Comparing Blockchain Platforms for Smart Contracts: A Preliminary Framework

Since 2008, when it was first cited, blockchain technology represents an innovation from both a structural and application point of view. Since then, thanks to its peculiarities and capabilities of implementing smart contracts, blockchain technology has undergone a strong development in different application domains. The interest around this technology also brought to the definition of several platforms facilitating its use and application. Due to their variety, , choosing the most suitable blockchain platform to support a specific business need represents a strategic problem. This paper proposes an analysis for the definition of an evaluation framework and related quality attributes, helping to characterize and compare different blockchain platforms for identifying the most suitable one to the implementation of smart contracts in a specific business context. The analysis of a set of blockchain platforms is proposed for discussing the applicability and use of the proposed framework