José Ricardo Cedeño-García, Jesús Favela, Carlos Eduardo Sánchez-Torres
The significant increase in data production resulting from the widespread adoption of mobile and IoT technologies has revolutionized healthcare but also presents significant privacy and ethical challenges. The field of medical data collection is no exception and has limitations in terms of the source, variety and quantity of records from studies on healthcare and wellness. One way to address this dilemma is the use of the Blockchain for patient data collection and use. The anonymity of a centralized network allows the patient’s identity to be protected. The structure formed by nodes allows the information to be always available and does not depend on a main server. The immutability of records in the chain ensures unambiguous traceability of information flow by the healthcare provider. Finally, the network’s consensus and reward mechanisms could motivate new users to participate in active sensing. In this article we will expose the architecture of an application that relies on the Blockchain to meet the above information needs by leveraging the potential of the Ethereum network. In addition, we present a use case where consciously collected data from our platform is used to train a machine learning model automatically, using a P2P Browser-Based Computational Notebook as execution and distribution environment.
The Internet of Things (IoT) has revolutionized the healthcare industry by enabling the seamless integration of medical devices, sensors, and data-driven applications. However, the large influx of sensitive healthcare data and the proliferation of linked devices have caused grave worries about data security and privacy. Traditional centralized security systems are unable to handle the changing threats and problems in the IoT healthcare setting. This study suggests a novel strategy for boosting data security in the healthcare industry that makes use of blockchain technology. The main goal of this research is to develop and deploy a trustworthy framework that safeguards private healthcare information in IoT networks. Blockchain, as a distributed and decentralized ledger, offers inherent security features such as immutability, transparency, and cryptographic mechanisms. In this research, it is suggested that healthcare data be gathered via the IoT and stored in the Interplanetary File System (IPFS) using Ethereum-based blockchain technology for data security. The suggested method creates a reliable environment for managing healthcare data by exploiting the special features of blockchain. The json and jpeg files are utilized five times on a distributed database housed on IPFS and a centralized database hosted on Firebase, and the upload and download times are recorded. For IoT-based healthcare systems, we have also investigated the cost and length of time required to implement smart contracts on blockchain platforms like Rinkeby, Binance, and Matic. This research suggests implementing the Blockchain platform in an IoT-based healthcare system to provide data confidentiality, integrity, and accessibility.
Seyed Mohammad Hashemi, Ruxandra Mihaela Botez, Georges Ghazi
This paper introduces an innovative consensus algorithm for managing Unmanned Aircraft System Traffic (UTM) through blockchain technology, a highly secure consensus protocol, to allocate airspace. A smart contract was developed on the Ethereum blockchain for allocating airspace. This technique enables the division of the swarm flight zone into smaller sectors to decrease the computational complexity of the algorithm. A decentralized voting system was established within these segmented flight zones, utilizing two primary methodologies: Proof of Work (PoW) and Proof of Stake (PoS). By employing 1000 UAS-S4s across various locations and heading angles, a swarm flight zone was generated. The efficiency of the devised decentralized consensus system was assessed based on error rate and validation time. Despite PoS displaying greater efficiency in cumulative probability for block execution, the comparative analysis indicated PoW outperformed PoS concerning the potential for conflicts among UASs.
Background: This paper tackles the critical challenge of detecting fraudulent transactions within the Ethereum blockchain using machine learning techniques. With the burgeoning importance of blockchain, ensuring its security against fraudulent activities is crucial to prevent significant monetary losses. We utilized a public dataset comprising 9,841 Ethereum transactions, characterized by attributes such as gas price, transaction fee, and timestamp.Methods: Our approach is bifurcated into two core phases: data preprocessing and predictive modeling. In the data preprocessing phase, we meticulously process the dataset and extract pivotal features from transactions, setting the stage for efficient predictive modeling.Findings: For predictive modeling, we employed several machine learning algorithms to discern between fraudulent and legitimate transactions. Our evaluation encompassed algorithms like decision trees, logistic regression, gradient boosting, XGBoost, and an innovative hybrid model that melds random forests with deep neural networks (DNN).Novelty: Our findings underscore that the proposed model boasts a precision rate of 97.16%, marking a substantial leap in fraudulent transaction detection on the Ethereum blockchain in comparison to prevailing methodologies. This paper augments the current efforts aimed at bolstering the security of blockchain transactions using sophisticated analytical strategies..
