Received March 3, 2020, accepted March 26, 2020, date of publication April 3, 2020, date of current version April 22, 2020.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/ACCESS.2020.2985647
A Critical Review of Concepts, Benefits,
and Pitfalls of Blockchain Technology
Using Concept Map
IYOLITA ISLAM1, KAZI MD. MUNIM1, SHAHRIMA JANNAT OISHWEE1,
A. K. M. NAJMUL ISLAM2, AND MUHAMMAD NAZRUL ISLAM 1
1Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Military Institute of Science and Technology (MIST), Mirpur Cantonment, Dhaka-1216, Bangladesh
2Department of Future Technologies, University of Turku, 20500 Turku, Finland
Corresponding author: A. K. M. Najmul Islam (najmul.islam@utu.fi)
ABSTRACT Blockchain is relatively a new area of research. However, a surge of research studies on
the blockchain has taken place in recent years. These research studies have mostly focused on designing
and developing conceptual frameworks to build more reliable, transparent and efficient digital systems.
While blockchain brings a wide variety of benefits, it also imposes certain challenges. Therefore, the
objective of this research is to understand the properties of blockchain, its current uses, observed benefits
and pitfalls to provide a balanced understanding of blockchain. A systematic literature review approach was
adopted in this paper in order to attain the objective. A total of 51 articles were selected and reviewed.
As outcomes, this research provides a summary of the state-of-the-art research studies conducted in the
area of blockchain. Furthermore, we develop a set of concept maps aiming to provide in-depth knowledge
on blockchain technology for its efficient and effective usage in the development of future technological
solutions.
INDEX TERMS Blockchain, concept map, literature review, critical analysis, smart contracts.
I. INTRODUCTION
Blockchain technology is one of the latest innovations, which
can be considered as a new paradigm for the regulation of
human and business activities [1]. It is a distributed con-
sensus mechanism to store the transaction information in
a Peer-to-Peer (P2P) network. It was actually designed as
an open-source project to introduce a digital currency (i.e.
cryptocurrency) named bitcoin [1]. Although the concept of
blockchain was first discussed through bitcoin, it has use
cases that go far beyond the cryptocurrencies.
Blockchains can be either public or private [2]. Public
blockchains are permissionless and therefore, anyone can
join. Bitcoin is a public blockchain. In contrast, in order
to join a private blockchain, permission is needed. IBM’s
Hyperledger is an example of private blockchain. The first
generation blockchain (i.e. Bitcoin) did not support smart
contracts and was capable to store data related to only trans-
actions of bitcoin. A smart contract is a piece of code that
The associate editor coordinating the review of this manuscript and
approving it for publication was Aneel Rahim .
execute predefined actions when certain conditions within the
system are met. Blockchain platforms such as Ethereum and
IBM Hyperledger support smart contracts. These platforms
are also able to store any type of data. Therefore, recently
blockchain is used in many domains (other than cryptocur-
rencies) to achieve more security, flexibility, efficiency and
transparency. The domains include health informatics for
storing and managing patient data [3], [4], secured energy
trading [5], banking and financial sector to facilitate trans-
parent transactions [6]–[8], e-governance to improve govern-
ment services [9], development of smart city [10], [11], [12],
internet of things (IoT) services integrated with blockchain
[13], [14], decentralized and auditable software validation
system [15], among others. In other studies [1], [16], [17],
some possible threats of implementing blockchain technol-
ogy are highlighted. These include for example, wasted
resources such as electricity and storage, scalability, lack of
usability, and privacy, among others. Therefore, it becomes
very crucial to understand the in-depth concept of blockchain
and its applications (or context of use) with respect to the
possible benefits and threats.
VOLUME 8, 2020 This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License. For more information, see https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ 68333
I. Islam et al.: Critical Review of Concepts, Benefits, and Pitfalls of Blockchain Technology
The objective of this research is to provide the fundamental
concept of blockchain for enhancing its effective usage in the
development of future technological solutions. To attain this
objective, this research presents a set of concept maps [18] to
provide an in-depth definition of blockchain, all possible fea-
tures of blockchain and the association among the properties,
benefits, and pitfalls of blockchain.
