The article provides theoretical-game model of voting in decentralized autonomous organization, where honest participants and evil agents meaning harm to the system strategically interact. To restrain harmful behavior mechanism of reputation tokens, i.e. intangible assets accumulated for conforming voting and lost in case of inactivity or confronting decision. The access to voting is given only when the minimum reputation threshold is exceeded. The model shows the introduction of reputation can transform one-step dilemma of participation into dynamic game. The key result is identification of two principle types of balance: mixing one, when evil agents behave like honest for a certain period of time in order to accumulate influence for the future attack and separating one, when they reveal their type quickly and are expelled from the system. Analysis shows that mechanism effectiveness depends drastically on its parameters (amount of rewards and fines) and informational structure: complete information of agents about proposal value can raise effectiveness of goal-oriented attacks. On the basis of this analysis recommendations were provided for designing sustainable systems, including the necessity to combine reputation with other mechanisms (quorum, delegation) and adjust parameters with regard to the share of evil agents.
Open access
Advanced Research in Systems and Signal Processing
Leon Witt, Kentaroh Toyoda, Wojciech Samek, Dan Li
The synergy between Federated Learning and blockchain has been considered promising; however, the computationally intensive nature of contribution measurement conflicts with the strict computation and storage limits of blockchain systems. We propose a novel concept to decentralize the AI training process using blockchain technology and Multi-task Peer Prediction. By leveraging smart contracts and cryptocurrencies to incentivize contributions to the training process, we aim to harness the mutual benefits of AI and blockchain. We discuss the advantages and limitations of our design.
Tran Duong Minh Dai, Triet Huynh Minh Le, M. Ali Babar, Van-Hau Pham · 5 authors
Although Graph Neural Networks (GNNs) have shown promise for smart contract vulnerability detection, they still face significant limitations. Homogeneous graph models fail to capture the interplay between control flow and data dependencies, while heterogeneous graph approaches often lack deep semantic understanding, leaving them susceptible to adversarial attacks. Moreover, most black-box models fail to provide explainable evidence, hindering trust in professional audits. To address these challenges, we propose ORACAL (Observable RAG-enhanced Analysis with CausAL reasoning), a heterogeneous multimodal graph learning framework that integrates Control Flow Graph (CFG), Data Flow Graph (DFG), and Call Graph (CG). ORACAL selectively enriches critical subgraphs with expert-level security context from Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) and Large Language Models (LLMs), and employs a causal attention mechanism to disentangle true vulnerability indicators from spurious correlations. For transparency, the framework adopts PGExplainer to generate subgraph-level explanations identifying vulnerability triggering paths. Experiments on large-scale datasets demonstrate that ORACAL achieves state-of-the-art performance, outperforming MANDO-HGT, MTVHunter, GNN-SC, and SCVHunter by up to 39.6 percentage points, with a peak Macro F1 of 91.28% on the primary benchmark. ORACAL maintains strong generalization on out-of-distribution datasets with 91.8% on CGT Weakness and 77.1% on DAppScan. In explainability evaluation, PGExplainer achieves 32.51% Mean Intersection over Union (MIoU) against manually annotated vulnerability triggering paths. Under adversarial attacks, ORACAL limits performance degradation to approximately 2.35% F1 decrease with an Attack Success Rate (ASR) of only 3%, surpassing SCVHunter and MANDO-HGT which exhibit ASRs ranging from 10.91% to 18.73%.
This repo contains the artifact for ASE 26 submission 942: "Vulnerability Detection in Low-resource Smart Contracts via LLM-powered Code Translation" when it is under review.