This manuscript presents an exhaustive review of blockchain-based mixing services, aiming to fill the existing gap between academic innovations and real-world implementations. Starting with an identification of the core functionalities and techniques employed by mixing services, the paper delves into detailed explanations of these operational mechanisms. It further outlines an evaluation framework tailored for a rigorous assessment, highlighting the key vulnerabilities and strengths of various solutions. In addition, the study identifies potential attack vectors that compromise these services. The paper explores the dual nature of mixing services, while they contribute to the preservation of privacy, a cornerstone of blockchain technologies, they can also facilitate illicit activities. By addressing key research questions, this study not only offers a comprehensive overview of the current state of mixing services but also sets the stage for future academic discourse in this evolving field.
The Blockchain-based Electronic Health Record (B-EHR) system represents a significant advancement in healthcare data management. Concerns over data confidentiality and security have become increasingly critical in the healthcare sector, given the need for immediate data accessibility. Traditional centralized systems face accessibility issues, necessitating a transformative solution, and blockchain technology emerges as a promising candidate. This research introduces a patient-controlled, blockchain-based system that efficiently manages and safeguards individuals' health-related data. By harnessing the Ethereum network and utilizing tools such as Ganache, Solidity, and web3.js, this system takes a systematic approach to overcome the limitations of centralized systems. Smart contracts, the basis of blockchain technology, serve as the backbone for storing and processing patients' data in a decentralized manner. Transactions are conducted securely through these smart contracts, ensuring patient privacy and data security. Notably, any modifications to transactions can be verified and propagated across the entire distributed network, enhancing data integrity. Complementing this system is a cryptocurrency wallet like MetaMask, providing a centrally controlled repository where records can be swiftly accessed and secured by authorized individuals, including doctors and patients. This integration significantly improves data accessibility and security within the healthcare domain. Ultimately, this research aims to leverage blockchain technology for simultaneous data retrieval, enhancing efficiency, credibility, and accessibility. It offers a robust framework for securely storing data with tailored access permissions and facilitates the safe transfer of patient medical records. In essence, it introduces a swift and secure health record system and an innovative protocol, promoting greater transparency and ownership of sensitive data in the healthcare sector through blockchain integration.
Predicting the prices of cryptocurrency owing to its volatility, instability, and other factors has been challenging; investors and traders especially in Nigeria have been on a constant look for a more reliable way of knowing market trends and prices and while there has been so many research conducted using deep learning, the results for which has fall short of what investors could called a strong predictor. This research reviewed the results of many works that had been done and proposed two types of recurrent neural network (RNNs) namely Long Short-Term Memory and Gated Recurrent Unit (GRU) for predicting the future prices of two of the most common crypto assets namely Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH), these two were selected based on their popularity, the volume traded and their market capitalization. The experiment was conducted in a GPU Jupyter Notebook environment and the performance of our experiment was evaluated on a test set using root mean square error (RMSE) and based on its values, the LSTM presented a better performance with rsme scores of 654.66, and 80.30 respectively for BTC and ETH as compared to GRU. The paper proceeds further to compare the results of this experiment with other related works and we discovered that its performance is a great improvement.
