A Lightweight Smart Contract Blockchain Platform for Secure and Efficient SME Transaction Systems

Abstract

Small and medium enterprises (SMEs) require secure, efficient, and low-cost digital transaction systems. However, many blockchain-based platforms are designed for large-scale applications and impose significant computational overhead, making them unsuitable for resource-constrained SMEs. This study proposes a lightweight smart contract blockchain platform tailored for SME-scale service environments. The system implements a modular smart contract architecture integrated with a lightweight blockchain and automates key transactional processes, including balance top-ups, service ordering, order confirmation, and payment execution, while ensuring data integrity through a simplified Proof-of-Work mechanism. System performance is evaluated using a Design of Experiment (DOE) framework with a full factorial design and analyzed through Analysis of Variance (ANOVA). The results show that execution time remains below 5 seconds under workloads of up to 20 concurrent transactions, with CPU utilization below 55%. ANOVA results indicate that transaction concurrency and smart contract complexity significantly affect performance, while block size has a limited impact. Security evaluation confirms resistance to unauthorized access, double-spending, and reentrancy attacks.