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- May 2023
- Teaching Note
Ava Labs: Navigating the Next Blockchain
By: Marco Di Maggio and Wenyao Sha
Teaching Note for HBS Case No. 223-027.
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- February 2023
- Supplement
Astyanax Kanakakis at norbloc: A Founder's Experience with the DIFC Fintech Hive
By: Linda A. Hill and Lydia Begag
norbloc was founded in 2016 in Stockholm, Sweden, by Astyanax Kanakakis and his co-founders, Vitalii Demianets and Sam Saatchi. Kanakakis and Demianets got to work to address a key gap in the industry: Know Your Customer (KYC) data sharing. As the first distributed KYC...
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Keywords:
Organizational Change and Adaptation;
Organizational Design;
Organizational Culture;
Organizational Structure;
Organizations;
Leadership;
Leadership Development;
Leadership Style;
Collaborative Innovation and Invention;
Digital Transformation;
Digital Strategy;
Digital Platforms;
Technology Adoption;
Technological Innovation;
Corporate Entrepreneurship;
Business and Government Relations;
Business Startups;
Financial Services Industry;
Technology Industry;
Banking Industry;
Information Technology Industry;
Sweden;
Europe;
Singapore;
London;
United Arab Emirates;
Dubai;
Middle East;
Athens;
Greece
- November 2022 (Revised December 2022)
- Case
Ava Labs: Navigating the Next Blockchain
By: Marco Di Maggio and Wenyao Sha
John Wu, President of Ava Labs, the primary developer of the Avalanche blockchain, and Emin Gün Sirer, the software company’s Founder and CEO, team up to develop a lending and borrowing protocol that would jumpstart the Decentralized finance (DeFi) economy on...
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- September 10, 2022
- Article
NFT Sales: Clearing the Market, Avoiding Gas Wars
By: Scott Duke Kominers and Tim Roughgarden
Instead of letting the market decide the price for their primary sale offerings, many NFT projects choose to initially sell their NFTs at prices below the market-clearing level. But what happens when market designers trade off efficiency for equity; or when demand far...
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- August 2022 (Revised February 2023)
- Case
Braintrust: The Blockchain-Powered Talent Network
By: Christopher Stanton, Joseph B. Fuller and George Gonzalez
A San Francisco startup seeks to disrupt the freelancing industry through its user-owned talent network powered by the cryptocurrency, BTRST.
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- Article
Why Build in Web3
By: Jad Esber and Scott Duke Kominers
A major change is coming to the internet. While today’s dominant platforms have guarded their troves of user data and maintained an advantage through network effects, new companies—working in what they're calling a “Web3” model—are proposing a new value proposition to...
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- April 2022
- Case
Mastercard: Creating a World Beyond Cash
In late 2021, Mastercard CEO Michael Miebach and Chairman and former CEO Ajaypal “Ajay” Banga considered how Mastercard could best position itself for continued success in the years to come. Since Mastercard’s initial public offering in 2006, the company had grown and...
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Keywords:
Technological Innovation;
Leadership;
Leading Change;
Organizational Culture;
Business Strategy;
Change;
Change Management;
Money;
Cash;
Credit;
Financial Institutions;
Banks and Banking;
Central Banking;
Financial Instruments;
Credit Cards;
Financial Markets;
Globalization;
Innovation and Invention;
Innovation and Management;
Innovation Strategy;
Leadership Style;
Competitive Advantage;
Corporate Strategy;
Diversification;
Information Technology;
Banking Industry;
Financial Services Industry;
North and Central America;
United States;
New York (state, US)
- March 2022 (Revised August 2022)
- Case
LooksRare: The Decentralized, Tokenized, NFT Marketplace
By: Scott Duke Kominers, Shai Bernstein and George Gonzalez
LooksRare launched a decentralized and anonymous organization to compete against NFT marketplace leader OpenSea. By launching its own cryptocurrency, LooksRare attempted to lure users with a digital rewards program. The nature of the organization and its business...
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- February 23, 2022
- Article
Can WEB3 Bring Back Competition to Digital Platforms?
By: Christian Catalini and Scott Duke Kominers
Like the early Internet, blockchain and Web3 applications promise a new wave of decentralization and competition—yet at the same time, it is unclear which of the dynamics that drove concentration in online platforms and services will remain in force under the Web3...