Chuyi Yan, Chen Zhang, Meng Shen, Ning Li · 8 authors
Abstract Ethereum’s high attention, rich business, certain anonymity, and untraceability have attracted a group of attackers. Cybercrime on it has become increasingly rampant, among which scam behavior is convenient, cryptic, antagonistic and resulting in large economic losses. So we consider the scam behavior on Ethereum and investigate it at the node interaction level. Based on the life cycle and risk identification points we found, we propose an automatic detection model named Aparecium . First, a graph generation method which focus on the scam life cycle is adopted to mitigate the sparsity of the scam behaviors. Second, the life cycle patterns are delicate modeled because of the crypticity and antagonism of Ethereum scam behaviors. Conducting experiments in the wild Ethereum datasets, we prove Aparecium is effective which the precision, recall and F1-score achieve at 0.977, 0.957 and 0.967 respectively.
<p><a href="https://sites.google.com/99cryptowallet.com/zilpaywalletextension/">ZilPay Wallet</a> is a browser extension that supports the following web browsers: Brave, Firefox, Opera, and Chrome. The wallet allows you to connect to the Zilliqa blockchain without running the entire node. It provides a connection between the web browser and the blockchain, and it eases Zilliqa usage and allows you to run Zilliqa applications from within their browsers. Developers can merge smart contract calls, which allows the wallet to work with dApps (decentralized applications). This makes it simpler for developers to interact with the Zilliqa blockchain.</p>\n\n<p>What is Zilliqa (ZIL)?</p>\n\n<p>Zilliqa is a blockchain designed to enhance the scalability and transaction processing of Ethereum (ETH). Zilliqa is a good foundation for developing networks and apps that need high transactions throughout.</p>\n\n<p> </p>\n\n<p>Zilliqa is an ERC-20 blockchain aimed to provide high transaction throughput. Presently the blockchain can manage 2,828 transactions every second. ZIL is the utility coin of the Zilliqa network that one can use to pay the transaction processing fees and have smart contracts performed.</p>\n\n<p> </p>\n\n<p>Zilliqa blockchain achieves high transaction throughput by employing the sharded database. In the sharded database, the network’s nodes are part of the subgroups that support a particular shard instead of the complete network. Transactions occur in every shard; ultimately, the transactions from every shard are put into blocks and connected to the initial chain. Zilliqa doesn’t utilize a PoW (proof-of-work) consensus algorithm, unlike other blockchains. Rather, it utilizes a consensus algorithm integrating PoW and pBFT (practical Byzantine fault tolerance).</p>\n\n<p>Why Use ZilPay Wallet Extension?</p>\n\n<p>Decentralized Wallet: The decentralized nature of the <strong><a href="https://sites.google.com/99cryptowallet.com/zilpaywalletextension/">ZilPay Wallet Extension</a></strong> gives you full ownership of your wallet and assets.</p>\n\n<p> </p>\n\n<p>A Portal to DApps: ZilPay users can access all the key decentralized applications (dApps) available on the Zilliqa blockchain. Also, you can become part of a safe, decentralized digital world and explore ZRC2 tokens and its apps.</p>\n\n<p> </p>\n\n<p>Interoperability: ZilPay lets you pay friends or others anywhere with the capability to import any wallets on the chain.</p>\n\n<p> </p>\n\n<p>Buy, Spend, and Swap Assets: ZilPay offers a mobile app and browser extension; the wallet equips users with a key vault, token exchange, etc.</p>\n\n<p>NFTs: You can easily gather your NFT (non-fungible tokens) with ZilPay Wallet.</p>
Binance Wallet is a digital currency wallet from Binance, a leading crypto trading exchange for accessing BNB Beacon Chin, BNB Smart Chain, and Ethereum. Users can utilize it to safely keep their crypto assets and connect to thousands of crypto projects over several blockchains. Whether you want to mint NFTs (non-fungible tokens), swap BNB with other crypto tokens, or do yield farming, you can do everything with the Binance Wallet extension. The wallet supports Brave, Chrome, Edge, and Firefox.
