Blockchain and the Challenge of Financial Trust in Digital Business Strategy

This paper examines how blockchain technology can strengthen financial trust within digital business strategies by anchoring three core pillars-data authenticity, operational transparency, and cryptographic security. Through an extensive review of trust theory and social capital theory, we map these dimensions onto blockchain's distributed ledger, consensus mechanisms, immutability, on-chain transparency, smart contracts, multilayer cryptography, Layer-۲ scalability, interoperability, and oracle integration. Drawing on empirical case studies, we identify critical adoption challenges, including scalability limits, energy consumption, regulatory ambiguity, privacy concerns, legacy integration, smart-contract vulnerabilities, user adoption barriers, and ecosystem fragmentation. In response, we propose a multifaceted governance framework combining permissioned networks, on-chain voting, regulatory sandboxes, smart-contract-encoded policies, self-sovereign identity, AI-driven monitoring, and industry consortia―to ensure legal compliance, technical resilience, and stakeholder engagement. Building on this framework, we offer targeted recommendations for piloting, standards alignment, security-by-design, culture building, continuous monitoring, and scalable roadmaps. Our findings indicate that when blockchain is governed effectively and integrated strategically, it can accelerate transaction flows, reduce compliance costs, and foster deeper financial trust, laying a solid foundation for sustainable digital innovation.

Keywords:

Blockchain , Financial Trust , Digital Business Strategy , Governance , Transparency , Security , Scalability , Innovation