Architecting blockchain systems

Companies are gravitating more and more towards the use of blockchains in their systems, but it is not a silver bullet. Challenges are currently holding back blockchain's enormous potential, such as scalability issues and frustrating trade-offs, most notably in public decentralized blockchain systems. In this paper, we conduct a Systematic Review of Literature in order to explore the current challenges of blockchains while presenting possible solutions to each of these challenges. We conclude that current challenges can be summarized in three categories: Scalability issues, security issues and a choice of the consensus protocol. We also briefly discuss the use of blockchain in current systems, concluding that while blockchains current immaturity makes it hard to recommend for most projects, blockchains in their current state could be used in the Internet of Things.