<p><strong><a href="https://sites.google.com/99cryptowallet.com/boredapeyachtclubnft/">Bored Ape Yacht Club</a></strong> (BAYC) is the collection of 10,000 NFTs (non-fungible tokens) on the Ethereum (ETH) blockchain. These non-fungible tokens are graphical portrayals of cartoon-like apes that are unique by the metadata, which includes the clothes, backgrounds, earrings, eyes, and fur of the character. Metadata for NFTs is data about an illustration of the token that an NFT creator supplies. Introduced in 2021, the is similar to the artwork sold physically. But these artworks exist only virtually and are one of a kind as they remain on the blockchain.</p>
<p>OKX Wallet is a universal digital currency wallet accessible on different platforms, such as web, app, and extension. The wallet gives you quick access to over 3000 crypto tokens, over 60 decentralized networks, thousands of dApps (decentralized applications), and the Web3 ecosystem. <strong><a href="https://sites.google.com/99cryptowallet.com/okxwalletextension/">OKX Wallet Extension</a></strong> is a non-custodial wallet, with users responsible for the private keys and, hence, assets. OKX is now a multi-chain wallet compatible with EVM and non-EVM chains. This lets users access dApps on various chains without changing wallets.</p>\n\n<p>Presently, the OKX Wallet supports 37 chains, like Ethereum, OKC, Bitcoin, Avalanche, Solana, Arbitrum, Polygon, Tron, etc. The wallet saves users many troubles by automatically changing networks. The OKX Wallet Extension has an in-built DEX (decentralized exchange) that works across networks and NFT (non-fungible token) marketplaces that collect orders through LookRare, OpenSea, and X2Y2 and support NFT analysis. With this all-one-hub, users can explore over 1,000 dApp protocols.</p>
The processing of block lifecycles is essential to the efficiency of a blockchain, which consists of four steps: creation, execution, consensus, and validation. The permissionless blockchain systems typically had very limited transaction throughput because of the performance bottleneck of consensus protocols. With recent advances in consensus protocols, the execution and validation of transactions have become the new performance bottleneck. We propose a novel framework, called FastBlock, to speed up the execution and validation steps by introducing fine-grained concurrency. Our early design of FastBlock supported three key modules: (1) a symbolic execution-based analyzer that automatically identifies minimal atomic sections in each transaction; (2) a concurrent execution step that executes possibly conflicting transactions in parallel using hardware transactional memory; (3) a concurrent validation step that introduces a happen-before relation to deterministically re-execute transactions. The improved FastBlock presented in this article supports the nonce mechanism to schedule concurrent transactions from the same account. Moreover, we empirically study the impact of concurrency on Ethereum except for performance and shed light on potential optimizations of FastBlock. Finally, we implemented FastBlock and then evaluated the performance of FastBlock. Our result shows that the FastBlock outperforms state-of-art solutions significantly in performance: the execution step and validation step speed up to 3.0x and 2.3x on average over the original serial model, respectively, with eight concurrent threads. In addition, we evaluated the impact of the nonce mechanism, and the result shows that the performance loss caused by this mechanism is acceptable in practice.
The rapid growth of the Internet of Things (IoT) has raised security concerns, including MQTT protocol-based applications that lack built-in security features and rely on resource-intensive Transport Layer Security (TLS) protocol. This paper presents an approach that utilizes blockchain technology to enhance the security of MQTT communication while maintaining efficiency. This approach involves using blockchain sharding, which enables higher scalability, improved performance, and reduced computational overhead compared to traditional blockchain approaches, making it well-suited for resource-constrained IoT environments. This approach leverages Ethereum blockchain's smart contract mechanism to ensure trust, accountability, and user privacy. Specifically, we introduce a shard-based consensus mechanism that enables improved security while minimizing computational overhead. We also provide a user-controlled and secured algorithm using Proof-of-Access implementation to decentralize user access control to data stored in the blockchain network. The proposed approach is analyzed for usability, including metrics such as bandwidth consumption, CPU usage, memory usage, delay, access time, storage time, and jitter, which are essential for IoT application requirements. The analysis demonstrated that the approach reduces resource consumption, and the proposed system outperforms TLS and existing blockchain approaches in these metrics, regardless of the choice of the MQTT broker. Additionally, thoroughly addressing future research directions, including issues and challenges, ensures careful consideration of potential advancements in this domain.
