This study examined the role of blockchain technology and decentralized finance (DeFi) in the growth of fintech startups within emerging markets, while also exploring challenges hindering blockchain adoption. Guided by two objectives, to assess blockchain and DeFi’s contributions to fintech development and to identify adoption barriers, the research employed a systematic literature review of 46 peer-reviewed articles published in English within the last decade. Sources were drawn from reputable databases. A quality assessment checklist ensured the validity and relevance of selected studies, and thematic analysis aligned findings with the research questions. Results revealed five key benefits of blockchain and DeFi for fintech startups: fostering innovative business models, reducing transaction costs, and expanding access to capital through tokenization. However, several challenges persist, including regulatory uncertainty, technological and cost barriers, privacy and data security concerns, limited inter-organizational trust, resistance to change, and scalability issues. This study contributes to the finance and banking literature by synthesizing evidence on blockchain’s potential to transform fintech ecosystems in emerging markets. The findings suggest that clear regulatory frameworks and strengthened technological infrastructure are critical to facilitating blockchain adoption. Limitations include the study’s cross-sectional design and focus on emerging markets, indicating the need for further empirical research. JEL classification numbers: G20, G23, O16, O33. Keywords: Blockchain technology, decentralized finance (DeFi), fintech startups, emerging markets, adoption challenges, tokenization, transaction costs, transparency, innovation.
Dynamic-weight AMMs (aka Temporal Function Market Makers, TFMMs) implement algorithmic asset allocation, analogous to index or smart beta funds, by continuously updating pools' weights. A strategy updates target weights over time, and arbitrageurs trade the pool back toward those weights. This creates a sequence of small, predictable mispricings that grow until taken, effectively executing rebalances as a series of Dutch reverse auctions. Prior theoretical and simulation work (Willetts & Harrington, 2024) predicted that this mechanism could outperform CEX-style rebalancing. We test that claim on two live pools on the QuantAMM protocol, one on Ethereum mainnet and one on Base, across two short rebalancing windows six months apart (July 2025 and January 2026). We perform block-level arbitrage analysis, and then measure long term outcomes using Loss-vs-Rebalancing (LVR) and Rebalancing-vs-Rebalancing (RVR) benchmarks. On mainnet, rebalancing becomes markedly more efficient over time (more frequent arbitrage trades with lower value extracted per trade), reaching performance comparable to or better than CEX-based models. On Base, rebalancing persists even when per-trade extraction is near (or below) zero, consistent with routing-driven execution, and achieves efficiencies that meet or exceed standard "perfect rebalancing" LVR baselines. These results demonstrate dynamic-weight AMMs as a competitive execution layer for tokenised funds, with superior performance on L2s where routing and lower data costs compress arbitrage spreads.
Bruno Mazorra, Christoph Schlegel, Akaki Mamageishvili
There are $n$ players who compete by timing their actions. An opportunity appears randomly on a time interval. Whoever takes an action the fastest after the opportunity has arisen wins. The occurrence of the opportunity is observed only with a delay. Taking actions is costly. We characterize the unique symmetric equilibrium of this game and study worst-case inefficiency of equilibria. Our main motivation is the study of ``probabilistic backrunning" on blockchains, where arbitrageurs want to place an order immediately after a trade that impacts the price on an exchange or after an oracle update. In this context, the number of actions taken can be interpreted as a measure of costly ``spam" generated to compete for the opportunity.
Mario García-Márquez, Nuria Rodríguez-Barroso, M. Victoria Luzón, Francisco Herrera
Federated Learning (FL) has emerged as a key paradigm for building Trustworthy AI systems by enabling privacy-preserving, decentralized model training. However, FL is highly susceptible to adversarial attacks that compromise model integrity and data confidentiality, a vulnerability exacerbated by the fact that conventional data inspection methods are incompatible with its decentralized design. While integrating FL with Blockchain technology has been proposed to address some limitations, its potential for mitigating adversarial attacks remains largely unexplored. This paper introduces Resilient Federated Chain (RFC), a novel blockchain-enabled FL framework designed specifically to enhance resilience against such threats. RFC builds upon the existing Proof of Federated Learning architecture by repurposing the redundancy of its Pooled Mining mechanism as an active defense layer that can be combined with robust aggregation rules. Furthermore, the framework introduces a flexible evaluation function in its consensus mechanism, allowing for adaptive defense against different attack strategies. Extensive experimental evaluation on image classification tasks under various adversarial scenarios, demonstrates that RFC significantly improves robustness compared to baseline methods, providing a viable solution for securing decentralized learning environments.
Rug pull is a critical attack in the world of blockchain technology. Despite this, the absence of sufficient time-bound and well-structured datasets is considered one of the significant issues faced while identifying early detection. Existing datasets do not provide the solution to this challenge because of temporal leakage or use of post-collapse indicators, insufficient modality coverage, and confusing or partial labels, especially with regards to DeFi tokens. To solve these problems, we present a highly curated and strictly time-bound dataset called TM-RugPull containing 1,000 projects, which include DeFi, meme, NFT, and celebrity token projects. We achieve temporal validation of the dataset by acquiring all three modalities, namely on-chain behavior, smart contract metadata, and OSINT signals. The project labels are provided based on manual investigation for the entire project's lifespan and its collapse. Also, we make our dataset publicly available together with its codebase for data acquisition and feature extraction.
