empowers users, enabling “a shift from trusting people to trusting math” (Nofer et
al. 2017, 183; Antonopoulos 2014). While financial sector applications and payment sys-
tems lead the way in the recent blockchain hype, other sectors are starting to appreciate its
potential and are beginning to design applications of decentralized systems for healthcare,
transportation, and entertainment (Avital et al. 2016). Integration of technology promises
to improve connective products and digital transactions, using blockchains as a solution
for effective, trusted data management.

Examples of Successful Applications of Blockchain Technology beyond Cryptocurrencies

Although the application of blockchain technology by sharing economy platforms has

not yet been widely adopted, we can start to identify several successful examples of social
network applications such as Akasha, a decentralized social media network (De Filippi
2017). With regard to sharing economy applications facilitating peer-to-peer exchanges of
products and services, the recently founded blockchain-based platform ShareRing aims
to provide a holistic interface by combining and integrating existing applications, such
as Airbnb and Uber, into a single overarching platform (Miller 2018). ShareRing claims
to have the advantage that payments involve no additional fees. Rather, the system relies
on its own cryptocurrency, called SharePay, which is combined with a system allowing
for identity verification in order to prevent currency theft, thus establishing a secure and
trusted environment for its users (ibid.). Other applications of blockchain in the sharing
economy include OpenBazaar, a marketplace that facilitates sharing transactions without
a “middleman,” and the decentralized, community-owned transportation platform
Lazooz (De Filippi 2017). Some experts predict the beginning of an economy of “true
sharing,” in which technology enables consumers to share directly (ibid.).

Disadvantages and Challenges of Blockchain Technology

It is important to consider not only the strengths, but also the weaknesses of blockchain
technology and cryptocurrencies (Beck et al. 2016). For instance, public awareness about
enormous amounts of electricity involved in mining, and thus the environmental costs
of adding transaction records to public ledgers, has increased recently. The public has
become more aware of risks such as cyber-hacking attacks, theft, and accidental loss of
“coins” (Crosby et al. 2015; Nofer et al. 2017). Indeed, scholars warn of a fragility created

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 296  Handbook of the sharing economy

by blockchains such as the Bitcoin ecosystem, which is susceptible to various forms of

manipulation (Humayun and Belk 2018).
Further, the notion that blockchains are “trust-free” has been criticized. Although
blockchain technology promises high security and transparency, it still depends heavily
on human intervention, for instance in the process of writing smart contracts. While
these contractual agreements can be implemented automatically once they have been
written (Beck et al. 2016; Morrison 2016), it may be necessary to negotiate contracts,
for instance when writing new or seeking to change previously established rules. While
blockchain technologies relieve users of the need to assess others’ or an intermediary’s
trustworthiness (Nofer et al. 2017), successful transactions still depend on the involved
peers’ trust in the underlying algorithms and in the designers and decision makers behind
these algorithms (Hawlitschek et al. 2018; Humayun and Belk 2018).
It has been noticed, moreover, that blockchain technology may only partially be able to
address the social desires and behaviors of its users. While the blockchain may eliminate
the need for institutional structures or remove the transaction costs incurred when relying
on an intermediary (De Filippi 2017), paradoxically, previous research has shown that
many peers are actually demanding institutional support when using these technologies
(Sas and Khairuddin 2017). In this sense, cryptocurrencies may also remove a security
layer as they eliminate banks’ ability to identify (malicious) actors, accept liability, or
reverse erroneous or fraudulent transactions (Sas and Khairuddin 2017). Indeed, only
private and “permissioned” blockchains can restrict access to trusted participants.
Furthermore, blockchain technology may not align with regulation. For instance,
the current European Union data protection law allows for reversibility by enabling
participants to ask for their personal data to be removed from an institution’s servers.
However, data entries on typical blockchains cannot be altered once documented (The
Economist, 2018).
In addition, blockchain technology can only assure secure transactions within the engi-
neering framework of blockchains, but does not touch on trust outside the boundaries
of its closed ecosystem (Glaser 2017; Hawlitschek et al. 2018). This is a challenge, since
human behavior is not bound to digital ecosystems, particularly in the context of the
sharing economy, where human interactions lie at the core of exchanges that may also
take place offline (Möhlmann 2016).