Abstract With the rapid development of blockchain technology in the financial sector, the security of blockchain is being put to the test due to an increase in phishing fraud. Therefore, it is essential to study more effective measures and better solutions. Graph models have been proven to provide abundant information for downstream assignments. In this study, a graph‐based embedding classification method is proposed for phishing detection on Ethereum by modeling its transaction records using subgraphs. Initially, the transaction data of normal addresses and an equal number of confirmed phishing addresses are collected through web crawling. Multiple subgraphs using the collected transaction records are constructed, with each subgraph containing a target address and its nearby transaction network. To extract features of the addresses, a modified Graph2Vec model called imgraph2vec is designed, which considers block height, timestamp, and amount of transactions. Finally, the Extreme Gradient Boosting (XGBoost) algorithm is employed to detect phishing and normal addresses. The experimental results show that the proposed method achieves good performance in phishing detection, indicating the effectiveness of imgraph2vec in feature acquisition of transaction networks compared to existing models.
Andreas Renard Widarto, Harjum Muharam, Irene Rini Demi Pangestuti
This study aims to test the effect of Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH) on the Indonesia Tech Stock Index (IDXTECHNO).BTC and ETH have the potential to become a hedge asset and haven if they are negatively correlated to IDXTECHNO.This research uses the GARCH model using daily closing prices from January 25, 2021, to April 13, 2022.The result of this study shows that BTC return has a significant negative effect on IDXTECHNO return.Hence, BTC tends to have the ability to function as a hedging instrument against IDXTECHNO.Whereas on the contrary, ETH turns out to have a significant positive effect on IDXTECHNO return.This situation signifies that ETH functions as a diversifier asset against IDXTECHNO.The upcoming research agenda will further study the testing of BTC and ETH function as a hedge asset against tech stock using a dynamic portfolio approach that can generate hedging effectiveness.
Ethereum is being utilized in various ways, including smart contracts and payments. Research in cryptocurrency payments has either been general, about all cryptocurrencies or focused primarily on Bitcoin. Despite some similarities with Bitcoin, Ethereum is a different technology with different governance and support. This research focuses on payments with the Ethereum token, Ether, and puts forward a model of trust in Ethereum payments. Survey data analyzed using structural equation modeling supports the model. Firstly, the model has three variables from the person’s individual characteristics: The user’s predisposition to using innovations in (a) finance and (b) technology, influence (c) their predisposition to trust in this payment process. There are then five variables from the context: (d) Adoption and reputation, (e) stable value and low transaction fees, (f) effective regulation, (g) trust in the payment intermediaries, and (h) trust in the seller. The personal and contextual factors together influence (i) trust in the Ethereum payment process, and this leads to (j) making a payment with Ethereum.
This paper presents MindTheDApp, a toolchain designed specifically for the structural analysis of Ethereum-based Decentralized Applications (DApps), with a distinct focus on a complex network-driven approach. Unlike existing tools, our toolchain combines the power of ANTLR4 and Abstract Syntax Tree (AST) traversal techniques to transform the architecture and interactions within smart contracts into a specialized bipartite graph. This enables advanced network analytics to highlight operational efficiencies within the DApp's architecture. The bipartite graph generated by the proposed tool comprises two sets of nodes: one representing smart contracts, interfaces, and libraries, and the other including functions, events, and modifiers. Edges in the graph connect functions to smart contracts they interact with, offering a granular view of interdependencies and execution flow within the DApp. This network-centric approach allows researchers and practitioners to apply complex network theory in understanding the robustness, adaptability, and intricacies of decentralized systems. Our work contributes to the enhancement of security in smart contracts by allowing the visualisation of the network, and it provides a deep understanding of the architecture and operational logic within DApps. Given the growing importance of smart contracts in the blockchain ecosystem and the emerging application of complex network theory in technology, our toolchain offers a timely contribution to both academic research and practical applications in the field of blockchain technology.
Davide Crapis, Edward W. Felten, Akaki Mamageishvili
We study the economics of the Ethereum improvement proposal 4844 and its effect on rollups' data posting strategies. Rollups' cost consists of two parts: data posting and delay. In the new proposal, the data posting cost corresponds to a blob posting cost and is fixed in each block, no matter how much of the blob is utilized by the rollup. The tradeoff is clear: the rollup prefers to post a full blob, but if its transaction arrival rate is low, filling up a blob space causes too large delay cost. The first result of the paper shows that if a rollup transaction arrival rate is too low, it prefers to use the regular blockspace market for data posting, as it offers a more flexible cost structure. Second, we show that shared blob posting is not always beneficial for participating rollups and change in the aggregate blob posting cost in the equilibrium depends on the types of participating rollups. In the end, we discuss blob cost-sharing rules from an axiomatic angle.
There are spells in the world: incantations that can transform reality through the power of procedural utterances. The marriage vow, the courtroom sentence, the shaman’s curse: these words are codes that change reality. (Finn 90) Introduction As a child, stories on magic were “opportunities to escape from reality” (Brugué and Llompart 1), or what Rosengren and Hickling describe as being part of a set of “causal belief systems” (77). As an adult, magic is typically seen as being “pure fantasy” (Rosengren and Hickling 75), while Bever argues that magic is something lost to time and materialism, and alternatively a skill that Yeats believed that anyone could develop with practice. The etymology of the word magic originates from magein, a Greek word used to describe “the science and religion of the priests of Zoroaster”, or, according to philologist Skeat, from Greek megas (great), thus signifying "the great science” (Melton 956). Not to be confused with sleight of hand or illusion, magic is traditionally associated with learned people, held in high esteem, who use supernatural or unseen forces to cause change in people and affect events. To use magic these people perform rituals and ceremonies associated with religion and spirituality and include people who may identify as Priests, Witches, Magicians, Wiccans, and Druids (Otto and Stausberg). Magic as Technology and Technology as Magic Although written accounts of the rituals and ceremonies performed by the Druids are rare, because they followed an oral tradition and didn’t record knowledge in a written form (Aldhouse-Green 19), they are believed to have considered magic as a practical technology to be used for such purposes as repelling enemies and divining lost items. They curse and blight humans and districts, raise storms and fogs, cause glamour and delusion, confer invisibility, inflict thirst and confusion on enemy warriors, transform people into animal shape or into stone, subdue and bind them with incantations, and raise magical barriers to halt attackers. (Hutton 33) Similarly, a common theme in The History of Magic by Chris Gosden is that magic is akin to science or mathematics—something to be utilised as a tool when there is a need, as well as being used to perform important rituals and ceremonies. In TechGnosis: Myth, Magic & Mysticism in the Age of Information, Davis discusses ideas on Technomysticism, and Thacker says that “the history of technology—from hieroglyphics to computer code—is itself inseparable from the often ambiguous exchanges with something nonhuman, something otherworldly, something divine. Technology, it seems, is religion by other means, then as now” (159). Written language, communication, speech, and instruction has always been used to transform the ordinary in people’s lives. In TechGnosis, Davis (32) cites Couliano (104): historians have been wrong in concluding that magic disappeared with the advent of 'quantitative science.’ The latter has simply substituted itself for a part of magic while extending its dreams and its goals by means of technology. Electricity, rapid transport, radio and television, the airplane, and the computer have merely carried into effect the promises first formulated by magic, resulting from the supernatural processes of the magician: to produce light, to move instantaneously from one point in space to another, to communicate with faraway regions of space, to fly through the air, and to have an infallible memory at one’s disposal. Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) In early 2021, at the height of the pandemic meta-crisis, blockchain and NFTs became well known (Umar et al. 1) and Crypto Art became the hot new money-making scheme for a small percentage of ‘artists’ and tech-bros alike. The popularity of Crypto Art continued until initial interest waned and Ether (ETH) started disappearing in the manner of a classic disappearing coin magic trick. In short, ETH is a type of cryptocurrency similar to Bitcoin. NFT is an acronym for Non-Fungible Token. An NFT is “a cryptographic digital asset that can be uniquely identified within its smart contract” (Myers, Proof of Work 316). The word Non-Fungible indicates that this token is unique and therefore cannot be substituted for a similar token. An example of something being fungible is being able to swap coins of the same denomination. The coins are different tokens but can be easily swapped and are worth the same as each other. Hackl, Lueth, and Bartolo define an NFT as “a digital asset that is unique and singular, backed by blockchain technology to ensure authenticity and ownership. An NFT can be bought, sold, traded, or collected” (7). Blockchain For the newcomer, blockchain can seem impenetrable and based on a type of esoterica or secret knowledge known only to an initiate of a certain type of programming (Cassino 22). The origins of blockchain can be found in the research article “How to Time-Stamp a Digital Document”, published by the Journal of Cryptology in 1991 by Haber, a cryptographer, and Stornetta, a physicist. They were attempting to answer “epistemological problems of how we trust what we believe to be true in a digital age” (Franceschet 310). Subsequently, in 2008, Satoshi Nakamoto wrote The White Paper, a document that describes the radical idea of Bitcoin or “Magic Internet Money” (Droitcour). As defined by Myers (Proof of Work 314), a blockchain is “a series of blocks of validated transactions, each linked to its predecessor by its cryptographic hash”. They go on to say that “Bitcoin’s innovation was not to produce a blockchain, which is essentially just a Merkle list, it was to produce a blockchain in a securely decentralised way”. In other words, blockchain is essentially a permanent record and secure database of information. The secure and permanent nature of blockchain is comparable to a chapter of the Akashic records: a metaphysical idea described as an infinite database where information on everything that has ever happened is stored. It is a mental plane where information is recorded and immutable for all time (Nash). The information stored in this infinite database is available to people who are familiar with the correct rituals and spells to access this knowledge. Blockchain Smart Contracts Blockchain smart contracts are written by a developer and stored on the blockchain. They contain the metadata required to set out the terms of the contract. IBM describes a smart contract as “programs stored on a blockchain that run when predetermined conditions are met”. There are several advantages of using a smart contract. Blockchain is a permanent and transparent record, archived using decentralised peer-to-peer Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT). This technology safeguards the security of a decentralised digital database because it eliminates the intermediary and reduces the chance of fraud, gives hackers fewer opportunities to access the information, and increases the stability of the system (Srivastava). They go on to say that “it is an emerging and revolutionary technology that is attracting a lot of public attention due to its capability to reduce risks and fraud in a scalable manner”. Despite being a dry subject, blockchain is frequently associated with magic. One example is Faustino, Maria, and Marques describing a “quasi-religious romanticism of the crypto-community towards blockchain technologies” (67), with Satoshi represented as King Arthur. The set of instructions that make up the blockchain smart contracts and NFTs tell the program, database, or computer what needs to happen. These instructions are similar to a recipe or spell. This “sourcery” is what Chun (19) describes when talking about the technological magic that mere mortals are unable to comprehend. “We believe in the power of code as a set of magical symbols linking the invisible and visible, echoing our long cultural tradition of logos, or language as an underlying system of order and reason, and its power as a kind of sourcery” (Finn 714). NFTs as a Conceptual Medium In a “massively distributed electronic ritual” (Myers, Proof of Work 100), NFTs became better-known with the sale of Beeple’s Everydays: The First 5000 Days by Christie’s for US$69,346,250. Because of the “thousandfold return” (Wang et al. 1) on the rapidly expanding market in October 2021, most people at that time viewed NFTs and cryptocurrencies as the latest cash cow; some artists saw them as a method to become financially independent, cut out the gallery intermediary, and be compensated on resales (Belk 5). In