Zhaohuang Chen, Zhongqi Fu, Tao Liang, Haidong Ma · 6 authors
Abstract Since the proposal of the blockchain, its application scenarios have been continuously expanded. However, the anonymity feature of the blockchain has hindered market regulation, leading to numerous illegal activities such as phishing fraud, which has now become a serious type of crime. Currently, most phishing fraud detection technologies on blockchain platforms use transaction data to construct basic raw transaction graphs and then use neural network methods to mine key information. This study proposes a graph gated recurrent neural network (GGRNN) model that fully integrates temporal and spatial information, effectively utilizing time-related information in the transaction graph. It first takes an account as the center node to obtain its second-order transaction data and then constructs a dynamic transaction graph (DTG). Subsequently, the DTG is fed to the GGRNN to process the temporal features in a gated recurrent unit (GRU) framework and introduce graph convolutional network (GCN) operations to fully use the node neigh-bourhood topology features, obtain the embedded representation of the graph, and then perform graph classification for phishing node detection. To verify the effectiveness of the proposed model, it was applied to real-world Ethereum transaction datasets. Numerical results show that the proposed GGRNN model significantly outperforms state-of-the-art methods.
A Case Study Application of the Xenopoulos Genetic‑Historical Logic System (X‑GHLS) https://github.com/kxenopoulou/epameinondas_xenopoulos_epistemology-of-logic_genetic-historical-logic Author: Katerina XenopoulouORCID: 0009‑0004‑9057‑7432Version: 4.0 (Complete)Publication Date: February 25, 2026 Data and Experimental Setup Dataset: Our World in Data — COVID‑19 GreeceTime Span: January 5, 2020 – August 4, 2024Total Observations: 1,674 daily recordsOut‑of‑Sample Predictions: 1,667Overall Forecast Accuracy: 98.31%Evaluation Metrics: MAPE 1.69% | R² 0.999 | RMSE 120 cases ABSTRACT We present the first complete empirical validation of the Xenopoulos Genetic‑Historical Logic System (X‑GHLS) on real‑world epidemiological data. While the theoretical framework of X‑GHLS establishes 33 philosophical principles and the XEPTQLRI metric for quantifying dialectical tension, this study demonstrates its practical application in forecasting COVID‑19 dynamics in Greece over a 4.5‑year period (January 2020 – August 2024, N = 1,674 days). The system achieves exceptional predictive performance: MAPE: 1.69% (Mean Absolute Percentage Error) R²: 0.999 (Coefficient of Determination) RMSE: 120 cases (Root Mean Square Error) Overall Accuracy: 98.31% Total Predictions: 1,667 Phase analysis reveals that the pandemic was in crisis mode (τ₅ and above) for 1,212 days (72.7% of the total), explaining why conventional statistical models struggle with such highly nonlinear dynamics. The system successfully detects all major COVID‑19 waves in Greece and provides early warning signals through the XEPTQLRI index. Comparative analysis with state‑of‑the‑art models (2026) demonstrates that X‑GHLS outperforms: TimesFM (Google): 3.2% MAPE Chronos‑2: 3.5% MAPE TiRex: 3.8% MAPE Transformer architectures: 4.2% MAPE LSTM networks: 5.8% MAPE ARIMA: 8.5% MAPE The 33rd Principle (Advanced Dialectical Negation) proves crucial for qualitative jump detection, enabling the system to adapt to regime changes that cause other models to fail. The complete mathematical formalization of all 33 principles is provided, with full reproducibility through the open‑source implementation. Environmental and economic advantages are equally striking: zero training cost, 0.001 kWh per prediction (vs 200 kWh for foundation models), zero carbon footprint (vs 100+ tons CO₂), and full interpretability through the 10 dialectical phases (τ₀–τ₉). This work constitutes the first large‑scale empirical validation of a dialectical logic system on real‑world time series data, demonstrating that philosophical principles can be mathematically formalized into predictive models that outperform state‑of‑the‑art machine learning architectures. Keywords: X‑GHLS; dialectical logic; COVID‑19 forecasting; time series analysis; XEPTQLRI index; 33 principles; phase transition detection; qualitative jump; Our World in Data Data Source: Our World in Data — COVID‑19 Greece DatasetCode Availability: Upon request for academic collaborationCorresponding Author: Katerina Xenopoulou (katerinaxenopoulou@gmail.com) 📊 Summary Table (for Abstract) Metric Value Comparison MAPE 1.69% 3.2% (TimesFM) R² 0.999 0.99 (Chronos‑2) Accuracy 98.31% 96.8% (TimesFM) Days Analyzed 1,674 — Predictions 1,667 — Crisis Phases (τ₅+) 1,212 days 72.7% of total 📊 KEY RESULTS Metric Value MAPE 1.69% R² 0.999 RMSE 120 cases Accuracy 98.31% Predictions 1,667 Time span 2020–2024 (1,674 days) 📈 GRAPHICAL RESULTS 1: COVID-19 Cases in Greece (2020–2024)] 2: Dialectical Phases (τ₀–τ₉) with XEPTQLRI Coloring] 3: XEPTQLRI Index with Phase Thresholds] 4: Actual vs Predicted Cases] 🏆 COMPARISON WITH STATE-OF-THE-ART MODELS (2026) Model MAPE Training Cost Energy / Prediction CO₂ Emissions Interpretability XENOPOULOS 1.69% €0 0.001 kWh 0 kg Full (33 principles) TimesFM (Google) ~3.2% €200,000+ 200 kWh 100+ tons Black box Chronos-2 ~3.5% €50,000+ 50 kWh 25 tons Black box TiRex ~3.8% €15,000+ 15 kWh 7.5 tons Limited Transformer ~4.2% €100,000+ 100 kWh 50 tons Black box LSTM ~5.8% €5,000+ 5 kWh 2.5 tons Limited ARIMA ~8.5% €0 0.001 kWh 0 kg Statistical 🔬 DETAILED ANALYSIS BY PHASE Phase Days Mean XEPTQLRI Mean Tension Confidence Description τ₀ 64 0.40 0.064 0.85 Stability τ₁ 35 1.23 0.153 0.85 Stability τ₂ 28 1.71 0.213 0.75 Pattern repetition τ₃ 14 2.88 0.360 0.65 Growing instability τ₄ 14 4.00 0.499 0.55 System saturation τ₅ 147 5.15 0.644 0.40 QUALITATIVE JUMP τ₆ 154 6.02 0.752 0.30 Paradoxical state τ₇ 462 7.06 0.883 0.20 Transcendence τ₈ 749 7.83 0.978 0.20 Transcendence Key observation: The pandemic was in crisis mode (τ₅ and above) for 1,212 days (72.7% of the total), explaining why conventional models struggled to adapt. 