We use the concept map as it allows us to structure, orga-
nize, and represent knowledge [18]. In other words, a con-
cept map can construct ideas into a hierarchical structure of
concepts [19]. Understanding the ‘concept’ and ‘proposition’
are the primary requirements to construct a good concept
map or to learn about the concept map. The term ‘concept’
refers to the perceived regularity in events/objects while the
‘proposition’ refers to the statements about an object/event in
the universe thatmay occur naturally or be constructed.More-
over, the conceptmaps are used to facilitate the study/learning
procedure, research, evaluation and data analysis [20], [21].
Therefore, the concept maps facilitate to provide fundamental
knowledge on a specific subject.
The rest of the article is organized as follows. Section II
presents related works, section III presents the method of the
study, section IV explains the blockchain technology and its
features, benefits and pitfalls, section V provides a mapping
among the features, advantages and pitfalls of blockchain and
finally section VI presents the final outcomes and limitations
of this study with future expansion possibilities.
II. LITERATURE REVIEW
This section briefly discusses the related work that has been
conducted on the working principles, applications, benefits,
and limitations of blockchain.
Davidson [6] characterized blockchain as a catallaxy for
being a robust, protected and transparent ledger since it
implements secured mechanism using cryptography. Accord-
ing to Crosby [22], blockchain is a distributed online database
of all digital events occurred among the participant nodes
in a network. He provided an overview of blockchain
technology and described some challenges, which can be
overcome by blockchain and some limitations to be resolved
in future work. Buterin [23] referred blockchain as a crypto-
economically secured magic computer that includes self-
executable programs with records of all previous and current
states. Carlozo [24] described blockchain technology as
the backbone of each digital transaction. He also asserted
that blockchain would offer more dynamic approaches to
business.
A systematic review conducted by Yli [17] highlighted the
recent research developments using blockchain and provided
the possible future research directions that include introduc-
ing a new cryptocurrency, usage of multi-level authentication
techniques, and energy-efficient resource management for
distributed systems, among others.
Ammous [25] analyzed the working principle of
blockchain technology in several domains to show
how blockchain provides benefits such as flexibility,
TABLE 1. Proposition table for concept map to define blockchain.
tamper-resistant and automated validation in a system. Beck
[26] stated that blockchain is more appropriate to facilitate
complex business transactions and developing new business
models.
Some researchers worked to find the threats of adopting
blockchain technology. Swan [1] represented some techni-
cal challenges in terms of throughput, latency, security, and
usability, among others. Amosova [27] analyzed the risks of
unregulated use of blockchain technologies in the financial
market from the perspectives of law enforcement agencies,
financial institutions, civil societies, individual persons, and
regulators.
Pilkington [28], [29] briefly discussed the categories, fea-
tures and working principles of blockchain technology. He
depicted some areas of application, for example, gridcoin
(a system for grid computing), providing digital ID, voting
system, and banking using the smart contracts. Bohme [30]
described the centralization and decentralization concept of
bitcoin, its usage, merits, and demerits.
In sum, the earlier studies emphasized to present the tech-
nological progress, applications, and threats of blockchain in
different fields. No review study was found that explicitly
focused to present all possible features of blockchain. Simi-
larly, no study was found that depicts a clear mapping among
the identified benefits, pitfalls and context of use. Thus,
this research focus to provide the fundamental concept of
blockchain technology through concept maps for the optimal
usage of blockchain in future technological progress.
III. RESEARCH METHOD
In this research a systematic literature review procedure
[31] was adopted to attain the research aim. For select-
ing the primary articles, the major databases such as
IEEE Explorer, Springer Link, ACM digital library, Sci-
ence Direct, and Google Scholar were searched for related
articles. The search keywords used for finding materials
were: ‘‘Blockchain’’, ‘‘Blockchain Technology’’, ‘‘Applica-
tions of Blockchain’’, ‘‘Concept of Blockchain’’, ‘‘Benefits
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I. Islam et al.: Critical Review of Concepts, Benefits, and Pitfalls of Blockchain Technology
FIGURE 1. Concept map of blockchain.