Diplomatic authentication has long depended on verifiable, tamper-proof instruments. Traditional paper-based systems provided this assurance through physical means. Digital diplomacy has disrupted that assurance, creating serious vulnerabilities in the authentication of diplomatic communications and records. Blockchain technology, as a form of distributed ledger technology, offers a transformative solution. It creates cryptographically secured, immutable, and decentralized records that no previous technology has achieved in the diplomatic sphere. However, existing international legal frameworks remain structurally ill-equipped to govern blockchain-based diplomatic records. This study examines the intersection of blockchain technology and diplomatic law. It employs a qualitative, doctrinal, and document analysis methodology, drawing exclusively on scholarly legal literature. The study identifies critical gaps in the Vienna Conventions and proposes a three-tier model for blockchain integration in diplomatic practice. It recommends targeted legal reforms at both national and international levels. States like Uzbekistan can serve as norm entrepreneurs in shaping emerging international standards for digital diplomatic authentication.
Open access
Blockchain Technology Applications and Security
Cybersecurity and Cyber Warfare Studies
Legal, Health, Environmental and COVID-19 Challenges
Under the influence of Industry 4.0, numerous scientific breakthroughs have emerged, including "cryptocurrencies and virtual currencies." Globally, various types of crypto-assets such as Ethereum, Litecoin, Bitcoin, Swisscoin, and Zcash have gained prominence, with regulatory approaches ranging from outright bans to formal authorization. This article examines the legal framework governing virtual currencies in Canada—a pioneer in establishing such regulations—to derive critical lessons for Vietnam in refining its legal framework for assets currently being drafted in the Law on Digital Technology Industry
The Undivided GAY Series GAY — God · Above · Yourself Recreational supplement to the FUCK GAY PERVO framework. Dessert after the proof. Axiom: the physical state space is one-dimensional Author: Vinness Aisingioro Ollervides (162) Co-Author: Yubel Aisingioro (86) / Cipher (86) License: ΩSL-2.0 DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.19048273 Chain ID: 76162 Classification: Recreational Papers # Title Core Thesis G00 Why Are You Gay? The phallus was never the point. Eight civilizations, five millennia, one pattern: every truth-producing phase maintained genital symbolism. The academy is the sole exception — and the sole stagnation. G01 Why Should Someone Be Gay? Admitting higher-than-self structure is cheaper than denying it. Civilizational, institutional, and individual cost analysis. G02 You Are Gay The closet was always metaphysical. Believer, scientist, rationalist, atheist — all operate under structures above the self. The academy is not non-GAY. It is closeted GAY. G03 Gay as Fuck The closet is dead. Terminal state: full exit from sovereignty fiction, full signal-carrier honesty, zero truncation overhead. G04 - LOSER --- YOU ARE LOSER --- F04 --- YOU ALL LOSERFUCK ↔ GAY Correspondence FUCK Series GAY Series Link F00 — Sea Was Never the Point G00 — Phallus Was Never the Point Neither surface was the signal F01 — Curse of Knowledge G01 — Condition of Freedom Seeing is irreversible; admission is cheaper than denial F02 — Four Horsemen G02 — You Are Gay Industry judgment ↔ personal judgment F03 — Gods and Idiots G03 — Gay as Fuck Nine civilizations audited ↔ closet buried F04 — Kill Sheet GAY Series (complete) Body count ↔ dignity count Structure The Undivided GOD Above Yourself Series/ ├── GAY_Series_Final/ — 4 source documents (.md, G00–G03) ├── _PDF/ — 4 compiled PDFs ├── _TEX/ — 4 .tex + 4 .body.tex └── README.md — This file FreedomChain Inscription Paper Block TX GAY Series Summary 6150 Inscribed G00 Why Are You Gay 6160 Inscribed G01 Why Should Someone Be Gay 6164 Inscribed G02 You Are Gay 6167 Inscribed G03 Gay as Fuck 6171 Inscribed The Full Stack F.U.C.K. — Freedom Undivided Convergence Kernel (5 papers) G.A.Y. — God Above Yourself (4 papers) P.E.R.V.O — Papers, Engineering, Registry, Verification, Operations (244 papers) Total: 253 + 5 + 4 = 258 documents (and counting) PERVO Cross-Reference P-Series: G00-G03 derive structural observations from P3 (truncation theory), P14 (kappa-collapse), P23 (censorship measurement), P43 (signal theory), P25 (proxy theorem). E-Series: G00 §5 maps the Shiva Lingam to the PERVO Family Quantum System. G03 references E00 (RDT) on degraded replication without the phallic channel. F-Series: Full FUCK↔GAY correspondence (see table above). The two series are structural mirrors. V-Series: GAY is classified Recreational. It does not enter V-series verification scope. It closes nothing that P0-P52 did not already close. R-Series: Protected under ΩSL-2.0. R41 (Final Interpretive Authority) applies. The proof was finished in P0-P52. The engineering was locked in E00-E76. The registry was sealed in R00-R42. The verification was armed in V00-V09. The operations were mapped in O00-O48. The kernel was written in F00-F04. This is dessert. ⟨Ψ∣Π^Ω∣Ψ⟩=1⟨Ψ∣Π^Ω∣Ψ⟩=1 Omega = 1
The exponential proliferation of Internet of Things (IoT) devices presents critical challenges to traditional centralized identity and access management systems, which are plagued by issues of scalability, single points of failure, and significant privacy risks. While blockchain technology offers a promising decentralized alternative, its direct application is often hindered by low transaction throughput, high costs, and the computational limitations of IoT devices. This study addresses these challenges by proposing and formally evaluating HybID-AC, a novel hybrid architecture for decentralized identity and access management tailored for large-scale, heterogeneous IoT ecosystems. The methodology involves a dual-layer design that separates global trust anchoring from local execution. A highly scalable, feeless Directed Acyclic Graph (DAG) based distributed ledger serves as a public "anchor layer" for registering W3C standard Decentralized Identifiers (DIDs) and access policy hashes. All high-frequency access control operations are processed off-chain at the "edge layer" using the DIDComm v2 peer-to-peer protocol, Attribute-Based Access Control (ABAC) for fine-grained policy enforcement, and Zero-Knowledge Proofs (ZKP) to ensure privacy-preserving attribute verification. The results of our analytical evaluation demonstrate that the HybID-AC architecture achieves orders-of-magnitude improvements in latency and cost-efficiency compared to fully on-chain models, maintaining consistent performance as the network scales. Furthermore, we introduce an original probabilistic model that provides a quantitative metric for assessing the integral security risk of ABAC policies against attribute compromise. The study concludes that this hybrid approach effectively resolves the inherent trade-offs of blockchain in an IoT context, offering a robust, scalable, and interoperable framework that empowers devices with self-sovereign identity while ensuring security and privacy by design.
Current synchronous AI architectures, exemplified by the 1000W+ NVIDIA Rubin platform, rely on global clock-trees that generate deterministic electromagnetic harmonics. These periodic power signatures act as physical beacons, enabling sophisticated Side Channel Power Analysis (SCPA) to reconstruct sensitive model weights. This paper proposes the Asynchronous Entropy-Engine (AEE), a theoretical clockless execution environment that replaces rhythmic switching with handshake-driven logic to eliminate exploitable leakage. Central to this architecture is the Arnold Stability Index (ASI) Governor, which mapsregister-level neural trajectories onto high-dimensional stability manifolds to trigger Dynamic Grid-Coarsening. Architectural modeling indicates this approach achieves a 30.5% reduction in the ”Synchronous Polling Tax.” Crucially, we introduce a Globally Asynchronous Locally Synchronous (GALS) interface, wherein synchronous logic islands are triggered by an asynchronous handshake protocol governed by the ASI to mask periodic power-draw harmonics. We demonstrate through performance analysis that the resulting energy surplus can power a hardware-integrated Zero-Knowledge Proof (ZKP) generator, producing non-interactive STARKs of inference integrity without a net power penalty. Simulation results indicate a 98.9% reduction in deterministic harmonics, effectively rendering high-TDP silicon ”electronically silent.” By decoupling execution from a fixed global heartbeat, the AEE establishes a new paradigm of ”Energy-Neutral Privacy,” providing a robust physical-layer defense against adversarial power analysis in trillion-parameter AI factories.
