How Blockchain Open Source Software (OSS) Projects Succeed

Abstract

Blockchain open-source software (OSS) projects are vital to the decentralized technology landscape, enabling innovation and collaboration in developing distributed ledger technologies. These projects exhibit diverse operational models, which may influence their popularity - a factor measured by the frequency of development activities conducted upon a project on software hosting platforms like GitHub. This study aims to identify the characteristics of a blockchain-utilizing OSS project's operational model that contribute to its success. A project's popularity/success was determined using an SQL script and GH archive, a tool that records the public GitHub timeline and archives it for further analysis. With this, the frequency of a project's development activities (forks, commits, etc.) was determined, which serves as a direct metric of active development and community engagement. Then, its operational model, including a governance mode (private, non-profit, DAO, etc.) and funding model (crowdfunding, VC funding, token sales, etc.) were determined through a web-based search. By conducting a comparative econometric analysis and determining the correlation between the characteristics of over 600 projects’ funding models/governance modes and development activities, this study establishes the operational characteristics of blockchain-utilizing OSS projects that contribute to their success, offering insights into the optimal operational methods that drive innovation and growth in the decentralized technology landscape.

This abstract is part of a collection in which the overarching large project under Dr. Jiasun Li was subdivided into discrete critical tasks that were carried out by multiple individuals or smaller teams. Abstracts in this collection read similarly given the shared project goals, but represent distinct tasks completed by the abstract authors towards finalizing the described analysis.