Systematic Literature Review of Challenges in Blockchain Scalability
Abstract
:1. Introduction
2. Blockchain Overview
2.1. Digital Signature
2.2. Consensus Mechanism
2.3. The Key Characteristics of Blockchain
2.3.1. Decentralization
2.3.2. Persistency
2.3.3. Auditability
3. Related Work
4. Survey Methodology
4.1. Research Questions
- RQ1: How can the scalability issue impact blockchain implementation?
- RQ2: What vital root factors are causing scalability issue in blockchain?
- RQ3: How researchers address the scalability issues in blockchain?
4.2. Inclusion and Exclusion Criteria
4.3. Information and Data Sources
- Scopus;
- IEEE explore;
- Science Direct;
- Web of Science.
4.4. Search Process
4.5. Screening Process
4.6. Data Extraction
5. Discussion on Consolidated Paper
- The distribution of blockchain based publications concerning scalability issue over time.
- The distribution of types of blockchain publication.
- The distribution of countries of publication.
- The distribution of application areas of blockchain.
- Journals;
- Conference proceedings;
- Book chapters;
- Workshops;
- Symposiums.
6. RQ1: How Scalability Issue Can Impact Blockchain Implementation?
Scalability Issue in Major Public Blockchains Application (Bitcoin and Ethereum)
7. RQ2: What Vital Root Factors Are Causing Scalability Issue in Blockchain?
7.1. Latency
7.2. Number of Nodes
7.3. Block Size
7.4. Computational Cost/Energy
7.5. Transaction Cost
7.6. Storage
8. RQ3: How Researchers Address the Scalability Issue in Blockchain?
8.1. On-Chain Solution
8.1.1. Block-Data-Related Approaches
- Block size increase
8.1.2. Segwit
8.1.3. Sharding
8.1.4. Consensus-Protocol-Related Approaches
- Proof of work
- 2.
- Proof of stake
- 3.
- Delegated Proof-of-Stake consensus
- 4.
- Practical byzantine fault tolerance
- 5.
- Proof of authority/proof of identity consensus model
- 6.
- Proof of elapsed time
- 7.
- Bitcoin-NG
- 8.
- Proof of reputation consensus mechanism
8.2. Off-Chain Solutions
Lightening Network
8.3. Other Potential Attempts to Address the Blockchain Scalability Issue
9. Conclusions
Author Contributions
Funding
Institutional Review Board Statement
Informed Consent Statement
Data Availability Statement
Acknowledgments
Conflicts of Interest
Appendix A
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Title | Description |
---|---|
Abstract | It provides a concise overview of this paper, which includes the background of the research, the methodology, and the key findings. |
Methodology | Research question Selection criteria |
Information sources Screening process Data extraction process | |
Introduction | This section presents the existing knowledge base as well as a straightforward problem statement, and the finding of the study. |
Result Discussion | This section provides the findings and analyses for the research works |
Conclusion | Concludes the outcomes of the entire research and provides some relevant future directions. |
Criteria | Quantity |
---|---|
1 | The study must be original research work instead of a review or a survey paper. |
2 | The papers focusing on the blockchain scalability issue (directly or indirectly) and highlighting the relevant reasons/factors. |
3 | Papers proposing a feasible solution aiming to solve the blockchain scalability (method, technique, model, and framework). |
4 | The proposed solutions have been evaluated (implemented, simulated, and formal proof). |
5 | The papers are published in peer-reviewed journals/conference journals. |
6 | The papers should only be in English language. |
No. | Factor | Description | Ref. Source |
---|---|---|---|
1 | Transaction Throughput | This implies the total number of transactions that the protocol may handle in one second. | [7,14,36,38,39,40,41,42,43,44,45,46,47,48,49,50,51,52,53,54,55,56,57,58,59,60,61,62,63,64,65,66,67,68,69,70,71,72,73] |
2 | Latency | This applies to the time it takes for a transaction to be initiated to achieve a consensus on it. It is also regarded as a finality. | [33,59,69,74,75] |
3 | Storage | It refers to the total space/capacity a blockchain network can consume. | [36,71,76,77,78,79,80,81] |
4 | Block Size | This is total storage capacity of a block to be utilized by the transactions. The network will reject the block if it exceeds the storage capacity. | [77,82] |
5 | Computation energy | This indicates if the algorithm (or the utilizing system) consumes a significant amount of energy for block mining. | [42,79,83,84,85,86,87,88,89,90] |
6 | Network load | This implies the number of transactions being carried by the network. | [91,92,93,94] |
7 | Cost issue | This implies the total cost associated with verifying a transaction in blockchain. | [13,50,55,64] |
8 | Number of nodes | This refers to the total number of nodes available in the blockchain network. | [95,96,97] |
9 | Consensus model | Consensus mechanism represents the process of approving/verifying blockchain transactions. | [6,45,47,49,54,56,57,59,60,63,71,73,83,84,90,98,99,100,101,102,103,104,105,106,107,108,109,110,111,112,113,114,115] |
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Khan, D.; Jung, L.T.; Hashmani, M.A. Systematic Literature Review of Challenges in Blockchain Scalability. Appl. Sci. 2021, 11, 9372. https://doi.org/10.3390/app11209372
Khan D, Jung LT, Hashmani MA. Systematic Literature Review of Challenges in Blockchain Scalability. Applied Sciences. 2021; 11(20):9372. https://doi.org/10.3390/app11209372
Chicago/Turabian StyleKhan, Dodo, Low Tang Jung, and Manzoor Ahmed Hashmani. 2021. "Systematic Literature Review of Challenges in Blockchain Scalability" Applied Sciences 11, no. 20: 9372. https://doi.org/10.3390/app11209372