Smart contract applications within blockchain technology: A systematic mapping study

By Daniel Macrinici, Cristian Cartofeanu, Shang Gao. Telematics and informatics, 2018

368 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Abstract With the advent of blockchain, smart contracts have become one of the most sought-after technologies because of the high customisability they add to transactions. This has given rise to many smart contract applications in areas ranging from financial services, life sciences and healthcare to energy resources and voting. However, due to their infancy, smart contracts still pose many challenges that encumber the stakeholders who interact with them: users, developers and the organisations that are built on top of smart contracts. This study aims to contribute to the body of knowledge of smart contracts within blockchain technology. Based on a systematic mapping study, we offer a broad perspective on their problems and corresponding solutions, present the research trends within the area and compile the 64 papers identified, grouped by top publication sources, channels, methods and approaches. We conclude that, since 2016, there has been an increasing trend towards the publication of blockchain-based smart contract articles at conferences and journals, mainly reflecting experiments and presenting methods, tools and models. According to the results, the most commonly discussed problems and solutions in the literature are related to the security, privacy and scalability of blockchain and the programmability of smart contracts.

Subfields: Computer Networks and Communications, Information Systems, Management Information Systems

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/f5a21fb87d88b4510dd4d42fbdc52a674a592ea6

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In Computer Networks and Communications

In Information Systems

In Management Information Systems

Joseph Sarkis

Citations in the corpus

Survey on blockchain based smart contracts: Applications, opportunities and challenges (2021, background): “Ref Description Comparison with our contribution [17] Smart contract applications within blockchain technology: A systematic mapping study: A systematic study which presents problems, corresponding solutions, and the research trends including numerical figures in a broader perspective.”
A Survey of Blockchain From the Perspectives of Applications, Challenges, and Opportunities (2019, background): “SC is a piece of code deployed in the blockchain’s node and adds a layer of logic and computation to the trust infrastructure [37].”
A literature review of blockchain technology applications in supply chains: A comprehensive analysis of themes, methodologies and industries (2021, neutral): “Smart contracts are executed quickly, which improves operational efficiency, and the rights and interests of the participants are protected through the contract terms (Macrinici et al., 2018).”
An Overview on Smart Contracts: Challenges, Advances and Platforms (2019, neutral): “Recent studies [19], [20] also collect some literature of smart contracts and present reviews while fail to discuss the challenges in this area.”
Blockchain smart contracts: Applications, challenges, and future trends (2021, background): “…of the existing blockchain-enabled smart contract reviews/surveys according to six criteria, namely proposing a taxonomy, considering several blockchain platforms, considering application domains, covering smart contract improvement tools, identifying research gaps, and scope of literature review.”
Blockchain and the circular economy: potential tensions and critical reflections from practice (2020, background): “Digital and smart execution of transactions is supported by smart contract, which is a decentralised application running on the blockchain platform (Macrinici, Cartofeanu, and Gao 2018).”
Blockchain Technology in Healthcare: A Comprehensive Review and Directions for Future Research (2019, background): “The blockchain technology has given rise to numerous smart contract applications in several areas, ranging from energy resources [8], financial services [9,10], voting [11–13] and healthcare [6].”