Abstract
As a decentralized, public, and digital ledger technology in Peer-to-Peer network, blockchain has received much attention from various fields, including finance, healthcare, supply chain, etc. However, some challenges (e.g., scalability, privacy, and security issues) severely affects the wide adoption of blockchain technology. Recently, Intel software guard extensions (SGX), as new trusted computing technologies, have provided a new solution to the above challenges in the blockchain area. Although many studies have focused on using SGX technology to enhance their schemes in the blockchain areas, no comprehensive survey has systematically analyzed and delineated these studies. This article is the first to systematically discuss the application status of SGX in the blockchain area. In this article, we study the scheme designs, advantages, and disadvantages of the existing works using a six-layer hierarchical structure of the blockchain. We also summarize the functions of SGX and formally analyze the advantages and disadvantages of SGX. Finally, we review the remaining challenges and present a list of possible directions for future research.
Highlights
Blockchain, as the underlying technology of digital cryptocurrency, is a decentralized, public, and digital ledger that stores all committed transactions in a chain of blocks
Blockchain was first introduced with Bitcoin [1] to solve the double-spending problem without the need for a trusted authority or central server, which revolutionized the field of digital currencies
We summarize all of the software guard extensions (SGX)-based works in the different blockchain layers based on the functions and disadvantages of SGX, and research the current remaining challenges and future directions for the application of SGX in the blockchain area
Summary
Blockchain, as the underlying technology of digital cryptocurrency, is a decentralized, public, and digital ledger that stores all committed transactions in a chain of blocks. Blockchain was first introduced with Bitcoin [1] to solve the double-spending problem without the need for a trusted authority or central server, which revolutionized the field of digital currencies It was used in the other projects (e.g., Ethereum [2], a global, open-source platform for decentralized applications to write and execute arbitrary, programmable transaction logic in the form of smart contracts). Based on the blockchain layers, we classify the cutting-edge studies on the application of SGX in the blockchain area and study the scheme designs, advantages, and disadvantages of these works. We summarize all of the SGX-based works in the different blockchain layers based on the functions and disadvantages of SGX, and research the current remaining challenges and future directions for the application of SGX in the blockchain area.
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