Towards an Infrastructure Cost Model for Blockchain-Based Applications

Blockchain has become a core technology for developing decentralized applications allowing the safe interaction of untrusted actors. Given the early stage of blockchain research, the current literature has not addressed several inherent challenges related to system and software engineering, including the infrastructure costs and benefits. These are critical to evaluate the feasibility of any system and guide architectural choices during its design, implementation, and exploitation. This work presents a model for evaluating the infrastructure costs and benefits in blockchain applications. First, we propose a taxonomy to classify the application related transactions. Then, we propose a model to evaluate the infrastructure costs and benefits in applications using either public or private blockchains. The model is based on parameters that describe the systems and can be easily identified at any stage of the application life cycle. To illustrate the model validity, we quantitatively analyze a real use case. The results highlight the inherent complexity of characterizing the costs and benefits of blockchain applications, while the proposed models facilitate several aspects of this process. Moreover, it provides a solid ground to evaluate a blockchain-based system from the early stages of the development, eventually supporting the entire life cycle.