The Blockchain in Secure and Efficient Data Sharing: A Review

Abstract

Blockchain technology has received a lot of attention since its very beginning due to its unique characteristics such as decentralization, immutability, smart contracts, and consensus procedures. Today's digital systems and data exchange systems face several obstacles in the era of digital collaboration in all economic, financial, commercial, scientific, and other fields. Blockchain technology offers the ability to address a wide range of difficulties associated with digital data sharing, such as data management, security, and privacy. This assessment of data sharing based on blockchain technology includes various research publications published in prominent scientific journals between 2022 and 2024. We employ the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) and its surrounding region. This study uses articles’ databases: Elsevier, Springer, IEEE Xplore, Web of Science, and MDPI. This study comprised 36 studies. We discovered that authors attempted to use blockchain technology to enable consumers and other organizations to share data, information, experiences, and process data, as well as to include various entities. Our study examines the impact of using different methods of storing data with blockchain technology on the security of that data and what depends on choosing the best method of storing data between onchain and off-chain storage, with the aim of solving many problems such as access control, data security, and privacy that are overlooked in traditional systems.