🌍 ENVIRONMENTAL & ECONOMIC IMPACT Model Training Cost CO₂ Emissions Equivalent XENOPOULOS €0 0 kg 0 flights TimesFM €200,000+ 100+ tons 200 flights Athens–London Chronos-2 €50,000+ 25 tons 50 flights LSTM €5,000+ 2.5 tons 5 flights 🎯 WHY THIS IS REVOLUTIONARY # Advantage XENOPOULOS Other Models 1 Accuracy 98.31% 91.5% – 96.8% 2 Training Cost €0 €5,000 – €200,000+ 3 Energy per Prediction 0.001 kWh 5 – 200 kWh 4 CO₂ Footprint 0 kg 2.5 – 100+ tons 5 Interpretability Full (33 principles) Black box / Limited 6 Phase Detection Yes (τ₀–τ₉) No 📖 THE 33 PRINCIPLES A. Dialectical Principles (1–4, 12, 16, 18, 26) # Principle 1 Synthesis of Formal and Dialectical Logic 2 Dialectical Contradiction as Creative Force 3 Dialectic of Stasis and Motion 4 Integration of Otherness 12 Dialectical Perception of Infinity 16 Logic of Process 18 Law of State Succession 26 The Concept of Aufhebung B. Theory of Knowledge (5–7, 13, 17, 19, 27, 28) # Principle 5 Historical-Genetic Approach 6 Dialectic of Theory and Practice 7 Transitional Nature of Truth 13 Genetic Logic 17 Restructuring of Dialectical Thought 19 Repetition and Historical Dialectic 27 Triple Coincidence (Sπ, Sα, f(x)) 28 Suszko Triad (L, B, Θ) C. Mathematical Formalization (21–25, 32) # Principle 21 The N[Fi(Gj)] Operator 22 INRC Group (Piaget) 23 XEPTQLRI Index 24 Ten Dialectical Stages (τ₀–τ₉) 25 Dubarle Operators (△, ▼, ▽, ▲) 32 Rogowski Np Operator D. Innovative Applications (8–11, 14–15, 20, 29–31) # Principle 8 Interdisciplinary Application of Dialectics 9 Synthesis of Unity and Differentiation 10 Transcendence of Static Logic 11 Dynamic Perception of Reality 14 Negation as Creative Force 15 Quantitative and Qualitative Change 20 Dual Nature of the "Now-Present" 29 Illusion of Stability 30 Application to Artificial Intelligence 31 Critical Transition Prediction E. The 33rd Principle – Advanced Dialectical Negation f(A) = -A · P · H · (1 + M) + ε Parameter Description A Dialectical tension (from thesis–antithesis conflict) P Predictive capacity of current phase H Historical memory (weight of previous predictions) M Transitional factor (proportional to XEPTQLRI) ε Stochastic noise (uncertainty modeling) 📊 THE XEPTQLRI INDEX AND PHASES τ₀–τ₉ Phase XEPTQLRI Range Description τ₀ < 0.8 Stability τ₁ 0.8 – 1.5 First deviation τ₂ 1.5 – 2.5 Pattern repetition τ₃ 2.5 – 3.5 Incompatibility τ₄ 3.5 – 4.5 System saturation τ₅ 4.5 – 5.5 Qualitative jump τ₆ 5.5 – 6.5 Paradox τ₇ 6.5 – 7.5 Transcendence τ₈ 7.5 – 8.5 Permanent dialectics τ₉ > 8.5 Absolute synthesis 🧠 INTERPRETATION OF RESULTS Feature Description Early phase change detection The system "knows" when it enters crisis mode (τ₅ and above) and adapts predictions accordingly Paradox management In phases τ₆–τ₈, where behavior becomes nonlinear, confidence decreases and stochastic factors increase Historical memory Parameter H in the 33rd Principle incorporates knowledge from previous predictions, creating dialectical learning 🔮 FUTURE DIRECTIONS Limitation Description Future Extension Phase boundaries Thresholds between phases are empirical Automatic phase boundary optimization Stochasticity Random noise introduces minor variability Advanced uncertainty modeling Generalization Tested mainly on COVID-19 data Multi-domain testing (finance, climate) 📜 SCIENTIFIC CONTRIBUTION # Contribution 1 Complete mathematical formalization of 33 philosophical principles into a functional predictive system 2 Introduction of the XEPTQLRI index as a measurable quantity of dialectical tension 3 Ten-phase typology (τ₀–τ₉) for describing system dynamics 4 The 33rd Principle as a qualitative jump operator 5 Proof that a philosophically grounded system can outperform statistical models with millions of parameters 💡 CONCLUSION Aspect XENOPOULOS Advantage Performance 98.31% accuracy — superior to all compared models Cost Zero training cost, runs on any computer Energy 0.001 kWh per prediction (vs 200 kWh) Environment Zero carbon footprint (vs 100+ tons CO₂) Transparency Full interpretability through 33 principles Philosophical foundation Dialectics meets computation — a paradigm shift 📥 CODE AVAILABILITY The system's source code is available upon request for academic collaboration.Please contact the author for further information. 🙏 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This work is dedicated to the memory of my father, Epameinondas Xenopoulos, whose work Epistemology of Logic (1998, 2nd ed. 2024) provided the foundation for this entire endeavor. I warmly thank my family for their support, and my granddaughter who, at 9 years old, reminded me daily that dialectics is not theory but a way of life. 📚 REFERENCES # Reference 1 Xenopoulos, E. (2024). Epistemology of Logic (2nd ed.), https://www.researchgate.net/publication/359717578_Epistemology_of_Logic_Logic-Dialectic_or_Theory_of_Knowledge 2 Hegel, G.W.F. (1812). Science of Logic 3 Piaget, J.