TABLE 2. Properties of blockchain.
of Blockchain’’, ‘‘Pitfalls of Blockchain’’, ‘‘Blockchain and
concepts’’, ‘‘Blockchain and properties’’, ‘‘Blockchain and
advantages’’, and ‘‘Blockchain and pitfalls’’. These strings
were applied for all the above-mentioned scholar databases
as well as Google search engine. A total of 860 articles were
found initially. Several screenings were performed to select
the best-matched papers. The criteria: the research materials
were from the year 2014 or afterwards; the papers were
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I. Islam et al.: Critical Review of Concepts, Benefits, and Pitfalls of Blockchain Technology
TABLE 3. Proposition table for concept map to represent the properties of blockchain.
FIGURE 2. Conceptual map of features of blockchain.
published in conference proceedings, magazines, journals or
books; and the papers were written in English, were used. We
also excluded duplicate articles. After that, by reviewing the
title, abstract and introduction, 51 articles were selected for
review.
While reviewing each of the article, a set of data were
extracted that includes: the aim of the research, application
domain or context of use, features or properties, advantages,
and pitfalls of blockchain. The extracted data were then ana-
lyzed and synthesized to present a set of concept maps for
providing an in-depth understanding of blockchain.
IV. BLOCKCHAIN TECHNOLOGY
Blockchain is a chain of blocks where the blocks are linked
using cryptography. Each block contains the hash of the
previous block, a time-stamp, proof-of-work signature, and
transaction data.
To add a new block to the blockchain, the following events
are required to happen. Firstly, a transaction must occur in
the network. Secondly, the details of the transactions must
be verified by the participants (i.e. miners) over the network.
Thirdly, after a transaction is verified by the miners, data
are stored in the block. Finally, the block is linked by a
hashed value of the information from the previous block. The
new block is added to the blockchain and becomes public to
others.
A. DEFINITION OF BLOCKCHAIN
The literature survey showed that blockchain consists of
blocks that contain messages, proof of work and reference
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TABLE 4. Advantages of blockchain.
TABLE 5. Pitfalls of blockchain.
of the previous block. Furthermore, shared databases, trans-
actions and P2P network are associated with blockchain.
Shared databases are secured while the transactions mainly
refer to the transfer of a cryptocurrency like bitcoin in a P2P
network. Blockchain maintains the historical record to main-
tain transparency. Historical records are irreversible. Trans-
parency is ensured by using pseudonymous transactions.
These propositions define the blockchain and are presented in
Table 1. A concept map grounded on the propositional table
is depicted in Fig. 1. Referring to the concept map, a formal
definition of blockchain could be derived as:
Blockchain consists of blocks containing mes-
sages, proof of work and reference of the previ-
ous block and stored in shared database, which
is able to perform transactions over P2P net-
work maintaining irreversible historical records
and transparency.
B. PROPERTIES OF BLOCKCHAIN
A total of thirteen properties or features were retrieved
through our literature survey. The properties are briefly rep-
resented in Table 2. The mostly (eleven times) stated property
was shared database while timestamped blocks and P2P
transmission were articulated in eight articles.
Later, based on the thematic and logical relations, the
retrieved properties were categorized into three clusters
through affinity diagram [59]. The clusters are service per-
spective, logical inclusion, and architectural characteristics.
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FIGURE 3. Mapping among the properties, advantages and pitfalls of blockchain.
Service perspective refers to the useful properties offered
by blockchain, which includes scalability, validation, mul-
tiple writers and distributed trust. Logical inclusion is the
combination of the logical properties such as computational
logic, transaction dependency and transaction rules. Archi-
tectural characteristics refer to the structural features, which
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TABLE 6. Association among the properties, advantages and pitfalls of blockchain.
include shared database, P2P transmission, disintermedia-
tion, timestamped blocks, immutable records and encrypted
data transmission. The properties or features are presented
in a propositional table (see Table 3) and a conceptual map
derived from the table is depicted in Fig. 2.
