Emerging Trends in Blockchain Technology and Applications: A Review and Outlook

Abstract

At present times, Blockchain technology is gaining more attraction with every passing day, as it has revolutionized the traditional trade due to its distributed ledger feature, every record in this ledger is secured by rules of cryptography which makes it more secure and tamper-free. This naturally led to the emergence of various types of cryptocurrency, such as Bitcoin, which builds on a technology commonly known as Blockchain. The rapid evolution of research on Blockchain calls for more research studies for investigating and analyzing the current knowledge in this field through a systematic technical study that shows the impact and significance of the related literature since the inception of the technology in 2013. From this point, in this paper, a state-of-the-art review is conducted on the most influential articles, conference papers, and review papers related to Blockchain published from 2013 to 2020 and indexed by the Web of Science Core CollectionTM (WoS) world’s literature database. To attain the desired objective, after presenting an inevitable, brief overview of Blockchain technology, the collected papers have closely been analyzed along seven key research questions. Subsequently, vital valuable findings, such as the top 10 influential papers, yearly publications and citation trends, the favorite publication venues, the hottest research areas, and the most supportive funding bodies are reported, which may offer several implications about the status quo and emerging trends and frontiers of Blockchain, to guide towards establishing a baseline for both fresh and experienced researchers and practitioners before initiating a future research project on Blockchain. Furthermore, a rigorous discussion is provided on Blockchain application in diversified domains, along with different versatile use cases. Lastly, a brief insight is presented into open challenges and potential future advancements in the field of Blockchain. Summing up, this paper is meant to assist newbies in exploring and designing new Blockchain solutions, bearing in mind existing demands and challenges.