Systematic Review of Blockchain Business Applications and the Metaverse

Abstract

The study aims to examine how blockchain is used in the multimodal and interdisciplinary metaverse as a nexus of education and training, accounting, banking and finance, entertainment and media, marketing and e-commerce, and retail, healthcare, and wellness. It seeks to evaluate the influence of blockchain combined with artificial intelligence, the Internet of Things, and other emerging technologies in the metaverse, so evaluating the challenges and concerns in the field, new business prospects, and sustainable development paths corresponding to Sustainable Development Goals. Using a Systematic Literature Review (SLR) technique, this article addresses the problem from a commercial viewpoint. The study investigates the topic structure of the literature by means of Biblioshiny for R combined with VOSviewer version 1.6.20. Furthermore, increasing the analytical depth is a bibliographic coupling method used on a dataset of 172 Scopus (2024) items. The study underlines the economic rationality and direct consequences of the characteristics of the blockchain—NFTs, DeFi, cryptocurrencies, transparency, decentralization, and security—on the relevance of business models in the metaverse. The information provided here is a vital literature study on how the blockchain addresses issues in constructing and metamorphosing the metaverse from several sectors and angles. In the framework of the metaverse, this article offers a thorough theoretical study of the possibilities and possible challenges in blockchain integration.