Im letzten Jahrzehnt hat der Begriff Blockchain aufgrund des Medienrummels um Bitcoin, der ersten Kryptowährung, immense Popularität erlangt. Bald darauf wurde die Blockchain-Technologie zu einer Inspiration für zusätzliche Anwendungen neben Kryptowährungen. Eine solche Anwendung sind Smart Contracts oder Programme mit dem Ziel, die Vereinbarungen eines Vertrags automatisch und sicher ohne die Unterstützung einer zentralen Stelle auszuführen. Derzeit ist Ethereum die wichtigste Blockchain-Plattform für Smart Contracts. Smart Contracts im Ethereum-Netzwerk können Teil einer dezentralen Anwendung sein oder als eigene Einheit existieren. Sie können durch eine externe Transaktion (User) oder eine interne Transaktion (einen Smart Contract) ausgelöst werden. Angesichts der Bedeutung und Sensibilität der Informationen und / oder Daten, mit denen Smart Contracts täglich umgehen, ist es wichtig, ein besseres Verständnis dafür zu erlangen, wie Smart Contracts tatsächlich funktionieren, welche Funktionen sie ausführen und wie sie im Ethereum-Netzwerk miteinander verbunden sind. In dieser Arbeit wird ein Ansatz für das Clustering von Smart Contracts auf Ethereum hinsichtlich der gemeinsamen Funktionalität vorgeschlagen, das die Graphdatenbank Neo4j und andere Visualisierungsmethoden und / oder –werkzeuge verwendet. Es werden verschiedene Datensätze (Partitionen des kompletten Datensatzes an Smart Contracts auf Ethereum), sowie zwei Clustering- Ansätze verwendet, um einen besseren Einblick in die Funktionsweise von Smart Contracts zu erhalten und deren funktionale Ähnlichkeiten zu verstehen.
Xiaomin Du, Yang Gao, Chia‐Huei Wu, Rong Wang · 5 authors
The purpose of this study is to explore how to apply blockchain technology to intelligent transportation, create a hierarchical theoretical framework of intelligent transportation, and explore a sustainable application system of intelligent transportation under the blockchain. However, not only this hierarchical theoretical framework must consider unnecessary attributes and the interrelationships between the aspects and the criteria, but also the sustainable application system must be in consideration in multiple stakeholders. Hence, fuzzy set theory is used for screening out the unnecessary attributes, a decision-making trial and evaluation laboratory (DEMATEL) is proposed to manage the complex interrelationships among the aspects and attributes, and interpretive structural modeling (ISM) is used to divide the hierarchy and construct a hierarchical theoretical framework. Finally, the research develops a sustainable GCU application system for intelligent transportation under the blockchain. The results show that (1) solving social problems is the primary link, (2) economic tasks are mainly focused on smart contracts and affected by the social problems, (3) the continuous improvement of environmental issues requires a solution to social problems, and (4) the application system of blockchain in intelligent transportation needs to be built from three levels including the government layer, the company layer, and the user layer. This theoretical hierarchical framework aims to guide intelligent transportation toward the application of blockchain. This study also proposes the engagement of stakeholders for establishing a sustainable application system.
Electricity generation is decentralising quickly. Simultaneously, final energy use for residential customers electrifies in order to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. Together with ubiquitous digitalisation, this decentralisation and flexibility at the demand side paves the way towards local energy communities and – in its most distributed version – to peer-to-peer energy trading, where customers buy and sell electricity among each other. Although peer-to-peer energy trading is not yet legal everywhere, ‘citizen energy communities’ have been introduced as cornerstones of the energy transition by the European Commission in their ‘Clean Energy for All Europeans’ programme. This paper firstly discusses this digitalisation and decentralisation of the power infrastructure. These trends are supported by distributed information technologies, including peer-to-peer control paradigms. Distributed ledger technologies, such as blockchains, might be one such piece of the puzzle. The second part of the paper investigates whether blockchain technologies, and their associated smart contracts, offer advantages for larger-scale peer-to-peer energy-trading applications over a classic, centralised approach. Different blockchain implementations are investigated and qualitatively evaluated from a scalability, efficiency and trust perspective. The conclusion indicates that in the current state of the art, a trade-off between decentralised and more classical (hierarchically centralised) solutions suits larger-scale peer-to-peer energy-trading applications best.
