Does Blockchain-Based Traceability System Guarantee Information Authenticity? An Evolutionary Game Approach

Blockchain-based traceability systems of agricultural product supply chains (APSCs) can operate more efficiently and accurately to increase food safety, yet little literature considered that traceability information could still be falsified before stored in the blockchain. Therefore, based on the evolutionary game model, this paper studies the potential falsification risk in the blockchain-based traceability system of agricultural products. The model focuses on the evolutionary path of whether the farmers falsify information and whether the blockchain platforms query the information authenticity. Factors including government supervision and market demand are considered. The results demonstrate that: (1) the evolution stable strategy of the game model depends on whether both stakeholders could benefit from information falsification after related costs and penalties are deducted; (2) the extra profit of information falsification is correlated with purchasers’ preference for products freshness and well-known places of origin and is uncorrelated with purchasers’ demand or the price sensitivity coefficient; (3) if the downstream stakeholders attach importance to the authenticity of the traceability information stored in the blockchain, farmers’ willingness to falsify information will be reduced and blockchain platforms’ willingness to supervise information authenticity will be improved, and these effects lead to situations where the optimal evolutionary stable strategy exists. The results of this paper call attention to prevent falsification and develop guidelines for blockchain adoption in the APSC