The Potential of Blockchain and Cryptocurrencies: Public Discourse in the Reddit

Community

Having discussed the potential and challenges of these novel technologies in theory,
we now take a closer look at the related public discourse. In seeking to investigate how
the public perceives the potential of blockchain technology and cryptocurrencies in
the sharing economy, we conducted a simple yet effective study to help us to develop
a more detailed understanding of public discussion of the topic in question. Our data
are designed to mirror and enrich the arguments of our discussion of the latest stage of
research on this topic.
We analyzed forum entries from the Reddit community. Reddit is a US-based platform
that allows peers to aggregate news and other publicly available content, which is then
commented on, curated, and discussed in forums. We chose to use Reddit as our research

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 Leveraging trust on sharing economy platforms  297

setting as it allows users to draw on a variety of sources and post all kinds of third-party
content. Thus, Reddit was likely to provide us with a valuable understanding of which
topics were dominating the public discourse at the time of analysis. As of 2017, the Reddit
community had about half a million monthly users, and can thus certainly be considered
to be one of the major sources of user-curated information aggregation in the US.
Discourse analysis refers to a variety of methods employed to examine the role of
language in social construction (Vaast et al. 2013). We harvested forum posts from
the Reddit community in October 2017. Owing to the large volume of available data,
most of which was relevant to our research objective, we used a subsample, derived by
searching the Reddit forum for threads containing the four terms sharing, economy,
blockchain, and cryptocurrency. We followed this procedure since it allowed us to
identify threads that were directly relevant to our research objective (Jones and Alony
2008; Vaast et al. 2013). We retrieved 56 threads with a total of 1007 comments. Data
points referred to forum entries reflecting individuals’ opinions and thoughts, and links
to newspaper articles and other third-party content shared by community members
on this topic of special interest. We determined the frequency of the four terms in
the various threads. The descriptive results provide us with information on how often
different terms appeared in the public discourse on Reddit. Our aggregated findings are
summarized in the following.
First, the Reddit discussions covered various topics, from which we identified five main
thematic clusters: technical aspects, types of currency, business sectors, trust and security,
and regulation (see Figure 23.1). Second, although our dataset was explicitly identified
by filtering threads for relevant keywords, the term sharing economy was only mentioned
24 times in total (while the more general term sharing, which may not necessarily have
been used to refer to the sharing economy, was counted 98 times). Synonyms for sharing
economy, including collaborative economy, collaborative consumption, and gig economy,
were not identified in the dataset. Instead, our findings reveal that topics addressing the
banking industry dominated the discussion, with the term bank* counted 113 times. More
than half of the keywords in the business sectors cluster referred to the banking industry,
while only 10.7 percent referred to the sharing economy.
Third, in the types of currency thematic cluster, we identified as many as 961 counts of
the term Bitcoin: 75.6 percent of all conversations referring to different types of currency
mentioned Bitcoin, while other currencies were addressed much less frequently (Ethereum
17.5 percent, Ripple 2.5 percent, Bitcoin Cash 2.3 percent, Litecoin 2.1 percent). Fourth,
we detected that the Reddit community did refer to the topic area of trust and security. In
the respective thematic cluster, the keywords secur* (46.9 percent), trust* (36.1 percent),
and smart contract* (17.0 percent) were identified, although we did not detect extensive
interest in this topic. Fifth, in comparing the popularity of the different topic areas, we
found that trust and security (305 counts), and regulation (220 counts) were much less
popular than the technical aspect (1723 counts) and types of currency (1272 counts)
thematic clusters.
In summary, the public discourse in our subsample drawn from the Reddit community
was dominated by discussions of Bitcoin and the banking industry. Our results reflect
public discourse focusing on the extraordinary surge in demand for cryptocurrencies
in 2017, and in particular Bitcoin’s skyrocketing market prices. They suggest that this
“Bitcoin hype” may have overshadowed the discourse on alternative applications of

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 298  Handbook of the sharing economy

Term Frequency

Blockchain Security

Security
Trust &
Technical aspects

Crypto Trust
Node Smart Contract
Decentral

Regulation
Government
Storage
Regulation
Mining
Law
Ledger
Bank
Bitcoin
P2P/peer-to-peer
Currencies

Business
Ethereum

Sectors
Ripple Commerce
Bitcoin Cash Sharing Economy
Litecoin Entrepeneur
0 200 400 600 800 1000 0 200

