Down to the Rabbit Hole: How Gamification is Integrated in Blockchain Systems? A Systematic Literature Review

AbstractBlockchain is becoming a core technology in all application domains as it brings several advantages, such as immutability, transparency, high availability, strong data consistency, and interoperability. Despite these advantages, blockchain systems still have several concerns that might significantly reduce their effectiveness, including motivational, human concerns and miners’ involvement and participation. Gamification, on the other hand, was proposed as a solution for these concerns, among others. However, little is known in the literature on the use of gamification for blockchain systems, calling for more investigation in this regard. Therefore, this study conducts a systematic literature review to investigate why and how gamification is used in blockchain systems. Specifically, 41 studies were included and analyzed in this systematic review. The obtained results highlighted that gamification is integrated into blockchain systems to achieve different purposes, including motivating users/miners and increasing data validation and trust. Additionally, the findings revealed that Ethereum is the most used blockchain platform, where points and challenges are the most used game elements in blockchain systems. Furthermore, when using gamification as an incentive mechanic in blockchain, there is no difference in the effect of the consensus algorithm on miners’ motivation. The findings of this study provide insights into the ways of integrating gamification to enhance blockchain systems, as well as reveal future research directions to consider before deploying the next generation of gamified blockchain systems.Keywords: Blockchainminingconsensusincentivesgamificationgame elements Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Additional informationFundingThis work was supported in part by the French National Research Agency (ANR) under PRELUDE (Parcours Réussite Licence Universitaire à développement expérientiel) project (ANR-18-NCUN-0019 PIA3).Notes on contributorsMouna DendenMouna Denden received her PhD degree in Computer Science from the University of Sfax, Tunisia, in 2020. She is currently a post-doctoral fellow at the Polytechnic University of Hauts-de-France (UPHF). Her research interests include human-computer interaction, gamification, and learners’/users’ behaviors analysis.Mourad AbedMourad Abed is Vice-President of Digital technology, Pedagogical Innovation and Strategic and Partnership Projects and the “InnovENT-E Institute” foundation: it aims to support SMEs and SMIs in innovation and internationally. His research activities focus mainly on topics related to knowledge engineering for personalization and information retrieval, design and evaluation of systems in the field of human-computer interaction, and interactive application generation.Victor HolotescuVictor Holotescu is a PhD student at Politehnica University of Timisoara, Romania, with a thesis on the Blockchain topic, having extended experience in designing and implementing decentralized, mobile and AR applications.Ahmed TliliAhmed Tlili is an Associate Professor of Educational Technology at Beijing Normal University. He is also the Director of the SLIBNU-ALECSO Smart Education Joint Lab and the Co-Director of the OER Lab. His research focuses on combining educational technology and educational psychology to enhance both learning and teaching experiences.Carmen HolotescuCarmen Holotescu is a Professor of Computer Science at “Ioan Slavici” of Timisoara, Romania, with valuable research projects related to Open Education, OER, MOOC, and Blockchain, who published highly cited articles and studies.Gabriela GrosseckGabriela Grosseck is an associate Professor in the Department of Psychology at the West University of Timisoara, Romania. She has particular expertise in digital education, a solid experience in students’/teachers’ training both f2f and online environments.