INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF LATEST TECHNOLOGY IN ENGINEERING,

MANAGEMENT & APPLIED SCIENCE (IJLTEMAS)

ISSN 2278-2540 | DOI: 10.51583/IJLTEMAS | Volume XV, Issue IV, April 2026

Blockchain Technology and Cryptocurrency in Financial Services

Abishai Joy Paul,

Blockchain technology and cryptocurrency have emerged as two of the most consequential financial innovations

of the past two decades, yet the gap between their theoretical potential and real-world adoption within

mainstream financial services remains conspicuously wide. This paper investigates that gap through a mixed-

methods approach, combining a systematic review of thirty peer-reviewed academic sources with primary survey

data drawn from 102 respondents representing young, digitally literate demographics. The study finds that while

awareness of blockchain and cryptocurrency is relatively widespread, deep comprehension, active usage, and

genuine user trust remain limited. Survey respondents show cautious optimism rather than firm conviction —

the majority are open to engaging with blockchain-based financial services but are held back by concerns over

security, regulatory legitimacy, and a general unfamiliarity with how these technologies actually function. The

research identifies four interconnected barriers to adoption: trust deficits, regulatory fragmentation, scalability

INTRODUCTION

Something important happened in October 2008 that most people noticed only in hindsight. In the midst of a

global financial crisis that had exposed the structural fragility of centralised banking, an anonymous individual

or group operating under the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto published a nine-page white paper proposing a peer-

to-peer electronic cash system. That document introduced Bitcoin and, more consequentially, blockchain — a

decentralised, cryptographically secured ledger capable of recording transactions without the intermediation of

any central authority. At the time, few appreciated the breadth of what had been proposed. Today, the

implications are still being worked out.

In the years since, blockchain technology has moved well beyond its original cryptocurrency context. It now

underpins a growing array of financial applications: cross-border payment systems, trade finance platforms,

remain pilots. Most cryptocurrency users have tried it once or twice and stepped back. Most regulators are still

developing their frameworks. Most ordinary people are aware of blockchain but could not explain, in plain

language, how it actually works or why it matters for them personally.

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF LATEST TECHNOLOGY IN ENGINEERING,

MANAGEMENT & APPLIED SCIENCE (IJLTEMAS)

ISSN 2278-2540 | DOI: 10.51583/IJLTEMAS | Volume XV, Issue IV, April 2026

This paper attempts to take that gap seriously. Rather than cataloguing blockchain's theoretical benefits — a task

the existing literature has performed thoroughly — it asks a more grounded question: what does the current state

of public awareness, trust, and adoption actually look like, and what would need to change for blockchain to

cross from promise into practice? To answer this, the study combines a systematic review of thirty peer-reviewed

academic sources with primary survey data from 102 respondents, producing a picture that is neither triumphant

nor dismissive, but honest.

REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE

in financial institutions, noting that the qualitative frameworks available for understanding this phenomenon

remain empirically underdeveloped. Kayani and Hasan (2023) conducted a comparative regulatory analysis

between the United Kingdom and the United States, finding that while blockchain's disruptive potential is evident

across both jurisdictions, the long-term sustainability of blockchain-based systems and the development of

harmonised global regulatory models remain critically unresolved. Albayati, Kim, and Rho (2020) applied an

extended Technology Acceptance Model to blockchain adoption, finding that regulatory backing and

accumulated user experience were the most powerful determinants of consumer trust — more influential,

notably, than the technology's technical features alone.

On the question of decentralised finance, Ozili (2022) observed that the DeFi literature, while growing rapidly,

remains heavily benefit-oriented and insufficiently attentive to risks including smart contract vulnerabilities, data

(2021) documented the absence of a coherent EU-wide regulatory framework for crypto assets, highlighting the

legal uncertainty this creates for cross-border financial markets. Rajnak and Puschmann (2021) demonstrated

through regression analysis across 104 financial institutions that blockchain significantly influences banking

business models across dimensions of operational excellence, customer intimacy, and product leadership — but

that the mediating role of institutional IT infrastructure remains critically important. Across the thirty sources

reviewed for this study, scalability constraints, legacy system incompatibility, security vulnerabilities, and

regulatory fragmentation emerge as the four most consistently cited barriers to blockchain's mainstream financial

adoption.

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

This study employs a mixed-methods design, integrating a systematic literature review with original primary

data collection. The combination was chosen deliberately: secondary literature provides theoretical grounding

and historical context, while primary survey data captures the lived attitudes and practical perspectives of actual

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF LATEST TECHNOLOGY IN ENGINEERING,

MANAGEMENT & APPLIED SCIENCE (IJLTEMAS)

ISSN 2278-2540 | DOI: 10.51583/IJLTEMAS | Volume XV, Issue IV, April 2026

and full-text accessibility. Each source was analysed across four dimensions: primary research objective, key

findings, barriers and challenges identified, and research gaps acknowledged by the authors. Thematic analysis

The primary component consisted of a structured questionnaire administered digitally to 102 respondents. The

questionnaire was organised around five thematic areas aligned with the secondary review: general awareness

and familiarity with blockchain; cryptocurrency usage behaviour; trust in blockchain-based financial systems;

regulatory preferences; and forward-looking attitudes toward blockchain's role in finance. Questions used a

combination of multiple-choice and scaled response formats. Convenience sampling was adopted, consistent

with the exploratory research design and the study's undergraduate capstone context. Descriptive statistical

analysis was applied to the primary data, with frequency distributions and visual representations used to identify

response patterns. Cross-referencing of primary and secondary findings was used throughout to strengthen

analytical conclusions through methodological triangulation.