addition to the financial considerations, a small number of artists saw the conceptual potential of NFTs. Rhea Myers, a conceptual artist, has been using the blockchain as a conceptual medium for over 10 years. Myers describes themselves as “an artist, hacker and writer” (Myers, Bio). A recent work by Myers, titled Is Art (Token), made in 2023 as an Ethereum ERC-721 Token (NFT), is made using a digital image with text that says “this token is art”. The word ‘is’ is emphasised in a maroon colour that differentiates it from the rest in dark grey. The following is the didactic for the artwork. Own the creative power of a crypto artist. Is Art (Token) takes the artist’s power of nomination, of naming something as art, and delegates it to the artwork’s owner. Their assertion of its art or non-art status is secured and guaranteed by the power of the blockchain. Based on a common and understandable misunderstanding of how Is Art (2014) works, this is the first in a series of editions that inscribe ongoing and contemporary concerns onto this exemplar of a past or perhaps not yet realized blockchain artworld. (Myers, is art editions). This is a simple example of their work. A lot of Myers’s work appears to be uncomplicated but hides subtle levels of sophistication that use all the tools available to conceptual artists by questioning the notion of what art is—a hallmark of conceptual art (Goldie
Lucianna Kiffer, Sophia Skorik, Yann Vonlanthen, Roger Wattenhofer
On 15th September 2022, The Merge marked the Ethereum network's transition from computation-hardness-based consensus (proof-of-work) to a committee-based consensus mechanism (proof-of-stake). As a result, all the specialized hardware and GPUs that were being used by miners ceased to be profitable in the main Ethereum network. Miners were then left with the decision of how to re-purpose their hardware. One such choice was to try and make a profit mining another existing PoW system. In this study, we explore this choice by analyzing the hashrate increase in the top PoW networks following the merge. Our findings reveal that the peak increase in hashrate to other PoW networks following The Merge represents an adoption of at least 41% of the hashrate that was present in Ethereum, with 12% remaining more than 5 months later. Though we measure a drastic decrease in profitability by almost an order of magnitude, the continued presence of miners halts claims that power consumption was instantly addressed by Ethereum's switch to PoS.
While numerous public blockchain datasets are available, their utility is constrained by an exclusive focus on blockchain data. This constraint limits the incorporation of relevant social network data into blockchain analysis, thereby diminishing the breadth and depth of insight that can be derived. To address the above limitation, we introduce EX-Graph, a novel dataset that authentically links Ethereum and X, marking the first and largest dataset of its kind. EX-Graph combines Ethereum transaction records (2 million nodes and 30 million edges) and X following data (1 million nodes and 3 million edges), bonding 30,667 Ethereum addresses with verified X accounts sourced from OpenSea. Detailed statistical analysis on EX-Graph highlights the structural differences between X-matched and non-X-matched Ethereum addresses. Extensive experiments, including Ethereum link prediction, wash-trading Ethereum addresses detection, and X-Ethereum matching link prediction, emphasize the significant role of X data in enhancing Ethereum analysis. EX-Graph is available at \url{https://exgraph.deno.dev/}.
Blockchain technology revolutionizes the Internet, but also poses increasing risks, particularly in cryptocurrency finance. On the Ethereum platform, Ponzi schemes, phishing scams, and a variety of other frauds emerge. Existing Ponzi scheme detection approaches based on heterogeneous transaction graph modeling leverages semantic information between node (account) pairs to establish connections, overlooking the semantic attributes inherent to the edges (interactions). To overcome this, we construct heterogeneous Ethereum interaction graphs with multiple triplet interaction patterns to better depict the real Ethereum environment. Based on this, we design a new framework named multi-triplet augmented heterogeneous graph neural network (MAHGNN) for Ponzi scheme detection. We introduce the Conditional Variational Auto Encoder (CVAE) to capture the semantic information of different triplet interaction patterns, which facilitates the characterization on account features. Extensive experiments demonstrate that MAHGNN is capable of addressing the problem of multi-edge interactions in heterogeneous Ethereum interaction graphs and achieving state-of-the-art performance in Ponzi scheme detection.