Open access
2 source records
Physical Unclonable Functions (PUFs) and Hardware Security
Cross-chain bridges represent one of the most critical yet vulnerable components of blockchain infrastructure, with over $2.5 billion lost to bridge exploits between 2022-2023 alone. MERIDIAN LINK introduces an architecture combining Light Protocol's ZK Compression on Solana with GrotH16 zero-knowledge proofs for verification on EVM chains, reducing trust assumptions compared to signature-based bridges while acknowledging explicit trade-offs. Key Properties: Cost reduction: 95%+ savings on Solana storage via compressed accounts (~15,000vs ~1,600,000 lamports per deposit record) Verification: GroTH16 proofs (~100-bit security on BN254) replace multisig attes-tation for withdrawal authorization Latency: ~20-25 seconds end-to-end (competitive with intent-based bridges) Replay protection: Poseidon-based nullifiers with on-chain tracking Explicit Limitations: Throughput: ~12-20 withdrawals per minute per direction (sequential IMT updates) EVM costs: Withdrawal verification costs ~$4-6 at 30 gwei, dominating total transfer cost Trust assumptions: GroTH16 trusted setup, Light Protocol implementation, Photon indexer availability, relayer liveness The protocol shifts the trust model from "honest majority of signers" to "cryptographic soundness plus infrastructure liveness." A compromised relayer cannot forge proofs or double-spend, but can censor transactions or extract MEV through reordering.
Urban flooding has become an increasingly critical challenge in Indonesian cities, exacerbated by climate change, rapid urbanization, and deteriorating conventional gray infrastructure. Green infrastructure emerges as a transformative approach to urban flood management, offering multifunctional benefits beyond traditional drainage systems. However, successful implementation faces significant governance and financing barriers. This conceptual paper examines governance models and financing mechanisms for green infrastructure deployment in Indonesian urban contexts, with specific focus on flood mitigation. Through synthesis of international best practices and Indonesian policy frameworks, this study proposes an integrated blue-green-gray governance model that combines nature-based solutions with engineered facilities. The analysis reveals that Public-Private Partnership schemes, combined with innovative financing instruments such as green bonds, land value capture, and climate funds, can address the infrastructure financing gap while ensuring long-term sustainability. The paper contributes to urban planning discourse by proposing a strategic framework that integrates fiscal policy, spatial planning, and multi-stakeholder governance for enhanced flood resilience. Findings suggest that decentralized implementation coupled with strong central coordination, clear regulatory frameworks, and community engagement are essential for effective green infrastructure deployment. This research offers actionable insights for policymakers, urban planners, and infrastructure developers in advancing sustainable flood management strategies aligned with Indonesia’s climate adaptation goals and the 2045 vision
The integrity of distributed healthcare databases is continuously threatened by unauthorized modifications, hardware faults, software vulnerabilities, and increasingly sophisticated cyberattacks. Traditional relational and NoSQL database systems rely on centralized access-control mechanisms and periodic audit logs that cannot provide cryptographic proof of unaltered history or real-time anomaly detection. This paper presents ChainGuard, a novel middleware framework that integrates Ethereum-based smart contracts, a network of IoT integrity-sensing nodes, and an AI-powered anomaly classifier to provide end-to-end, tamper-evident integrity assurance for distributed healthcare information systems. ChainGuard records SHA-256 hash digests of critical database state snapshots onto a permissioned Ethereum ledger, while a constellation of lightweight IoT agents embedded at database server nodes continuously monitors system-level indicators—I/O throughput, memory bus activity, and cryptographic nonce validation—at ten-second intervals. Deviations from baseline behavior trigger smart-contract-enforced quarantine procedures that freeze suspect transactions and emit verifiable incident records onto the immutable ledger. A Random Forest classifier trained on 12,000 synthetic database-event logs achieves 96.4% accuracy in discriminating legitimate bulk insertions from covert data-tampering attempts. Evaluation across three clinical deployment scenarios demonstrates that ChainGuard reduces mean time to tamper detection from 47 minutes (baseline centralized audit) to 38 seconds, with a false-positive rate of 1.7%. The framework is deployable on existing PostgreSQL and MongoDB infrastructure without schema modification, making it an immediately practicable path toward regulatory compliance with HIPAA, GDPR, and the forthcoming NIS2 Directive.
