Blockchain Technology: Benefits, Challenges, Applications, and Integration of Blockchain Technology with Cloud Computing

Abstract

The real-world use cases of blockchain technology, such as faster cross-border payments, identity management, smart contracts, cryptocurrencies, and supply chain–blockchain technology are here to stay and have become the next innovation, just like the Internet. There have been attempts to formulate digital money, but they have not been successful due to security and trust issues. However, blockchain needs no central authority, and its operations are controlled by the people who use it. Furthermore, it cannot be altered or forged, resulting in massive market hype and demand. Blockchain has moved past cryptocurrency and discovered implementations in other real-life applications; this is where we can expect blockchain technology to be simplified and not remain a complex concept. Blockchain technology’s desirable characteristics are decentralization, integrity, immutability, verification, fault tolerance, anonymity, audibility, and transparency. We first conduct a thorough analysis of blockchain technology in this paper, paying particular attention to its evolution, applications and benefits, the specifics of cryptography in terms of public key cryptography, and the challenges of blockchain in distributed transaction ledgers, as well as the extensive list of blockchain applications in the financial transaction system. This paper presents a detailed review of blockchain technology, the critical challenges faced, and its applications in different fields. Blockchain in the transaction system is explained in detail with a summary of different cryptocurrencies. Some of the suggested solutions are given in the overall study of the paper.