A Taxonomy of Blockchain Technologies: Principles of Identification and Classification

Abstract

A comparative study across the most widely known blockchain technologies is conducted with a bottom-up approach. Blockchains are deconstructed into their building blocks. Each building block is then hierarchically classified into main and subcomponents. Then, varieties of the subcomponents are identified and compared. A taxonomy tree is used to summarise the study and provide a navigation tool across different blockchain architectural configurations.