Cryptocurrency platform ecosystem: a systematic literature review from information systems perspective

Cryptocurrency platform continues to attract public attention in recent times as an alternative payment platform. The platform forms a new ecosystem of different entities such as users, cryptocurrency exchange, wallet providers, miners and platform developers that are interacting together in a value. Information systems (IS) and other related fields’ scholars continue to explore the evolution of these emerging disruptive financial innovations. However, there is a lack of systematic overview that focus on the cryptocurrency platform ecosystem layer. Thus, the objectives of this work are: (1) to identify the number of published IS and other related fields researches that contributed to the ecosystem layer; (2) to determine the research methods and theories used in these published works; and (3) to suggest potential research opportunities in cryptocurrency. A systematic review following [1] and [2] guidelines was conducted to address these objectives. The review analyzes the existing literature published between the years of 2012 to 2017. This period was chosen because cryptocurrency phenomenon is a new field. The results of the review show that there is an inadequate utilization of IS theories and methods in reporting the previous findings. This paper presents and compares the contributions of IS and other IS related fields, scholars regarding the cryptocurrency ecosystem evolution. Finally, the paper concludes by discussing the implications for researchers and practitioners and outlining the potential open research opportunities.