Blockchains: a Systematic Multivocal Literature Review

TL;DR

This paper provides a comprehensive, systematic review of blockchain technology, integrating both academic and grey literature to define its architecture, applications, and challenges, offering a structured overview of the current state of the art.

Contribution

It introduces a formal, systematic definition of blockchain technology and offers an integrated overview based on concept analysis and grounded theory, combining diverse literature sources.

Findings

Systematic definition of blockchain technology

Overview of architecture options and trade-offs

Identification of current applications and challenges

Abstract

Blockchain technology has gained tremendous popularity both in practice and academia. The goal of this article is to develop a coherent overview of the state of the art in blockchain technology, using a systematic(i.e.,protocol-based, replicable), multivocal (i.e., featuring both white and grey literature alike) literature review, to (1) define blockchain technology (2) elaborate on its architecture options and (3) trade-offs, as well as understanding (4) the current applications and challenges, as evident from the state of the art. We derive a systematic definition of blockchain technology, based on a formal concept analysis. Further on, we flesh out an overview of blockchain technology elaborated by means of Grounded-Theory.