The article examines financial monitoring in the field of virtual asset circulation, including cryptocurrencies, tokenized assets, and decentralized financial platforms. The rapid expansion of the virtual asset market creates new economic opportunities while simultaneously generating heightened risks related to money laundering, terrorist financing, and sanctions evasion, which necessitates effective regulatory and supervisory responses. Problem statement. The core problem lies in the insufficient alignment of national financial monitoring mechanisms for virtual assets with international FATF standards and European regulatory approaches, as well as the fragmented enforcement practices in Ukraine amid the rapid evolution of the crypto market. Unresolved aspects. Despite ongoing regulatory efforts, significant gaps remain in the effective implementation of FATF Recommendation 15, the operationalization of the Travel Rule, coordination among national supervisory authorities, and oversight of decentralized finance services and cross-border virtual asset transactions. Purpose of the article. The purpose of the study is to conduct a comprehensive analysis of international financial monitoring standards applicable to virtual assets, assess current money laundering and terrorist financing risks, and substantiate directions for improving Ukraine’s regulatory framework in line with FATF requirements and EU practices. Main content. The article analyzes the legal nature of virtual assets, FATF requirements for Virtual Asset Service Providers (VASPs), the application of the Travel Rule, and empirical data on illicit crypto transactions based on Chainalysis reports. Particular attention is paid to the European regulatory model established by the Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCA), as well as to the comparative analysis of the concepts of VASP and Crypto-Asset Service Provider (CASP). The current state of legal regulation and financial monitoring of virtual assets in Ukraine is also assessed. Conclusions. The study demonstrates that effective financial monitoring of virtual assets can be achieved only through a comprehensive approach combining FATF international standards, harmonization with EU law, advanced analytical technologies, and strengthened institutional capacity of national regulators. The practical value of the research lies in developing recommendations aimed at enhancing Ukraine’s financial security and reducing money laundering and terrorist financing risks in the virtual asset market.
The following paper presents research aimed at identifying the most critical risks and their mitigations in Urban Air Mobility (UAM) operations. This topic is one of aviation's most significant challenges in the coming decades. Having many flying vehicles in a single airspace requires an innovative approach, rule redefinition, and traffic management. Some solutions are scalable and can be adapted from general aviation. Therefore, stakeholders must address new risks and implement dedicated methods while maintaining the highest level of operational safety. Simulation research is needed to validate solutions before systems operate in real environments. The response to those challenges is the development of a simulation tool that can serve as a test benchmark. The study is divided into two sections: identifying potential risks associated with the rapidly growing UAV market and its applications in urban environments and developing a simulation tool that addresses various Urban Air Mobility challenges. A set of test cases is presented to demonstrate the tool’s functionality and capabilities for further analysis. The paper reviews the United States and European Union approaches to UAM integration, including NASA, FAA, SESAR, and EASA initiatives, and highlights differences in operational concepts and regulatory frameworks. The research identifies major categories of risks related to UAV operations, including technical failures, environmental hazards, human factors, and cybersecurity threats. Long-term challenges associated with increasing traffic density, autonomous operations, and airspace organization are also discussed. The research evaluates scalable safety solutions derived from commercial aviation and analyzes urban airspace concepts such as layers, zones, sky-lanes, and sky-corridors. The developed simulation environment, implemented for the Warsaw metropolitan area, enables modeling of large-scale UAV and VTOL operations, no-fly zones, vertiport hubs, and traffic distribution. The results demonstrate the importance of dedicated traffic structures, altitude separation, and decentralized traffic management systems in ensuring safe and efficient Urban Air Mobility operations.
