Non-Fungible Tokens Applications: A Systematic Mapping Review of Academic Research

Abstract

Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) represent unique and non-interchangeable assets. The concept of tokenizing the unique nature of digital items originated with the Ethereum blockchain's token standard. NFTs have quickly gained popularity and growing attention in different application areas. In this paper, we aim to identify literature that seeks to adopt NFTs and present a systematic mapping review of peer-reviewed and non-peer-reviewed research publications about the applications of NFTs. We obtained all research papers from the primary scientific databases and using the systematic mapping method, we narrowed them down to 106 relevant papers. We classified these papers to discover yearly trends of development and research. We included existing research and different applications. Finally, we identified the research gap and future opportunities.