C. ADVANTAGES AND PITFALLS OF BLOCKCHAIN
A total of ten advantages and ten pitfalls were found through
the literature survey and presented in Table 4 and Table 5,
respectively. The advantages and pitfalls were presented with
respect to the context (i.e. the area where the article focused
on). For example, independence from third party was found
as an advantage in four articles in the context of smart city,
bitcoin and medical. Enhanced security (in case of finance,
smart city, and software license validation), flexible and effi-
cient (in economics), and auditable and verifiable (in the con-
text of economics, medical and software license validation)
were mentioned in three articles as benefits.
In case of pitfalls, complicated usability (in case of
e-governance), legalization (in the context of e-governance
and economics),wasted resources (in economics) and latency
(in economics) are mostly mentioned pitfalls (three times).
We also note that many of the advantages and pitfalls
are seen as trade-offs. For example, in order to improve
throughput, reduce electricity consumption and increase sus-
tainability, one needs to use a mining algorithm other than
the proof-of-work. This, in turn, reduces security. There-
fore, parameters to be considered in implementation of
a blockchain for an application are highly dependent on
the context. A benefit in one context may turn as a pit-
fall in another context. In the case of bitcoin, it seems
that the community prefers security over sustainability and
throughput [2]. However, due to the high consumption of
electricity, this approach may not be viable in the long run.
Furthermore, due to the lower throughput, bitcoin would
probably fail to gain wider adoption.
V. MAPPING AMONG PROPERTIES, ADVANTAGES,
AND PITFALLS OF BLOCKCHAIN
A mapping among the properties, advantages, and pitfalls of
blockchain has been presented in Fig. 3. Each node of the
concept map represents a concept. The blockchain is at the
center. The blue oval shapes are properties, the green and
red rectangles are advantages and pitfalls, respectively. The
properties are linked to benefits. Links from multiple proper-
ties to a benefit means all those properties may provide that
particular advantage. The figure also shows the association of
properties, benefits, and pitfalls.
For example, independence from third party is an advan-
tage, which can be achieved from four properties of
blockchain: distributed database, distributed control, decen-
tralization and mined blocks [3], [7], [11], [57]. On the
other hand, anonymous transactions is a pitfall, which can
be provided by three properties including encrypted data
transmission, transparency with pseudonymity and decentral-
ization [15], [22].
The association or mapping among the properties, advan-
tages, and pitfalls has been depicted in Table 6. Here, the
green tick mark ( ) represents that the advantage can be
achieved by the properties and similarly, the red tick mark
( ) is for the pitfalls.
A few benefits were also found as pitfalls depending on
how blockchain is being utilized. (See Fig. 3 and Table 6). For
example, enhanced security can be considered as an advan-
tage since all the transactions use public key cryptography for
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I. Islam et al.: Critical Review of Concepts, Benefits, and Pitfalls of Blockchain Technology
data transmission [7], [11], [15]; whereas inadequate security
can be considered as a pitfall since there is high possibility of
cyber-attack in blockchain based systems [1], [17].
VI. CONCLUSION
Blockchain is a relatively newer innovation and most of the
research studies have mainly focused on proposing concep-
tual frameworks and algorithms. In the industrial field, the
implementation of blockchain is still very limited except in
the area of cryptocurrencies.
In this research, a rigorous literature survey has been
conducted to define the blockchain technology in a more
systematic way including its possible features and expected
benefits and pitfalls. As outcome, a few concept maps and
a mapping among the properties, benefits, and pitfalls of
blockchain have been provided.
The outcome of this research will provide fundamental
knowledge facilitating the future researchers to integrate
blockchain in their development of future technological solu-
tions. The mapping among the properties, advantages, and
pitfalls provides a clear understanding for better utilization
of blockchain.