Technical aspects Type of currency Business sector Trust and security Regulation
Blockchain Bitcoin* (minus Bank* Secur* Government*
605 (35.1%) Bitcoin Cash) 113 (50.4%) 143 (46.9%) 84 (38.2%)
961 (75.6%)
Crypto* Ethereum* P2P/peer-to-peer Trust* Regulat*
398 (23.1%) 223 (17.5%) 45 (20.1%) 110 (36.1%) 71 (32.3%)
Node* Ripple* Commerc* Smart Contract* Law*
255 (14.8%) 32 (2.5%) 27 (12.1%) 52 (17.0%) 65 (29.5%)
Decentral* Bitcoin Cash* Sharing Economy
217 (12.6%) 29 (2.3%) 24 (10.7%)
Storage* Litecoin* Entrepren*
92 (5.3%) 27 (2.1%) 15 (6.7%)
Mining*
89 (5.2%)
Ledger
67 (3.9%)
1723 (100%) 1272 (100%) 224 (100%) 305 (100%) 220 (100%)

Figure 23.1  P
 ublic discourse on the potential of blockchain technology and
cryptocurrencies in the sharing economy

blockchain technology. Although our dataset was identified by filtering threads for
the keywords sharing, economy, blockchain, and cryptocurrency, very few posts actually
referred to the sharing economy.
Furthermore, trust and security were not identified as a very popular topic among
Reddit community members, while a minority of discussions made reference to the
notion of smart contracts, which is a key trust-building feature specific to the blockchain
technology context. Our findings reveal that the public is not ignoring blockchain and
cryptocurrencies, but has not yet picked up on the potential opportunities that these might
bring through providing leverage in the explicit context of the sharing economy, and even
fostering trust among participants in the sharing economy.

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 Leveraging trust on sharing economy platforms  299

CONCLUSION

Experts suggest that urban life might be significantly improved by fostering sharing to
reduce consumption, waste, and pollution, while conserving resources by exchanging
underutilized assets with others (Botsman and Rogers 2010; Sundararajan 2016; Sun
et al. 2016). Trust has been identified as a key enabler of sharing activities, helping to
overcome risk and uncertainty by providing participants with a feeling of security (Graul
and Theotokis 2016; Möhlmann 2015).
In this chapter, we have outlined the historical evolution of trust, and have discussed
how, for most of human history, trust and reputation have defined the core of personal
relationships. Moreover, we have shed light on platforms in the sharing economy that
currently build and maintain trust between peers by employing reputation systems. We
have explored opportunities for and challenges to fostering trust based on blockchain
technology and cryptocurrencies in the sharing economy, and have analyzed the public
discourse in the Reddit community addressing these technological advances.
It can be concluded that blockchain technology may offer a promising avenue for future
ways in which sharing economy businesses may facilitate trust. Indeed, the integration
of blockchain technology may allow for improvements regarding the decentralization of
control in sharing economy applications, thus unveiling the full potential of peer-to-peer
transactions online. To date, few sharing economy platforms have applied these technolo-
gies. The findings from our study even suggest that many platforms may currently be
missing out. They do not succeed in raising awareness or triggering a public discourse that
connects their business sector with the potential that these technologies may yield. Thus,
we suggest that sharing economy platforms might take better advantage of the recent hype
around blockchains and cryptocurrencies.
However, sharing economy platforms must leverage this potential with great care,
and be aware of the challenges and downsides that these technologies may bring, for
themselves and their users. In this regard, we have critically discussed issues such as the
amounts of electricity involved in mining, cyber-hacking, and data protection regula-
tions. We have also argued that the notion of “trust-free” blockchains may be misleading.
Rather than making trust obsolete, blockchain technology may alter how and whom
users trust.
Future research may examine how to overcome these challenges. Specifically, it is crucial
to increase our understanding of how to link the advantages of this technology with the
social desires and behaviors of its current and prospective users, and the human interven-
tions necessary to set up the systems and keep them running. Indeed, human interaction
lies at the core of sharing economy exchanges. Many platforms involve both online and
offline interactions, such as when peers meet in person to share accommodation or a car
ride after being matched online (Möhlmann 2016). So far, blockchain technology can
only assure trust within, but not beyond, its narrow digital ecosystem. However, human
interactions and trust relationships in the sharing economy are more complex, reaching
beyond solely technological means. We encourage future research to address this gap and
eventually enable sharing businesses to unlock their full potential.

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