A systematic overview of blockchain research

Abstract

Blockchain has been receiving growing attention from both academia and practices. This paper aims to investigate the research status of blockchain-related studies and to analyze the development and evolution of this latest hot area via bibliometric analysis. We selected and explored 2451 papers published between 2013 and 2019 from the Web of Science Core Collection database. The analysis considers different dimensions, including annual publications and citation trends, author distribution, popular research themes, collaboration of countries (regions) and institutions, top papers, major publication journals (conferences), supportive funding agencies, and emerging research trends. The results show that the number of blockchain literature is still increasing, and the research priorities in blockchain-related research shift during the observation period from bitcoin, cryptocurrency, blockchain, smart contract, internet of thing, to the distributed ledger, and challenge and the inefficiency of blockchain. The findings of this research deliver a holistic picture of blockchain research, which illuminates the future direction of research, and provides implications for both academic research and enterprise practice.