To draw a roadmap of current research activities of the blockchain community, we first conduct a brief overview of state-of-the-art blockchain surveys published in the recent 5 years. We found that those surveys are basically studying the blockchain-based applications, such as blockchain-assisted Internet of Things (IoT), business applications, security-enabled solutions, and many other applications in diverse fields. However, we think that a comprehensive survey towards the essentials of blockchains by exploiting the state-of-the-art theoretical modelings, analytic models, and useful experiment tools is still missing. To fill this gap, we perform a thorough survey by identifying and classifying the most recent high-quality research outputs that are closely related to the theoretical findings and essential mechanisms of blockchain systems and networks. Several promising open issues are also summarized finally for future research directions. We wish this survey can serve as a useful guideline for researchers, engineers, and educators about the cutting-edge development of blockchains in the perspectives of theories, modelings, and tools.

翻译：我们首先对最近5年公布的最先进的供应链调查进行简要的概述,我们发现,这些调查基本上正在研究以链为基础的各种应用,例如,链形协助的物联网(IoT)、商业应用、安全驱动的解决方案和各领域的许多其他应用。然而,我们认为,通过利用最先进的理论模型、分析模型和有用的试验工具,对链形的基本要素进行全面的调查仍然缺乏。为了填补这一空白,我们进行了彻底的调查,查明并分类了与链形系统和网络的理论发现和基本机制密切相关的最新高质量研究成果。最后还总结了一些大有希望的开放问题,供今后研究方向使用。我们希望这次调查能够成为研究人员、工程师和教育工作者从理论、模型和工具的角度出发,对块形链的尖端发展的有益指南。