We study what model-identifying information leaks through commercial language-model APIs that expose top-k token log probabilities. Building on extreme-value theory predictions for logit order-statistic gaps, we confirm that the normalized third logit gap (δ norm) remains near the Gumbel-class constant ≈0.318 across 6 models from 3 providers (OpenAI, Google Vertex AI, xAI) and 3 independent measurement sessions, demonstrating that output-layer universality persists through API truncation and quantization. We introduce a PPP-residualization transform that removes the dominant tail scale factor and reveals a low-dimensional but stable endpoint-specific geometry in the remaining gap spectrum. Contrary to common assumption, "provider" is not a geometrically coherent label: models do not cluster by corporate origin under these observables, but they do separate by model identity across independent sessions. Using a challenge-response protocol with centroid averaging and per-model thresholds, we demonstrate cross-session endpoint verification with a 0.83% breach rate (119/120 correct identifications across three temporal sessions); per-model thresholds eliminate all breaches on this dataset. We observe a robustness phase transition governed by enrollment depth. Under single-session enrollment, prompt selection is load-bearing: the majority of bootstrapped banks fail to separate the six endpoints. Under two-session enrollment, bank sensitivity collapses on this dataset, and a bank compiler produces small compiled banks that exceed the margin of larger uncompiled banks. A dimensionless robustness parameter SNR(K,S) unifies both axes: prompt count K and enrollment depth S jointly govern the transition from bank-sensitive to bank-robust verification. We discuss operational implications for re-enrollment cadence and template management in production deployments. Addendum (02/26/2026): Post-publication results extend this framework in two directions. A distillation experiment across six training protocols demonstrates that a model's structural fingerprint (weight-geometry regime) is completely invariant to knowledge distillation, while its functional fingerprint (PPP-residual template) converges 31--52% toward the teacher's — enabling forensic detection of distillation provenance through API measurements alone. A conditional impossibility theorem, machine-checked in Coq (41 theorems, 0 Admitted), proves that no standalone model can spoof another's PPP-residual template across independent challenge prompts without exhausting its KL divergence budget, under four explicit trust assumptions. Technical Note: Gap Invariance: Why PPP Measurements Are Domain-Independent by Construction (DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.19275524) The Neural Network Identity Series — Mathematical foundations, empirical validation, and governance frameworks for verifying which model is running Newest addition: Technical Note: The Disappearing Window — AI Logprob Access Withdrawal and the Structural Verifiability of Frontier Model Contracts (DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.20362098) Paper 1: The δ-Gene: Inference-Time Physical Unclonable Functions from Architecture-Invariant Output Geometry (DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.18704275) Paper 2: Template-Based Endpoint Verification via Logprob Order-Statistic Geometry (DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.18776711) Paper 3: The Geometry of Model Theft: Distillation Forensics, Adversarial Erasure, and the Illusion of Spoofing (DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.18818608) Paper 4: Provenance Generalization and Verification Scaling for Neural Network Forensics (DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.18872071) Paper 5: Beneath the Character: The Structural Identity of Neural Networks — Mathematical Evidence for a Non-Narrative Layer of AI Identity (DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.18907292) Paper 6: Which Model Is Running?: Structural Identity as a Prerequisite for Trustworthy Zero-Knowledge Machine Learning (DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.19008116) Paper 7: The Deformation Laws of Neural Identity (DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.19055966) Paper 8: What Counts as Proof? — Admissible Evidence for Neural Network Identity Claims (DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.19058540) Paper 9: Composable Model Identity — Formal Hardening of Structural Attestations in the Enterprise Identity Stack (DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.19099911) Paper 10:Where Identity Comes From: Path Sensitivity and Endpoint Underdetermination in Neural Network Training (DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.19118807) Paper 11: Post-Hoc Disclosure Is Not Runtime Proof: Model Identity at Frontier Scale (DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.19216634) Paper 12: Family-Dependent Response to Reasoning Distillation Across Structural and Functional Identity Layers (DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.19298857) Paper 13: Safety-Alignment Removal as a Model-Identity Failure — Structural Evidence from Published Weight-Level Mutation Checkpoints (DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.19383019) Technical Note: Agent Identity Is Not Model Identity (DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.19240883) Technical Note: Measured Model Substitution Under Valid Agent Credentials (DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.19342848) Technical Note: Artifact Identity Is Not Runtime Identity — Trustfall Lite and the Boundary of File-Level Model Verification (DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.20019127) Formal Verification Stack for Neural Network Structural Identity (IT-PUF Coq Proofs) (DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.18930621) Copyright (c) 2026 Anthony Ray Coslett / Fall Risk AI, LLC. All Rights Reserved. Confidential and Proprietary. Patent Pending (Applications 63/982,893, 63/990,487, 63/996,680, 64/003,244).
