Peer Review: Toward a Blockchain-enabled Market-based Ecosystem

The scientific enterprise relies on a peer-review process to maintain the quality of academic discourse and to ensure researchers develop a valid and consistent cumulative body of knowledge. In recent years, it appears that the review capacity in the IS field has decreased, which indicates that the community’s hunger for publication accompanies only a modest appetite for providing the necessary support to sustain the consequent increase in peer-review load. The advent of blockchain technologies and the proliferation of cryptocurrencies presents an opportunity to develop a token-based peer-review payment system that can clear the congested review pipelines while also controlling for quality and spreading the equity that peer review generates in a fair fashion through market-regulation mechanisms. Despite the digital transformation of the publishing industry, little has been done thus far to address the chronic inefficiency of the review process. The typical review cycles, which are measured in years, suggest that something needs to change. Developing a token-based peer-review payment system may be an opportunity not only to address the apparent challenge in the peer-review process but also to assert our proclaimed role as stewards of the digital revolution.