Article
Research on the Collaborative Evolution of Blockchain Industry
Ecosystems in Terms of Value Co-Creation
Hui Zhang *, Jin-Biao Yi and Qian Wang
Citation: Zhang, H.; Yi, J.-B.; Wang,
Q. Research on the Collaborative
Evolution of Blockchain Industry
Ecosystems in Terms of Value
Co-Creation. Sustainability 2021, 13,
11567. https://doi.org/10.3390/
su132111567
Academic Editor: Changhyun Roh
Received: 3 October 2021
Accepted: 16 October 2021
Published: 20 October 2021
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4.0/).
School of Management, Hangzhou Dianzi University, Hangzhou 310018, China; rencontrer24@163.com (J.-B.Y.);
wxixi@hdu.edu.cn (Q.W.)
* Correspondence: zhanghui816@hdu.edu.cn; Tel.: +86-135-8880-3990
Abstract:
The formation of blockchain industrial ecology can help improve the open and efficient
value synergy network, and this paper seeks to clarify the value relationship among industrial units
and the trend of synergistic evolution of blockchain industrial ecosystem. Based on value co-creation
theory, the blockchain industrial ecosystem synergy evolution process is analyzed, and the composite
system synergy model is used to empirically investigate the evolution synergy of China’s blockchain
industrial ecosystem from 2015 to 2020. The results show that: although the development level
of China’s blockchain industry ecosystem continues to improve, it is still at a low level, and the
policy-driven effect is obvious. There is a large disparity in the orderliness level of each subsystem of
the blockchain industry ecosystem, and the industrial integration and application implementation
are in a good situation, while the blockchain enterprises, located in the value pivot subsystem, are
in a relatively tough position, and China’s blockchain industry ecosystem is overall in a state of
reconciliation and has not yet formed a synergistic effect. Handling the synergistic relationship
between the government, the market and other value-supporting units, and blockchain enterprises is
the top priority for further promoting the synergistic evolution of the blockchain industry ecosystem.
Keywords: blockchain; value co-creation; collaborative evolution; industry ecosystem
1. Introduction
The blockchain industry, an emerging digital technology industry, has received at-
tention from enterprises and governments in various countries due to its characteristic
advantages, such as decentralization, openness, peer-to-peer (P2P) networking, and con-
sensus mechanism. The philosophy of synergy, transparency, sharing, and cross-border
contained in blockchain provides a new paradigm for building industrial ecology [
1
], also
contributes to the formation and development of industrial clusters, and serves the trans-
formation and upgrading of traditional industries. Since 2016, China has listed blockchain
technology as a strategic frontier technology that needs to be laid out ahead of time in the
13th Five-Year National Informatization Plan, and the Chinese government has continu-
ously emphasized the need to strengthen the basic R&D and frontier layout of blockchain
in terms of technology, industry, and application. With the guidance of national policies,
breakthroughs in basic technologies, and rising demand for application fields, the scale
of China’s blockchain industry has continued to grow at a high rate, with the number
of blockchain enterprises registered surging from 1670 in 2016 to 24,687 in 2020 and the
number of blockchain patent applications accounting for 63.52% of the global blockchain
patent applications, and the integration of real industries with blockchain technology has
been continuously enhanced. The blockchain industrial ecology has taken its initial shape.
However, China’s blockchain industry is also facing many problems in the development
process. Most blockchain enterprises lack support from stable upstream and downstream
enterprises, supporting institutions, and other related units in the development and op-
eration process [
2
]. A benign industrial development environment is needed. Moreover,
blockchain technology shows obvious “exclusion reaction” in the process of integration and
Sustainability 2021, 13, 11567. https://doi.org/10.3390/su132111567 https://www.mdpi.com/journal/sustainability
