BLOCKCHAIN-ENABLED DIGITAL ASSETS FOR E-COMMERCE LOGISTICS FINANCING

This seminar presents The explosive growth of e-commerce has driven the rapid expansion of logistics companies (LCs) and the emergence of logistics financing (LF). Yet small and medium-sized LCs often miss growth opportunities due to challenges related to information sharing. This research investigates some related technologies and decision-making models to facilitate LF applications through three scenarios. The first scenario introduces a platform that utilizes the digital assets (DAs) from LCs to aid LF. It enables external systems integration by designing and implementing a blockchain-enabled traceability platform and demonstrating its application for LF using an illustrative case study. The second scenario delves into the valuation problem for DAs, using a model inspired by a standard monopolistic screening model. The model consists of a unique cost structure of creating and providing DAs to agents who consume its versions by incurring a token payment. The valuation mechanism shows that cost factors are the sole determinants of the optimality of the DAs provisioning strategy. Interestingly, the costs do not directly influence who gets to consume DAs. The third scenario investigates the problem of incentivizing DAs sharing in the presence of interdependence and cost sharing for technologyadoption. A two-stage Stackelberg game captures the interaction between providers and users of DAs and analyzes the impact of various factors on participants’ benefits. It is found that increasing incentives increases participants’ payoffs, whereas increasing technology adoption costs decreases the benefits. However, there is a unique level of cost-sharing that maximizes the utility of the users of DAs. The research concludes with a discussion of potential future research directions.