Ontology of Blockchain Technologies. Principles of Identification and Classification

A comparative study across the most widely known blockchain technologies is conducted with a bottom-up approach. Blockchains are disentangled into building blocks. Each building block is then hierarchically classified in main and subcomponents. Then, alternative values (i.e., layouts) for the subcomponents are identified and compared between them. Finally, an ontology matrix summarises the study and provides a navigation tool across different blockchain architectural configurations.