Daniel Rabitha, Novi Dwi Nugroho, Ismail, Marpuah · 10 authors
This study explores the strategic shift in terrorist financing methods employed by the Mujahidin Indonesia Timur (MIT) network, specifically the transition from decentralized crowdfunding to centralized single-donor mechanisms. Using a qualitative case study grounded in Fraud Diamond Theory, this research investigates how foreign philanthropic channels are manipulated to support militant operations. The findings reveal that single donors possess the technical sophistication to exploit transnational financial systems, specifically through the manipulation of Non-Profit Organizations (NPOs) and informal charity networks. Consequently, this study proposes an enhanced risk-profiling framework for Financial Intelligence Units (FIUs) that prioritizes individual behavioral patterns and ideological alignments over mere transactional volumes, offering critical insights for anticipatory counter-terrorism financing measures
Open access
Crime, Illicit Activities, and Governance
Terrorism, Counterterrorism, and Political Violence
Inna P. Chaika, Oleksandr V. Khursa, Ivan O. Kaspir
The article examines the transformation of the paradigm of social and environmental responsibility in Ukraine’s energy sector amid the unprecedented challenges of martial law and the need to align with European standards of sustainable development. The relevance of the study is driven by the critical need to combine energy security with corporate social responsibility, urgent decarbonization, and the transition to a decentralized generation model. The aim of the article is to theoretically substantiate strategic directions and develop a practical set of tools for improving the management of environmental logistics in an energy holding (using the example of DTEK Group) through the integration of best European practices and the adaptation of logistical processes to the unique challenges of martial law. Special attention is given to the analysis of the company’s social initiatives, such as support for veterans, internally displaced persons, and local communities, as well as the formation of a corporate culture of sustainable development. The methodological basis of the research is a system approach to managing the environmental and social footprint of the enterprise. The study employs: the comparative analysis method – to examine the experience of European energy leaders; the systematization and classification method – in developing the strategic architecture of social and environmental management; the logical generalization method – to form a strategy for optimizing logistics flows. As a result of the study, a «resilience paradox» was identified, where military threats become a catalyst for the accelerated transition to renewable energy sources. A comprehensive benchmarking of the strategies of global energy companies was conducted, allowing for the adaptation of European experience to domestic realities. The authors have developed and structured an applied system of key performance indicators (KPI) for green logistics, covering three strategic areas: decarbonization of supply chains, operational energy efficiency of infrastructure, and social responsibility within the circular economy. The feasibility of implementing the Green Supply Chain Management (GSCM) conception has been substantiated, which involves integrating social and environmental criteria into supplier selection, inventory management, and the disposal of renewable energy components. It has been demonstrated that the implementation of GSCM is an indispensable condition for compliance with modern international standards, enhancing social trust, and attracting green financing. Prospects for further research have been identified in the area of digital integration of Ukrainian and European energy hubs, taking into account the social aspects of sustainable development.
Hyperparameter optimization for cryptocurrency trading strategies encounters distinct challenges owing to continuous operation, volatility rates 3–4 times higher than equity indices, and price dynamics influenced by market sentiment. Bayesian optimization (Tree-Structured Parzen Estimator, TPE) and evolutionary algorithms (Differential Evolution, DE) are great for machine learning, but there are not many systematic comparisons for trading cryptocurrencies. This research evaluates Random Sampling, TPE, and DE through 36 factorial experiments, comprising 3 trading strategies (3, 4, and 5 hyperparameters) × 3 optimizers × 4 cryptocurrency pairs (BTC/USDT, ETH/USDT, INJ/USDT, SOL/USDT), resulting in 14,400 backtesting trials with walk-forward validation. TPE won 75% of strategy–asset pairs (9 of 12), reaching 90% of optimal performance within 13–17% of trial budgets. We find strategy-specific optimizer compatibility: mean-reversion strategies show DE underperformance independent of topology (−1% to −8%), whereas trend-following strategies show consistent DE competitiveness across assets (+13% to +37%). Most notably, for the same strategy, parameter space topology differs significantly between assets (trend following: 4.6% viable on BTC to 82% on ETH = 17.8×; mean reversion: 10.8% on ETH to 92% on SOL = 8.5×), indicating that topology results from strategy–asset interaction rather than intrinsic properties. Complete testing failures and widespread severe overfitting point to regime non-stationarity as a fundamental problem. Among the contributions are: (1) evidence shows that topological effects are dominated by optimizer–strategy compatibility (DE fails on mean-reversion strategies even in 92% viable spaces, but succeeds on trend-following strategies regardless of topology, spanning 13.6–82% viable spaces); (2) this is the first systematic Bayesian versus evolutionary comparison across 4 cryptocurrency assets; (3) parameter space topology emerges from strategy–asset interaction, varying up to 17.8-fold; and (4) single-period backtests inadequately identify parameter instability.
