BIMEE: Blockchain Based Incentive Mechanism Considering Endowment Effect

Abstract

Crowdsensing is the concept of crowdsourcing data with the help of mobile users having necessary sensory devices. The users submit the required data based on the criteria provided in the tasks published by requesters. The quality of sensing data depends on the continuous participation over multiple periods of time of highly skilled users. To encourage long term participation of the users, the incentive mechanism based on blockchain framework is offered to offset users' costs and preserve their privacy. Blockchain is a distributed ledger of transactions that is immutable and traceable. However, current blockchain based incentive mechanisms for crowdsensing has two problems, firstly, they ignore the users' preferring avoidance of loss over acquiring equivalent rewards which is defined as loss aversion in economics, secondly, the platform does not consider the fairness to newly participated users for auction. Therefore, we proposed a Blockchain based Incentive Mechanism with a reverse auction considering Endowment Effect (BIMEE). We further implement BIMEE using Smart contracts on Ethereum public test network. The extensive experimental results show that BIMEE improves the participation rate of mobile users in sensing tasks, the platform utility, and the average utility of users.