Beneath the surface: a bibliometric analysis of the hidden risks and costs of blockchain technology

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to identify the negative aspects of blockchain technology and to shed the light on most productive years, countries, authors, sources and frequent keywords. Design/methodology/approach A Web of Science bibliographic data set containing 209 journal articles was evaluated using descriptive and network analytics. A two-step process is adopted in this study; descriptive analysis is initially carried out using RStudio to determine the most productive years, nations, sources and authors, and using co-occurrence of keyword analysis in VOSviewer, the most influential keywords are determined. Findings The findings reveal that 2022 is the most prolific year in terms of number of publications. It is discovered that China tops the list for having published the most articles. Similarly, the most productive authors are Kumar A and Abhishek K. Originality/value To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this bibliometric analysis is unique in that it takes a thorough approach to examine the negative aspects of blockchain technology and identify research trends and offer insights that might guide future research and practical solutions.