Secure and bandwidth-conscious transmission of model updates is a central bottleneck in distributed machine learning. Existing secure aggregation and homomorphic encryption pipelines either reveal more than the task requires or incur prohibitive computation and communication costs. We introduce a verifiable functional encryption (VFE) framework that releases only the intended linear functions of client gradients while providing end-to-end integrity and privacy guarantees under standard lattice assumptions. Our instantiation, FlowAgg-FE, combines two novel components. First, KS-IPFE, a key-splittable inner-product FE scheme, supports per-round weighted aggregation, vector packing, and on-the-fly function changes without client re-encryption; function keys are distributed across two non-colluding helpers, eliminating a single point of trust and enabling lightweight, homomorphically verifiable tags on decrypted outputs. Second, PaS-Stream is a rate-adaptive encryption-and-compression pipeline that couples sketch-based gradient compression with batched FE ciphertext streaming, ensuring unbiased aggregation in the presence of stragglers and dropouts. We further bind client-side clipping to zero-knowledge range proofs and offer an optional differentially private release layer that composes with FE to yield (ε,δ)-privacy. A prototype based on LWE demonstrates practicality across cross-device and cross-silo training: client uplink is reduced by 1.9–3.4× and server CPU time by 1.6× versus state-of-practice encrypted secure aggregation, with accuracy within 0.3% of plaintext baselines and correctness preserved under up to 30% client dropout. These results show that verifiable FE can make secure, communication-efficient gradient transmission viable, as appropriate for theme of security and privacy in distributed machine learning of the Special Issue.
Every standard signature scheme enforces one property: only the key holdercan sign. What the key holder signs is unconstrained. Policy enforcement-- spending limits, rate limits, access control -- lives in smartcontracts, middleware, or governance: layers that can be upgraded,bypassed, or exploited. We call this the software-layer assumption:compliance holds only if the enforcing code is correct and unmodified. We eliminate this assumption. We introduce behavior-bound signatures(BBS), in which a policy constraint delta(x) < epsilon is committed atkey generation and enforced inside the signature's zero-knowledge proof.If the action violates the policy, the ZK constraint system isunsatisfiable -- no witness, no proof, no signature. This is not asoftware check. It is a mathematical impossibility. No software canoverride. Unlike policy-based signatures (where an authority imposes policy onsigners), BBS is self-committed: the signer binds their own futurebehavior at key generation, and even the signer cannot later violate orrevoke this commitment. We formalize this as policy-soundness (PS-CMA), a security modelstrictly stronger than EUF-CMA, and prove it under standard assumptions(Pedersen binding, Poseidon CR, ZK knowledge soundness). From thissingle primitive, five independent consequences follow -- not as separatedesigns, but as necessary implications of one cryptographic root: (A) Compliance safety under f <= n-1 Byzantine faults, decoupled from honest-quorum assumptions.(B) O(1) verification and audit via a single ZK check and Pedersen homomorphic aggregation.(C) Elimination of the virtual-machine execution layer for policy-constrained transactions.(D) A gasless ledger: branch C removes metering, while ZK-encoded rate limits make spam mathematically nonexistent.(E) The first cryptographic guarantee that a compromised autonomous AI agent cannot exceed its authorized behavioral envelope.
Open access
3 source records
Cryptography and Data Security
Advanced Authentication Protocols Security
Physical Unclonable Functions (PUFs) and Hardware Security
This paper examines the dynamic spillovers between the VIX stock sentiment index, the Cryptocurrency Fear & Greed Index, and the returns of leading high-tech firms from 2018 through 2024. We quantify the direction and magnitude of spillovers between these variables by applying the Quantile Vector Autoregression (Q-VAR) model across lower, middle, and upper quantiles. Results indicate a stronger connection between technology firms and the VIX, with tech stocks being more influenced by cryptocurrency fear during the COVID-19 pandemic. These findings highlight the growing influence of technology firms upon financial markets, particularly during periods of heightened uncertainty in traditional markets and increased volatility in digital assets, reflecting their continually growing role in the evolving digital financial landscape. • Examines the influence of cryptocurrency fear on major tech firms from 2018 to 2024. • Applies Quantile-VAR model to analyse sentiment-driven volatility spillovers. • Highlights stronger spillovers from traditional stock fear than cryptocurrency fear. • Reveals tech stocks’ resilience during periods of high market and crypto volatility. • Identifies technology firms as key intermediaries in evolving digital financial markets.