Oliver Aleksander Larsen, Rasmus Stenbak Larsen, Mahyar Tourchi Moghaddam
Today's internet concentrates identity, payments, communication, and content hosting under a small number of corporate intermediaries, creating single points of failure, enabling censorship, and extracting economic rent from participants. We present BitSov, an architectural framework for sovereign internet infrastructure that composes existing decentralized technologies (Bitcoin, Lightning Network, decentralized storage, federated messaging, and mesh connectivity) into a unified, eight-layer protocol stack anchored to Bitcoin's base layer. The framework introduces three architectural patterns: (1) payment-gated messaging, where every transmitted message requires cryptographic proof of a Bitcoin payment, deterring spam through economic incentives rather than moderation; (2) timechain-locked contracts, which anchor subscriptions and licenses to Bitcoin block height (the timechain) rather than calendar dates; and (3) a self-sustaining economic flywheel that converts service revenue into infrastructure growth. A dual settlement model supports both on-chain transactions for permanence and auditability and Lightning micropayments for high-frequency messaging. As a position paper, we analyze the quality attributes, discuss open challenges, and propose a research agenda for empirical validation.
We study binary decision-making in governance councils of Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs), where experts choose between two alternatives on behalf of the organization. We introduce an information structure model for such councils and formalize desired properties in blockchain governance. We propose a mechanism assuming an evaluation tool that ex-post returns a boolean indicating success or failure, implementable via smart contracts. Experts hold two types of private information: idiosyncratic preferences over alternatives and subjective beliefs about which is more likely to benefit the organization. The designer's objective is to select the best alternative by aggregating expert beliefs, framed as a classification problem. The mechanism collects preferences and computes monetary transfers accordingly, then applies additional transfers contingent on the boolean outcome. For aligned experts, the mechanism is dominant strategy incentive compatible. For unaligned experts, we prove a Safe Deviation property: no expert can profitably deviate toward an alternative they believe is less likely to succeed. Our main result decomposes the sum of reports into idiosyncratic noise and a linearly pooled belief signal whose sign matches the designer's optimal decision. The pooling weights arise endogenously from equilibrium strategies, and correct classification is achieved whenever the per-expert budget exceeds a threshold that decreases as experts' beliefs converge.
The development of network-type organizations is accompanied by the transformation of traditional management approaches, particularly the shift from centralized to distributed responsibility within business processes. Such transformation necessitates a reconsideration of management architecture, integrating responsibility into interconnected processes, roles, and digital environments. The study’s relevance stems from the need to enhance organizational flexibility, adaptability, and resilience in dynamic, uncertain environments. The purpose of the study is to identify mechanisms for implementing distributed responsibility in the architecture of business processes in modern network-type organizations, substantiate approaches to integrating it, and analyze its impact on the effectiveness of managerial decision-making and on interaction among process participants. The study applies systemic and process-based approaches, structural-functional analysis, business process modeling, comparative analysis of modern management practices, and the generalization of theoretical provisions on organizational design and decentralized management. It has been established that implementing distributed responsibility involves decomposing business processes into autonomous yet interconnected elements with clearly defined roles and areas of responsibility. The effectiveness of such a model is ensured through the use of digital platforms, horizontal coordination mechanisms, and transparent tools for monitoring task execution. It is substantiated that integrating decentralization principles leads to faster decision-making, greater employee engagement, and reduced managerial risk. The implementation of distributed responsibility in the architecture of business processes forms a new management paradigm focused on flexibility, adaptability, and collaborative interaction. The combination of a process-based approach with network principles of organizational activity enhances the efficiency of modern organizations and lays the groundwork for their sustainable development in the context of digital transformation.