A companion paper defined the notion of digital social contracts, presented a design for a social-contracts programming language, and demonstrated its potential utility via example social contracts. The envisioned setup consists of people with genuine identifiers, which are unique and singular cryptographic key pairs, that operate software agents thus identified on their mobile device. The abstract model of digital social contracts consists of a transition system specifying concurrent, non-deterministic asynchronous agents that operate on a shared ledger by performing digital speech acts, which are cryptographically-signed sequentially-indexed digital actions. Here, we address the distributed-ledger implementation of digital social contracts in the presence of faulty agents: we present a design of a fault-tolerant distributed-ledger transition system and show that it implements the abstract shared-ledger model of digital social contracts, and discuss its resilience to faulty agents. The result is a novel ledger architecture that is distributed with a blockchain-per-person (as opposed to centralized with one blockchain for all), partially-ordered (as opposed to totally-ordered), locally-replicated (as opposed to globally-replicated), asynchronous (as opposed to globally-synchronized), peer-to-peer with each agent being both an actor and a validator (as opposed to having dedicated miners, validators, and clients), environmentally-friendly (as opposed to the environmentally-harmful Proof-of-Work), self-sufficient (as opposed to the energy-hogging Proof-of-Work or capital-hogging Proof-of-Stake) and egalitarian (as opposed to the plutocratic Proof-of-Work and Proof-of-Stake).
A companion paper defined the notion of digital social contracts, presented a design for a social-contracts programming language, and demonstrated its potential utility via example social contracts. The envisioned setup consists of people with genuine identifiers, which are unique and singular cryptographic key pairs, that operate software agents thus identified on their mobile device. The abstract model of digital social contracts consists of a transition system specifying concurrent, non-deterministic asynchronous agents that operate on a shared ledger by performing digital speech acts, which are cryptographically-signed sequentially-indexed digital actions. Here, we address the distributed-ledger implementation of digital social contracts in the presence of faulty agents: we present a design of a fault-tolerant distributed-ledger transition system and show that it implements the abstract shared-ledger model of digital social contracts, and discuss its resilience to faulty agents. The result is a novel ledger architecture that is distributed with a blockchain-per-person (as opposed to centralized with one blockchain for all), partially-ordered (as opposed to totally-ordered), locally-replicated (as opposed to globally-replicated), asynchronous (as opposed to globally-synchronized), peer-to-peer with each agent being both an actor and a validator (as opposed to having dedicated miners, validators, and clients), environmentally-friendly (as opposed to the environmentally-harmful Proof-of-Work), self-sufficient (as opposed to the energy-hogging Proof-of-Work or capital-hogging Proof-of-Stake) and egalitarian (as opposed to the plutocratic Proof-of-Work and Proof-of-Stake).
