A Comprehensive Review on Techniques, Tools and Open Issue in Blockchain and Smart Contract Development

Abstract

Increasingly popular are blockchain platforms and programming languages for creating smart contracts. However, the development of smart contracts and blockchain applications follows non-standard software life cycles. This means that updating delivered applications or fixing bugs through new software versions is challenging. This literature review in software engineering aims to highlight current problems and potential solutions in smart contract and blockchain application development. Examining 98 articles from 2016 to 2023, we focus on addressing challenges specific to software engineering in the development, testing, and security assessment of blockchain-oriented software. The review covers four key topics: smart contract testing, smart contract code analysis, smart contract metrics, and blockchain applications. The research identify open challenges for further research in each of these areas, beyond reviewing proposed techniques, tools, and approaches in the literature