2025/06/10 by Zeinab Nezami, Nezami, Zeinab, Zhuolun Li +9
Computer Science · #Big Data and Digital Economy #Blockchain Technology Applications and Security #Distributed #FOS: Computer and information sciences #IoT and Edge/Fog Computing #Parallel #and Cluster Computing (cs.DC)
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2506.08636
openalex publication_date 2025/06/10 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
Blockchain and edge computing are two instrumental paradigms of decentralized computation, driving key advancements in Smart Cities applications such as supply chain, energy and mobility. Despite their unprecedented impact on society, they remain significantly fragmented as technologies and research areas, while they share fundamental principles of distributed systems and domains of applicability. This paper introduces a novel and large-scale systematic literature review on the nexus of blockchain and edge computing with the aim to unravel a new understanding of how the interfacing of the two computing paradigms can boost innovation to provide solutions to timely but also long-standing research challenges. By collecting almost 6000 papers from 3 databases and putting under scrutiny almost 1000 papers, we build a novel taxonomy and classification consisting of 22 features with 287 attributes that we study using quantitative and machine learning methods. They cover a broad spectrum of technological, design, epistemological and sustainability aspects. Results reveal 4 distinguishing patterns of interplay between blockchain and edge computing with key determinants the public (permissionless) vs. private (permissioned) design, technology and proof of concepts. They also demonstrate the prevalence of blockchain-assisted edge computing for improving privacy and security, in particular for mobile computing applications.