Blockchain technology has emerged as a pivotal and transformative force, establishing transparent, secure, and decentralized frameworks for transaction management. Its core strengths include immutability, data decentralization, and consensus validation, alongside the automation provided by self-executing smart contracts. This review examines its foundational technologies, diverse applications, and associated challenges. Blockchain demonstrates profound potential across sectors like finance (e.g., Anti-Money Laundering and fraud reduction), education (credential verification), healthcare (secure record management), and the Metaverse (verifiable digital asset ownership via non-fungible tokens). However, adoption is significantly hindered by critical issues, including scalability bottlenecks, the energy inefficiency of protocols like Proof of Work, and security risks stemming from smart contract flaws, with case-based testing revealing up to 40% of public contracts have exploitable vulnerabilities. Recent advancements in high-throughput rollups and formal verification mitigate these risks. This coincides with a 2025 shift toward structured legal mandates, such as the EU’s MiCA, India’s VDA policy, and the U.S. GENIUS and CLARITY Acts. Therefore, future research must prioritize enhancing smart contract verification, developing energy-efficient consensus mechanisms, cross-chain interoperability, and fostering the continued alignment of supportive legal and regulatory frameworks.
Shylaja et al. (Sat,) studied this question.
Synapse has enriched 5 closely related papers on similar clinical questions. Consider them for comparative context: