Abstract: The paper conducts an objective and comprehensive analysis of the international research status， research hotspots and development trends of block-chain based on visual analysis software， and provides useful guidance and reference for the research of block-chain.  The Web of Science database was used as the search object, and the articles related to the block-chain published from 2000 to 2020 were included. Visualizing analysis of the authors, institutions, countries, key words and cited documents was conducted based on bibliometric analysis and information visualization software CiteSpace. A total of 4349 articles were eventually included, and the number of a publication increased very rapidly after 2016. China, USA, England, Australia and many other countries are building their global technology research collaboration network. The Chinese researchers are active in this field and have concurred several high-productive authors, whom entered the worldwide top 10 based on the numbers of articles. The application of block-chain in energy industry is in early stage and is heating up quickly. There are 3 articles related with application in energy industry out of the top 10 citation records. The hotspots include the application of block-chain in electric vehicles, micro-grid, energy internet and electricity market. The study of blockchain is still under development, which has strong potential. The global collaboration is also under development and China needs to enhance the influence.

Key words: block-chain, knowledge map, collaboration network, Web of Science, energy industry