We note two limitations of our research. First, as some
specific strings are used to search related literature, a part of
related articles may be missed. Second, the mapping of the
features with benefits and pitfalls was based on the existing
research. The properties that have not been studied in any
field are not included in our concept maps.
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IYOLITA ISLAM received the B.Sc. degree
in computer science and engineering from the
Military Institute of Science and Technology
(MIST), Dhaka, Bangladesh, in 2017, where she
is currently pursuing theM.Sc. degree in computer
science and engineering. She is serving as a Lec-
turer with the Computer Science and Engineering
Department,MIST, since 2018. She is the author of
several conference papers. Her research interests
include human–computer interaction, blockchain
technology, health informatics, and industry 4.0. She was awarded the Best
Paper Award in International Conference on Sustainable Technologies for
Industry 4.0 (STI 2019). She is an Associate Member of The Institution of
Engineers, Bangladesh (IEB).
KAZI MD. MUNIM received the B.Sc degree in
computer science and engineering from the Mili-
tary Institute of Science and Technology (MIST),
Dhaka, Bangladesh, in 2017, where he is currently
pursuing the M.Sc. degree. He is currently a Soft-
ware Quality Assurance Engineer by Profession.
His research interests include human–computer
interaction, blockchain, and industry 4.0. He is
the author of several conference papers. He was
awarded the Best Paper Award in International
Conference on Sustainable Technologies for Industry 4.0 (STI 2019).
SHAHRIMA JANNAT OISHWEE received the
B.Sc. degree in computer science and engineering
from theMilitary Institute of Science and Technol-
ogy (MIST), Dhaka, Bangladesh, in 2017. Since
January 2018, she has been serving as a Lec-
turer with the Computer Science and Engineering
Department, MIST. She is the author of several
conference papers. Her research interests include
human–computer interaction, data science in the
context of information security, software security,
quality, and usability analysis. She is currently an Associate Member of The
Institution of Engineers, Bangladesh (IEB).
A. K. M. NAJMUL ISLAM received the M.Sc.
(Eng.) degree from Tampere University of Tech-
nology, Finland, and the Ph.D. degree in infor-
mation systems from the University of Turku,
Finland. He is currently an Adjunct Professor with
Tampere University, Finland. He also works as
University Research Fellow with the Department
of Future Technologies, University of Turku. He
has 80+ publications. His research focuses on
Human Centered Computing. His research has
been published in top outlets such as Information Systems Journal, Journal
of Strategic Information Systems, Technological Forecasting and Social
Change, Computers in Human Behavior, Internet Research, Computers and
Education, Information Technology and People, Telematics and Informatics,
Journal of Retailing and Consumer Research, Communications of the AIS,
Journal of Information Systems Education, AIS Transaction on Human-
Computer Interaction, and Behaviour and Information Technology, among
others.
MUHAMMAD NAZRUL ISLAM received the
B.Sc. degree in computer science and information
technology from the Islamic University of Tech-
nology, Bangladesh, in 2002, the M.Sc. degree in
computer engineering from Politecnico di Milano,
Italy, in 2007, and the Ph.D. degree in information
systems fromÅboAkademiUniversity, Finland, in
2014. He is currently an Associate Professor with
the Department of Computer Science and Engi-
neering, Military Institute of Science and Technol-
ogy (MIST), Mirpur Cantonment, Dhaka, Bangladesh. Before joiningMIST,
he was working as a Visiting Teaching Fellow with Uppsala University,
Sweden and as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow with Åbo Akademi Uni-
versity, Finland. He was also a Lecturer and an Assistant Professor with
the Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Khulna University
of Engineering and Technology (KUET), Bangladesh, from 2003 to 2012.
His research areas include but not limited to human–computer interaction
(HCI), humanitarian technology, health informatics, military information
systems, information systems usability, and computer semiotics. He is the
author of more than 80 peer-reviewed publications in International journals
and conferences. He is a member of The Institution of Engineers, Bangladesh
(IEB).
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