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- January 2022
- Case
Steem versus Hive: Testing Blockchain Governance
By: Shikhar Ghosh and Shweta Bagai
Keywords:
Blockchain
- Article
How NFTs Create Value
By: Steve Kaczynski and Scott Duke Kominers
How much could a cluster of pixels possibly be worth? More pointedly, why is it worth anything at all? The explosion of NFTs and their accompanying marketplaces have left many baffled, incredulous, and deeply skeptical. But while NFTs may be fetching eye-popping,...
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- October 2021 (Revised January 2022)
- Case
Chia Network: Reimagining Programmable Money
By: William A. Sahlman and George Gonzalez
Chia Network developed a novel blockchain platform that was more eco-friendly, decentralized, and scalable than Bitcoin, Ethereum, and other blockchains. Now, company leadership must decide how to scale the startup and prioritize various partnerships, use cases, and...
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- September 24, 2021
- Article
A Labor Movement for the Platform Economy
By: Li Jin, Scott Duke Kominers and Lila Shroff
Platforms are fundamentally changing the contract between workers and companies—and the workers and creatives that create value for platform companies, and rely on platforms for their livelihoods, often have little power when it comes to getting their concerns...
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- March 2021
- Supplement
Facebook's Libra (B): The Privatization of Money?
This case addresses the events that took place following the conclusion of the case “Facebook’s Libra (A): The Privatization of Money?” In October 2019, several months after the conclusion of the A case, multiple members of the Libra Association announced that they...
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Keywords:
Blockchain;
Cryptocurrency;
Accounting;
Economics;
Money;
Governance;
Governing and Advisory Boards;
Policy;
Governance Controls;
Innovation and Invention;
Innovation Strategy;
Technological Innovation;
Disruptive Innovation;
Information Technology;
Digital Platforms;
Information Infrastructure;
Technology Industry;
Europe;
Switzerland;
United States;
California
- November 2020
- Article
Disrupting the Disruptors or Enhancing Them? How Blockchain Re‐Shapes Two‐Sided Platforms
By: Daniel Trabucchi, Antonella Moretto, Tommaso Buganza and Alan MacCormack
The importance of platform‐based businesses in the modern economy is growing continuously and becoming increasingly relevant. Specifically, the deployment of digital technologies has enhanced the applicability of two‐sided business models, enabling companies to act not...
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- 2020
- Working Paper
Reverse Information Sharing: Reducing Costs in Supply Chains with Yield Uncertainty
By: Pavithra Harsha, Ashish Jagmohan, Retsef Levi, Elisabeth Paulson and Georgia Perakis
Supply uncertainty in produce supply chains presents major challenges to retailers. Supply shortages create frequent disruptions in terms of promised delivery times, quantity and quality delivered. To alleviate these challenges, dual sourcing--a strategy in which...
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- May 2020
- Teaching Note
fidentiaX: The Tradable Insurance Marketplace on Blockchain
By: Alexander Braun, Lauren H. Cohen and Jiahua Xu
- February 2020
- Case
Seso Global: Building a Blockchain-enabled Property Marketplace in Nigeria
By: Boris Vallee and Yang (Dolly) Yu
The mutual aspiration of addressing the housing shortage and improving real estate market efficiency led Daniel and Phillip to co-found Seso Global in 2017. Seso Global developed a unique integrated platform to streamline and rationalize the process of acquiring and...
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- December 2019
- Teaching Note
Ripple: The Business of Crypto
By: David B. Yoffie
The case explores Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse’s mission to disrupt the global payments industry by leveraging the cryptocurrency XRP. Students will learn about Bitcoin and the blockchain industry, as well as Ripple’s unique crypto business model. The case provides an...
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Keywords:
Payment Systems;
Cryptocurrency;
Bitcoin;
Blockchain;
Fintech;
Business Startups;
Business Model;
Disruption;
Strategy
- September 2019 (Revised August 2020)
- Case
Engineering an Inclusive Bioeconomy
By: Tarun Khanna, Raffaella Sadun and Susie L. Ma
In 2019, entrepreneur Juan Carlos Castilla-Rubio was developing a project he hoped could generate and share wealth from the natural resources of the Amazon without destroying those resources. His idea, called Earth Bank of Codes (EBC), would create a library of the...
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Keywords:
Decision Making;
Development Economics;
Entrepreneurship;
Innovation and Invention;
Intellectual Property;
Emerging Markets;
Market Design;
Marketplace Matching;
Science;
Genetics;
Natural Environment;
Environmental Sustainability;
Climate Change;
Social Enterprise;
Strategy;
Strategic Planning;
Information Technology;
Ownership;
Social Psychology;
Trust;
Society;
Biotechnology Industry;
South America;
Amazon Basin