Blockchain Challenges And Opportunities: A Survey
Blockchain, as one of the core technologies in Bitcoin that is the most representative cryptocurrency, has received extensive attentions recently. Blockchain can be used as a peer-to-peer (P2P) decentralized system to store the pseudonymous transaction records in a trustless environment. It is believed that blockchain can be used in a diversity of future Internet interaction systems, such as smart contracts, public services, Internet of Things (IoT), reputation systems and security services rather than financial systems only. However, a number of technical challenges prohibit the wide application of blockchain. Therefore, we present a comprehensive survey on blockchain technologies. In particular, we first provide an overview of blockchain technologies and a taxonomy of various blockchain systems. We then enumerate a number of both current and future blockchain applications. We also discuss the challenges in this promising area and discuss the future directions.