  Blockchain is challenging the status quo of the central trust infrastructure
currently prevalent in the Internet towards a design principle that is
underscored by decentralization, transparency, and trusted auditability. In
ideal terms, blockchain advocates a decentralized, transparent, and more
democratic version of the Internet. Essentially being a trusted and
decentralized database, blockchain finds its applications in fields as varied
as the energy sector, forestry, fisheries, mining, material recycling, air
pollution monitoring, supply chain management, and their associated operations.
In this paper, we present a survey of blockchain-based network applications.
Our goal is to cover the evolution of blockchain-based systems that are trying
to bring in a renaissance in the existing, mostly centralized, space of network
applications. While re-imagining the space with blockchain, we highlight
various common challenges, pitfalls, and shortcomings that can occur. Our aim
is to make this work as a guiding reference manual for someone interested in
shifting towards a blockchain-based solution for one's existing use case or
automating one from the ground up.
