Blockchain-Oriented Software Engineering: Challenges And New Directions
The Blockchain technology is reshaping finance, economics, and money to the extent that its disruptive power is being compared to that of the Internet and the Web in their early days. As a result, all the software development revolving around the Blockchain technology is growing at a staggering rate. In this paper, we acknowledge the need for software engineers to devise specialized tools and techniques for blockchain-oriented software development. From current challenges concerning the definition of new professional roles, demanding testing activities, and novel tools for software architecture, we take a step forward by proposing new directions on the basis of a curated corpus of blockchain-oriented software repositories, detected by exploiting the information enclosed in the 2016 Moody’s Blockchain Report and the market capitalization of cryptocurrencies. Ensuring effective testing activities, enhancing collaboration in large teams, and facilitating the development of smart contracts all appear as key factors in the future of blockchain-oriented software development.