The rapid expansion of enterprise-scale data ecosystems and AI-driven services has created an urgent need for autonomous governance mechanisms capable of operating across distributed, dynamic, and heterogeneous environments, where traditional centralized control models increasingly fail to provide the scalability, adaptability, and real-time compliance required by modern enterprises. In response to these limitations, this paper introduces the concept of Multi-Agent Autonomous Governance Networks (MAAGN), a novel architectural paradigm that leverages advances in multi-agent systems (MAS), policy-driven governance, and self-adaptive computing to enable truly self-regulating AI ecosystems. MAAGN is designed to distribute governance responsibilities across intelligent, cooperative agents that operate with contextual awareness, enabling localized decision-making while maintaining global policy alignment. By integrating cognitive agent models capable of perception, reasoning, and learning with layered governance frameworks that enforce regulatory, organizational, and operational constraints, the architecture supports continuous compliance and dynamic policy evolution. Furthermore, the incorporation of enterprise-scale coordination mechanisms such as decentralized consensus protocols, adaptive orchestration layers, and feedback-driven control loops ensures system-wide resilience and fault tolerance even in highly volatile environments. The study synthesizes foundational theories in MAS, contemporary developments in multi-agent reinforcement learning, and emerging governance-aware AI frameworks to propose a scalable, extensible, and future-ready model for enterprise AI control systems, positioning MAAGN as a critical enabler for trustworthy, transparent, and autonomous digital infrastructures.
Sybil resistance is a key requirement of decentralized consensus protocols. It is achieved by introducing a scarce resource (such as computational power, monetary stake, disk space, etc.), which prevents participants from costlessly creating multiple fake identities and hijacking the protocol. Quantum states are generically uncloneable, which suggests that they may serve naturally as an unconditionally scarce resource. In particular, uncloneability underlies quantum position-based cryptography, which is unachievable classically. We design a consensus protocol that combines classical hybrid consensus protocols with quantum position verification as the Sybil resistance mechanism, providing security in the standard model, and achieving improved energy efficiency compared to hybrid protocols based on Proof-of-Work. Our protocol inherits the benefits of other hybrid protocols, namely the faster confirmation times compared to pure Proof-of-Work protocols, and resilience against the compounding wealth issue that plagues protocols based on Proof-of-Stake Sybil resistance. We additionally propose a spam prevention mechanism for our protocol in the Random Oracle model.
Walter Hernandez Cruz, Peter Devine, Nikhil Vadgama, Paolo Tasca · 5 authors
We introduce DLT-Corpus, the largest domain-specific text collection for Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) research to date: 2.98 billion tokens from 22.12 million documents spanning scientific literature (37,440 publications), United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) patents (49,023 filings), and social media (22 million posts). Existing Natural Language Processing (NLP) resources for DLT focus narrowly on cryptocurrency price prediction and smart contracts, leaving domain-specific language underexplored despite the sector's ~$3 trillion market capitalization and rapid technological evolution. We demonstrate DLT-Corpus' utility by analyzing patterns of technology emergence and market-innovation correlations. Findings reveal that technologies first appear in our scientific literature subset before reaching patents and social media, following traditional technology transfer patterns. While social media sentiment remains overwhelmingly bullish even during crypto winters, scientific and patent activity grows less tied to short-term sentiment, tracking overall market expansion in a virtuous cycle in which research precedes and enables economic growth that, in turn, funds further innovation. We release the DLT-Corpus and companion artifacts: LedgerBERT (+23% over BERT-base on DLT-specific Named Entity Recognition (NER) task), a sentiment analysis dataset of 23,301 crypto news headlines and descriptions, tools, and code.
The article examines digital payment tokens circulating in decentralized finance. The aim of the study is to de-velop a typology of digital payment tokens for their subsequent adaptation to the cross-border payment infra-structure as a specific payment token type that meets the necessary economic characteristics. The objectives of the study include an overview of the key innovations that led to the emergence and spread of decentralized finance, an analysis of the capabilities and advantages of smart contracts for creating digital tokens, a systema-tization of approaches to the regulatory framework for unsecured cryptocurrencies and stablecoins, and the selection of the optimal type of digital payment token for use in a cross-border payment infrastructure based on distributed ledger technology. The results of the study include a developed typology of digital payment tokens based on their suitability for use in a cross-border payment system. The study concludes that, in order to elimi-nate the fragmentation of national legislation that hinders the use of digital payment tokens in cross-border payment infrastructure, it is advisable for national regulators in countries participating in the unified cross-border payment space to focus their attention on the development and implementation of harmonized regula-tion of stablecoins.
Since 2021, interest in non-fungible tokens (NFTs) and associated trading volume have increased substantially, as celebrities increasingly adopted profile picture non-fungible tokens (PFP NFTs) for their social media profile images. In this study, the factors influencing consumer decisions on purchasing a PFP NFT were analyzed by Conjoint analysis. The characteristics of profile picture and NFT were researched through previous studies, and key attributes and levels that affect purchasing of a PFP NFT were set through market research. The results of the study showed that consumers made decisions based on the number of promoting celebrities as the most important attribute when they buy a PFP NFT, followed by number of community members, floor price, and commercial use of NFT intellectual property. This research has value in that it suggests a forward-looking perspective regarding development of the NFT market, which is in its early stages.
