Knowledge Mapping and Scientometric Overview on Global Blockchain Research

In the past few years, block-chain research literatures have increased rapidly, but there have been fewer attempts and efforts to map global research in block-chain related research. The main purpose of this study is to assess global progress and explore the current trends in block-chain studies. Scientific quantitative measurement methods were utilized targeting the Science Citation Index Extension (SCI-E) and Social Science Citation Index (SSCI) from the WoS database until 2018. The block-chain related literatures were investigated as a whole in this paper. This paper adopts the literature measurement method and knowledge visualization technology to clarify the status of authoritative publications in global block-chain documents. The CiteSpace software was used to conduct a research on the subject categories, author cooperation networks, national cooperation networks as well as the institutional cooperation networks. The authors of the literature and the cited references were thoroughly examined, highlighting the main aspects and providing research frontier for block-chain research.