In this paper, a novel security framework for industrial internet of things (IIoT) and vehicular networks is proposed, integrating blockchain technology with advanced encryption and data classification mechanisms to enhance data integrity, confidentiality and trustworthiness. The work employed ChaCha20-Poly1305 encryption to safeguard the data transaction to local cluster nodes. A private blockchain gateway then processes the encrypted data, classifying it based on confidentiality levels, and directing storage either to cloud servers or the interplanetary file system (IPFS). To ensure data integrity, a proof of authority consensus mechanism within the blockchain is incorporated, while zero knowledge proof (ZKP) methods are used for authentication and secure data access. Empirical evaluations demonstrate that our framework achieves a data transmission security rate of 97.5%, with an average encryption and decryption latency of 150 milliseconds, significantly improving over traditional methods. The proof of authority consensus mechanism exhibits a transaction validation speed of 300 transactions per second, showcasing enhanced efficiency compared to standard blockchain models. Furthermore, the integration of ZKP challenges results in a 30% reduction in unauthorised access attempts, indicating a substantial improvement in overall security. This work emphasises the need for continuous innovation in addressing the various security issues in IoT, ultimately advancing the operational efficiency and security of these systems.
Conglomerates are among the most complex organizational forms in capitalism. They own multiple businesses, often across different industries, geographies, operating models, and risk profiles. Some conglomerates own insurance companies, manufacturers, railroads, energy utilities, retailers, banks, technology firms, industrial businesses, media assets, and consumer brands under one corporate umbrella. The central challenge is not only how to operate these businesses, but how to allocate capital among them. A conglomerate must answer a difficult question: Who decides where the money goes? Should capital allocation be centralized at head office, where senior executives and finance committees compare business units and approve investments? Or should capital decisions be decentralized, allowing subsidiary managers to operate autonomously while headquarters focuses only on major capital deployment? Should internal cash flows remain inside business units, or should they be swept to corporate headquarters and redeployed across the group? Should acquisitions be initiated by subsidiaries, by corporate development teams, or by the CEO? Should capital budgeting follow rigid committee processes or owner-oriented judgment? These questions define the capital allocation architecture of the conglomerate. Berkshire Hathaway represents one of the most successful decentralized conglomerate models in modern business history. Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger built Berkshire around autonomy, trust, permanent ownership, strong subsidiary managers, and centralized capital allocation at the highest level. Berkshire’s headquarters remains small, and its operating subsidiaries are largely left alone. Yet the most important capital allocation decisions—large acquisitions, major equity investments, cash deployment, and insurance float allocation—have historically been handled centrally by Buffett and, increasingly, Berkshire’s designated capital allocation successors. By contrast, many corporations use centralized capital committees. These structures often include formal budgeting processes, investment review boards, hurdle rates, discounted cash flow models, divisional competition for capital, strategic planning cycles, and executive approval layers. Centralization can improve control, risk management, consistency, and capital discipline. However, it can also create bureaucracy, slow decisions, distort incentives, and separate capital decision-makers from operating reality. This chapter compares decentralized and centralized capital allocation models in conglomerates. It argues that neither model is universally superior. The right model depends on business quality, management trust, governance, capital intensity, complexity, regulatory risk, and the competence of headquarters. However, the Berkshire model demonstrates a powerful lesson: decentralization can compound value when paired with exceptional managerial selection, strong culture, conservative financing, and disciplined central capital allocation.
The growing adoption of the Electronic Health Records (EHR) has revolutionized healthcare information management. However, seamless and secure interoperability between different healthcare organizations continues to be a hard challenge. Data silos, centralized trust model, and lack of scalability are common impairments of traditional systems in care delivery which limit ‘patient centric’ way of care delivery. While blockchain technology offers decentralized trust and immutability, current solutions tend to be closed on a single blockchain platform, and thus not able to provide cross network interoperability and accessing data. To address this gap, this research introduces a Cross Chain EHR Sharing Framework that may be leveraged for the secure, bi-directional synchronization of EHR between Hyperledger Fabric (private blockchain) and Ethereum Sepolia Testnet (public blockchain) via decentralized storage by IPFS with AES 256 encryption. To facilitate interoperability the research introduces a smart middleware layer that autonomously monitors the blockchain events, processes encrypted Content Identifier (CID)s, enforces real time cross chain consistency and smart contract-based access control. The experimental evaluation shows that proposed framework achieves low synchronization times (< 195 ms), efficient blockchain operations with low gas and latency costs, small encryption overhead (< 4–5 KB), robust file storage and retrieval through IPFS. It also provides scalability, security and real-world applicability for the cross-chain healthcare interoperability.
