One such organisation was a start-up based in the canton of Argovia, Switzerland. With offices in three countries and around fifty employees in total, the began developing products to place on top of their own Blockchain, which would allow their business customers to improve and enhance the way they conducted business. However, following the great crypto crash of 2018, the funds on which the company operated were all but gone, and the start-up had to cease operations. The paper focuses on why this happened and aims to evaluate whether the failure was based primarily on the techchnology, or on well-known start-up-based issues.

Building from existing literature, the author created a qualitative questionnaire to conduct interviews with former staff of the start-up. Based on the interviewees' answers and the theoretical framework, the author then builds a case study for public use, which is indicating potential root causes of the business failure. In accordance with root cause analysis processes, the paper does not offer a solution so much as a tentative explanation, highlighting the most frequently named themes and visualising them using a fishbone diagram, a well-known tool from root cause analysis.

The presented case study is highlighting the history of the Blockchain company, as well as key elements of the theoretical framework. By summarising the most important findings from the interviews, it offers a tentative answer to the question of what brought on the start-up's failure, as well as suggestions for future research in the area of Blockchain, start-ups and disruptive innovation.