FINDINGS AND ANALYSIS

younger, digitally connected generations. It also means the findings should be read with appropriate scope

awareness: these are the attitudes of tomorrow's finance users, not today's decision-makers.

The Awareness-Understanding Gap

When asked about their familiarity with blockchain technology, respondents revealed a telling divide. While

relatively few were entirely unaware of the technology's existence, 35.3% described themselves as not at all

familiar with how it works, and 41.2% characterised their familiarity as only slight. A mere fraction considered

themselves highly knowledgeable. This distribution captures something important: blockchain has achieved

name recognition — largely via Bitcoin's media prominence — without achieving functional comprehension.

People have heard the word; most do not understand the concept. This mirrors the pattern identified consistently

in the secondary literature, where researchers from Yli-Huumo et al. (2016) to Moosavi et al. (2024) have noted

conversation, and treated as shorthand for technological modernity — yet for most people, it remains an

abstraction. The barriers preventing the step from curiosity to use — perceived complexity, financial risk, lack

of institutional endorsement, and uncertainty about practical utility in everyday life — are consistent with those

identified in the adoption literature, particularly Alkhwaldi et al. (2022) and Yeong et al. (2022).

The Trust Paradox

Perhaps the most revealing finding of the study concerns trust. When asked how much they trusted blockchain-

based financial transactions, 38% of respondents said 'slightly,' 32% said 'moderately,' and 26% said 'not at all.'

A very small group expressed complete confidence. The aggregate picture is one of pervasive scepticism in a

system whose foundational promise is the elimination of the need for trust between parties. This is a genuine

paradox. Blockchain was designed precisely to enable transactions between parties who do not trust each other,

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF LATEST TECHNOLOGY IN ENGINEERING,

MANAGEMENT & APPLIED SCIENCE (IJLTEMAS)

ISSN 2278-2540 | DOI: 10.51583/IJLTEMAS | Volume XV, Issue IV, April 2026

by substituting institutional intermediaries with cryptographic verification. And yet, it has failed to earn the trust

of ordinary users who are, in most cases, not being asked to verify anything themselves. What they are being

asked to do is trust the technology — and this, it turns out, is a fundamentally different proposition. Gan and Lau

(2023) identified this dynamic formally, demonstrating that trust in the technology and trust within the

community of users are both prerequisites for meaningful adoption, and that blockchain's trustless architecture

does not automatically generate either.

Converting this latent openness into active adoption is both the central challenge and the primary opportunity

for the financial sector in the years ahead.

Security and Regulation as Adoption Drivers

When asked what would most influence their decision to use cryptocurrency, respondents prioritised security

and safety (44.9%) and government approval (34.7%) far above peer recommendations (16.3%) or ease of

access. This finding reframes the adoption challenge in important ways. It suggests that the decision to engage

with blockchain-based finance is not, for most people, primarily a social or convenience decision. It is a question

of institutional trust: does the system protect my money, and does a legitimate authority stand behind it?

Ironically, these are precisely the guarantees that blockchain's decentralised architecture is designed to make

unnecessary — yet they remain the conditions under which ordinary users are willing to engage. The implication

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF LATEST TECHNOLOGY IN ENGINEERING,

MANAGEMENT & APPLIED SCIENCE (IJLTEMAS)

ISSN 2278-2540 | DOI: 10.51583/IJLTEMAS | Volume XV, Issue IV, April 2026

discussed without being used, recognised as potentially transformative without being experienced as genuinely

accessible. This is not primarily a technical problem, though technical challenges — particularly around

scalability and security — remain real. It is fundamentally a human problem: a failure of translation between the

The trust paradox identified in the survey data is the clearest expression of this failure. Blockchain was designed

to make trust unnecessary at the transactional level by making it structurally impossible for any single party to

manipulate the ledger. But users are not asking for transactional trust to be eliminated. They are asking for

systemic trust to be established: trust that the broader ecosystem within which blockchain operates — the

exchanges, the wallets, the regulatory frameworks, the institutional endorsements — is reliable, safe, and

architectures — are necessary but insufficient. What is equally required are clear regulatory frameworks that

signals they are clearly looking for.

Blockchain and cryptocurrency offer real solutions to real problems in the global financial system: the

inefficiency of cross-border payments, the opacity of trade finance, the exclusion of unbanked populations from

The respondents in this study are a reasonable proxy for the next generation of financial users. They are aware

of blockchain, curious about cryptocurrency, open to innovation, and deeply concerned about security and

legitimacy. They are not opposed to the future these technologies represent. They are simply waiting for the

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF LATEST TECHNOLOGY IN ENGINEERING,

MANAGEMENT & APPLIED SCIENCE (IJLTEMAS)

ISSN 2278-2540 | DOI: 10.51583/IJLTEMAS | Volume XV, Issue IV, April 2026