A survey on blockchain for big data: Approaches, opportunities, and future directions

• Published in: Future generation computer systems Vol. 131; pp. 209 - 226
• Main Authors: Deepa, N., Pham, Quoc-Viet, Nguyen, Dinh C., Bhattacharya, Sweta, Prabadevi, B., Gadekallu, Thippa Reddy, Maddikunta, Praveen Kumar Reddy, Fang, Fang, Pathirana, Pubudu N.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Elsevier B.V 01.06.2022
• Subjects: Big data; Blockchain; Security; Smart city; Smart healthcare; Smart transportation; Vertical applications; Vertical applications; Smart healthcare; Blockchain; Big data; Smart transportation; Security; Smart city
• ISSN: 0167-739X; 1872-7115
• DOI: 10.1016/j.future.2022.01.017

Big data has generated strong interest in various scientific and engineering domains over the last few years. Despite many advantages and applications, there are many challenges in big data to be tackled for better quality of service, e.g., big data analytics, big data management, and big data privacy and security. Blockchain with its decentralization and security nature has the great potential to improve big data services and applications. In this article, we provide a comprehensive survey on blockchain for big data, focusing on up-to-date approaches, opportunities, and future directions. First, we present a brief overview of blockchain and big data as well as the motivation behind their integration. Next, we survey various blockchain services for big data, including blockchain for secure big data acquisition, data storage, data analytics, and data privacy preservation. Then, we review the state-of-the-art studies on the use of blockchain for big data applications in different domains such as smart city, smart healthcare, smart transportation, and smart grid. For a better understanding, some representative blockchain-big data projects are also presented and analyzed. Finally, challenges and future directions are discussed to further drive research in this promising area. •An overview of the application of blockchain for big data analytics is presented.•Blockchain services for big data such as secure data acquisition and analytics are presented.•An extensive discussion of the use of blockchain in popular big data applications is presented.•Some popular blockchain-based big data projects are introduced and analyzed.•Research challenges and opportunities on the use of blockchain for big data are discussed.