The advancements in the fields of IT and robotics are provoking the fourth industrial revolution and transforming our economy toward the machine economy. Billions of economically autonomous machines engaging in business relationships raise novel requirements regarding security, privacy, regulation, business models, trustful transaction processing, and interoperability. A technology that promises to provide solutions to these challenges is blockchain. Neither practice has spawned productive solutions nor has research been able to assess the phenomenon profoundly. First investigations focus on specific use cases, but existing work does not examine the overall impact and role of blockchain in the machine economy. However, this knowledge is of particular importance for various stakeholders. In this article, we address this research and knowledge gap by conducting a study with 50 blockchain and machine economy experts. We establish a sound research fundament by following a literature assessment, group discussion, interviews, and qualitative data analysis. As main research instrument, we chose a Delphi study, which has a long-proven record of application in prospective studies and has been applied to examine future premises, estimates, and challenges across nearly all disciplines. This allows us to derive six key findings leading to a transparent picture of blockchain's role in the machine economy.

中文翻译：

---

区块链将在多大程度上推动机器经济？前瞻性研究的观点

IT 和机器人领域的进步正在引发第四次工业革命，并将我们的经济转变为机器经济。数十亿台参与业务关系的经济自主机器对安全、隐私、监管、商业模式、可信交易处理和互操作性提出了新的要求。有望为这些挑战提供解决方案的技术是区块链。实践既没有产生富有成效的解决方案，也没有研究能够深刻地评估这种现象。初步调查侧重于特定用例，但现有工作并未考察区块链在机器经济中的整体影响和作用。然而，这种知识对各种利益相关者都特别重要。在本文中，我们通过与 50 位区块链和机器经济专家进行研究来解决这一研究和知识差距。我们通过文献评估、小组讨论、访谈和定性数据分析来建立健全的研究基础。作为主要的研究工具，我们选择了一项德尔菲研究，该研究在前瞻性研究中有着长期的应用记录，并已被应用于检查几乎所有学科的未来前提、估计和挑战。这使我们能够得出六个关键发现，从而清晰地了解区块链在机器经济中的作用。我们选择了一项 Delphi 研究，该研究在前瞻性研究中有着久经考验的应用记录，并且已被应用于检查几乎所有学科的未来前提、估计和挑战。这使我们能够得出六个关键发现，从而清晰地了解区块链在机器经济中的作用。我们选择了一项 Delphi 研究，该研究在前瞻性研究中有着久经考验的应用记录，并且已被应用于检查几乎所有学科的未来前提、估计和挑战。这使我们能够得出六个关键发现，从而清晰地了解区块链在机器经济中的作用。