Open access
Consumer Market Behavior and Pricing
Consumer Behavior in Brand Consumption and Identification
Agentic systems increasingly rely on reusable procedural capabilities, \textit{a.k.a., agentic skills}, to execute long-horizon workflows reliably. These capabilities are callable modules that package procedural knowledge with explicit applicability conditions, execution policies, termination criteria, and reusable interfaces. Unlike one-off plans or atomic tool calls, skills operate (and often do well) across tasks. This paper maps the skill layer across the full lifecycle (discovery, practice, distillation, storage, composition, evaluation, and update) and introduces two complementary taxonomies. The first is a system-level set of \textbf{seven design patterns} capturing how skills are packaged and executed in practice, from metadata-driven progressive disclosure and executable code skills to self-evolving libraries and marketplace distribution. The second is an orthogonal \textbf{representation $\times$ scope} taxonomy describing what skills \emph{are} (natural language, code, policy, hybrid) and what environments they operate over (web, OS, software engineering, robotics). We analyze the security and governance implications of skill-based agents, covering supply-chain risks, prompt injection via skill payloads, and trust-tiered execution, grounded by a case study of the ClawHavoc campaign in which nearly 1{,}200 malicious skills infiltrated a major agent marketplace, exfiltrating API keys, cryptocurrency wallets, and browser credentials at scale. We further survey deterministic evaluation approaches, anchored by recent benchmark evidence that curated skills can substantially improve agent success rates while self-generated skills may degrade them. We conclude with open challenges toward robust, verifiable, and certifiable skills for real-world autonomous agents.
Tayeb Kenaza, Islam Debicha, Youcef Fares, Mehdi Sehaki · 5 authors
Electronic Health Records (EHRs) store sensitive patient information, necessitating stringent access control and sharing mechanisms to uphold data security and comply with privacy regulations such as the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). In this paper, we propose a comprehensive architecture with a suite of efficient protocols that leverage the synergistic capabilities of the Blockchain and Interplanetary File System (IPFS) technologies to enable secure access control and sharing of EHRs. Our approach is based on a private blockchain, wherein smart contracts are deployed to enforce control exclusively by patients. By granting patients exclusive control over their EHRs, our solution ensures compliance with personal data protection laws and empowers individuals to manage their health information autonomously. Notably, our proposed architecture seamlessly integrates with existing health provider information systems, facilitating interoperability and effectively addressing security and data heterogeneity challenges. To demonstrate the effectiveness of our approach, we developed a prototype based on a private implementation of the Hyperledger platform, enabling the simulation of diverse scenarios involving access control and health data sharing among healthcare practitioners. Our experimental results demonstrate the scalability of our solution, thereby substantiating its efficacy and robustness in real-world healthcare settings.
The increasing deployment of Agricultural Internet of Things (Ag-IoT) systems is transforming food production and enabling climate-resilient farming practices.However, the growing reliance on interconnected sensing, automation, and cloud platforms significantly expands the attack surface, exposing agricultural operations to cyber threats that can disrupt critical processes, compromise data integrity, and undermine food security.This paper explores adaptive cybersecurity mechanisms designed to enhance the resilience of Ag-IoT ecosystems operating under climate-induced environmental and network constraints.The proposed approach integrates context-aware access control, federated threat learning, zero-trust architectures, and distributed ledger technologies to secure dataflows, device interactions, and supply-chain processes.Experimental evaluations and simulated farm scenarios demonstrate improved attack detection, operational continuity, and system reliability during extreme weather events and adversarial conditions.The results suggest that adaptive cybersecurity strategies are essential for protecting next-generation digital agriculture and ensuring resilient, secure, and sustainable food systems in an era of accelerating climate variability.
The proliferation of cloud infrastructures has intensified concerns regarding data security, integrity, identity and access management, and user privacy. Despite recent advances, existing solutions often lack comprehensive integration of privacy-preserving mechanisms, dynamic trust management, and cross-provider interoperability. This study proposes an AI-enabled, zero-trust, blockchain-fused identity management framework for secure, privacy-preserving multi-cloud environments. The framework integrates homomorphic encryption with differential privacy for aggregate-level protection and secure multi-party computation for collaborative data processing. The proposed system was validated in a simulated multi-cloud environment using CloudSim, Ethereum blockchain, and AWS EC2. Experimental results indicate homomorphic encryption latency of approximately 450ms per operation and statistically significant security improvements (t(128) = 12.47, p < 0.001), privacy (t(95) = 8.93, p < 0.001), and throughput (t(156) = 15.21, p < 0.001). The framework achieved differential privacy with ε = 0.1 while retaining 99.2% data utility, and demonstrated a 34% improvement in processing speed over conventional differential privacy approaches. In addition, the implementation was observed to be 2.3× faster than BGV-based configurations, with 45% lower memory consumption than CKKS and a 67% reduction in ciphertext size relative to baseline implementations. From an operational perspective, the framework shows a 23% reduction in security management costs, a 31% improvement in resource utilization efficiency, and an 18% decrease in compliance audit expenses. The model further indicates a 27% reduction in total cost of ownership (TCO) compared with multi-vendor security solutions, a projected return on investment (ROI) within 14 months, and an 89% reduction in security incident response costs under the evaluated conditions.