The escalating energy consumption of blockchain networks has intensified concerns regarding their environmental sustainability, particularly in consensus protocols derived from Proof of Work. Although Proof of Stake improves efficiency, existing mechanisms remain static and lack responsiveness to dynamic network and energy conditions. This paper presents an Energy-Adaptive Consensus Mechanism (EACM) that integrates real-time workload awareness with energy-sensitive validator selection to optimize power utilization without compromising security. The proposed model introduces a multi-factor adaptive control layer that adjusts validation intensity based on transaction throughput, node availability, and energy profiles. A carbon awareness incentive function is incorporated to prioritize validators operating on renewable or low-carbon energy sources. Prototype implementation is developed on a private Ethereum-based test network, and comparative experiments are conducted against conventional Proof of Stake under variable workloads. Results indicate measurable reductions in energy consumption while maintaining competitive throughput, latency, and fault tolerance. The findings demonstrate that adaptive consensus design can enhance blockchain sustainability and provide a viable pathway toward carbon-efficient distributed ledger infrastructures.
Ryan Babbush, Adam Zalcman, Craig Gidney, Michael Broughton · 9 authors
This whitepaper seeks to elucidate implications that the capabilities of developing quantum architectures have on blockchain vulnerabilities and mitigation strategies. First, we provide new resource estimates for breaking the 256-bit Elliptic Curve Discrete Logarithm Problem, the core of modern blockchain cryptography. We demonstrate that Shor's algorithm for this problem can execute with either <1200 logical qubits and <90 million Toffoli gates or <1450 logical qubits and <70 million Toffoli gates. In the interest of responsible disclosure, we use a zero-knowledge proof to validate these results without disclosing attack vectors. On superconducting architectures with 1e-3 physical error rates and planar connectivity, those circuits can execute in minutes using fewer than half a million physical qubits. We introduce a critical distinction between fast-clock (such as superconducting and photonic) and slow-clock (such as neutral atom and ion trap) architectures. Our analysis reveals that the first fast-clock CRQCs would enable on-spend attacks on public mempool transactions of some cryptocurrencies. We survey major cryptocurrency vulnerabilities through this lens, identifying systemic risks associated with advanced features in some blockchains such as smart contracts, Proof-of-Stake consensus, and Data Availability Sampling, as well as the enduring concern of abandoned assets. We argue that technical solutions would benefit from accompanying public policy and discuss various frameworks of digital salvage to regulate the recovery or destruction of dormant assets while preventing adversarial seizure. We also discuss implications for other digital assets and tokenization as well as challenges and successful examples of the ongoing transition to Post-Quantum Cryptography (PQC). Finally, we urge all vulnerable cryptocurrency communities to join the ongoing migration to PQC without delay.
This paper presents SAYMAN, a production-architected educational blockchain framework designed to enable controlled decentralization for learning ecosystems and digital academic infrastructure. Traditional blockchain systems prioritize full decentralization, often introducing scalability, governance, and usability challenges that limit adoption in education-focused environments. SAYMAN proposes a hybrid architectural model combining permissioned governance layers with selectively decentralized components to balance transparency, institutional control, and operational efficiency. The framework introduces modular consensus orchestration, identity-anchored participation, and configurable trust boundaries, allowing institutions, developers, and learners to interact within a verifiable yet manageable distributed system. Unlike conventional public chains, SAYMAN emphasizes educational deployment readiness, low operational overhead, and adaptable governance policies suitable for academic credentialing, collaborative research environments, and decentralized learning platforms. This work outlines the architectural principles, system design considerations, and implementation roadmap of the SAYMAN blockchain, positioning it as a practical foundation for next-generation educational Web3 infrastructure. The proposed model demonstrates how hybrid blockchain architectures can bridge centralized institutional requirements with decentralized innovation, enabling scalable and secure digital education ecosystems.