Development Features and Principles of Blockchain Technologies and Real Options as the Main Components of the Digital Economy

Abstract

The paper shows that the digital economy reveals a huge range of opportunities for various enterprises. It noted its strengths: costs reduction, increasing level of transactions’ security and transparency, and close focus on various sectors of the economy. In this regard, for a clear and definite understanding of the problems under consideration, the authors introduced the definition of the digital economy, digital technologies in the economy, and “end-to-end” digital technologies in the economy. The authors’ proposed approach allowed concluding that the digital economy term is distinguished by several subtleties associated with insufficient knowledge, understanding of technical implementation, and flexibility. The research aims at revealing the development features and principles of the main components of the digital economy: distributed ledger technology (blockchain) and real option technologies. The paper shows that blockchain technology, as a decentralized data ledger, is the most discussed and relevant topic in the development of the digital economy. The paper analyzed its strengths, such as cost reduction, increased security, and transaction transparency affecting various sectors of the economy. The conducted research reveals the essence of the main provisions of tactics and strategies when solving the problem of real options pricing. At the same time, paper presented a new classification of options contracts allowing determining the ways of their application and development. Whereas, the analysis of the problem of options contracts pricing demonstrated the relevance of new mathematical methods developed for their reliable and accurate evaluation. The paper demonstrates that, at present, interest in the concept and technique of real options application has significantly increased as they draw attention as a potentially essential tool for evaluation and improving an enterprise development strategy.