Blockchain-based system and trust: an integrated model of how coding rules create a trusted digital economy

Blockchain technology promises to revolutionize transactions that require high degrees of mutual trust. It represents for economic transactions an innovative institutions with the potential to alter the conventional trust boundaries. With blockchain, there is a shift from trusting people and firms to trusting the code as logic rules that can exercise governance on behavior. However, such a sense of trust deserves more theoretical effort. In this paper, we expand the current economic view of trust; one that extends beyond the economic benefits and explores the antecedent cognitive aspects to the building process of institution-based trust, by means of rule-governed behavior theory. Using primarily a cognitive approach, we discuss the causes, nature, and effects of trusting rules as an alternative strategy to build trust in current digital economy.