Blockchain supports a variety of decentralized applications enabled by its immutable, decentralized, and trustless properties. However, there are no unifying criteria for blockchain architecture across the organizations and business models. This variance has created complex and diverse blockchain products. Costs in every economic exchange with partners are associated with two metrics: transaction costs due to market imperfections and agency costs due to conflict of interest and information asymmetry in an organization. To understand the effectiveness of economic activities by blockchain intervention and facilitate strategic alignment, we use transaction cost and agency cost as theoretical lenses to explore the impacts of blockchain, discuss the transformation of those costs, and support our arguments using a case study. Our study proposes that blockchain technology brings two more benefits, trust and transparency, to the existing Internet-based business services, and helps improve corporate governance. Smart contracts improve the execution time of transactions significantly and increase transaction volume rapidly. As the internet shifts hierarchies towards electronic markets, lack of trust between peers inhibits exchanges. Blockchain applications provide a framework for building trust between peers through its consent mechanism, which allows organizations to construct trust and operate in a more decentralized manner. Thus, by including blockchain in the current Internet infrastructure, the decision boundary of organization forms would extend outward. Finally, the transformation of costs in different stages of the blockchain transition, as described in our study, has important managerial implications for the organization structure and the role of third parties. Blockchain does not assume away transaction and agency costs but pushes the transformation of the two, forming a more efficient economic entity. This study contributes to the academia and the industry. We first add to the understanding of blockchain from the perspective of exchange technology. Second, we contribute to the prediction of organization boundaries. Third, the shift in the role of third parties supports the transaction cost theory in terms of controlling opportunism. Lastly, this study facilitates the development of blockchain business models and contributes to the practice.
First paragraphs: Consumption is the sole end and purpose of all production; and the interest of the producer ought to be attended to, only so far as it may be necessary for promoting that of the consumer. The maxim is so perfectly self-evident, that it would be absurd to attempt to prove it. —Adam Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Cause of the Wealth of Nations (1776) Introduction In today’s global food system, where the concentration of both economic and political power is self-evident, the maxim of consumer sovereignty is in great need of proof. In Montana, where we live, we have the great fortune to buy grass-finished certified organic beef from a rancher almost literally in our own backyard. We know the supplier of our food not only as a producer, but as a friend. This rancher can easily garner from us, and his other costumers, our preferences. In a sense, we drive the rancher’s production methods and pricing. Even though we insist on organic certification, it is largely on the basis of trust and friendship that we return to purchase from him over and over for our family’s beef supply. . . . See the press release for this article.
The trend of cryptocurrencies has stirred interest in the underlying technology that qualifies cryptocurrencies as a secure structure with speedy, timely and cheap transactions. The aforementioned technology, the blockchain, in brief terms is a decentralized ledger technology that attains an immutable characteristic through consensus and timestamp mechanics. The model also sets the stage for transparency in transactions, which renders the technology applicable to a myriad of scenarios that involve financial instruments. This research puts forth an argumentative approach to the applicability of blockchain technology and specifically studies the prospect of utilizing smart contracts. This approach probes the feasibility of introducing smart contracts to everyday financial transactions and settlements. An opposing perspective, by taking a devil's advocate standpoint, invokes the impractical or implausible aspects of implementing the blockchain in certain scenarios. Difficulty in auditing is a prominent example among those impracticalities. Research methodology is qualitative in nature and takes the form of exploratory research by examining existing literature on the topic.
Smart contract is a disruptive FinTech that is signed in advance and automatically executed when the goods are received. Therefore, the buyer will settle accounts without delay payment under smart contract, which benefits the supplier in B2B transactions. However, how to motivate the buyer to participate in smart contract? In this paper, we consider a supplier selling goods through retailers such as Wal-Mart in a co-opetitive supply chain, where the retailer buys and resells the supplier's goods and the supplier encroaches on the market by opening a direct channel. Without smart contract, the supplier incurs cash opportunity cost because of the retailer's delay payment (referred to as Traditional Contract scenario). With smart contract, the retailer needs to pay the supplier immediately when the goods arrive (referred to as Smart Contract scenario). We use Generalized Nash Bargaining to formulate the contract negotiation, and show that the adoption of smart contract changes the competition and cooperation between the supplier and the retailer both vertically and horizontally. We find that, when the supplier's unit cash opportunity cost is high (low), the smart contract enhances (weakens) the coordination in the reselling channel, increases (decreases) the reselling channel's market share compared to the direct-selling channel, and increases (lowers) the retailer's proportion in the reselling revenue. Interestingly, we show that, when the supplier's bargaining power is moderate or extremely low, it prefers traditional contract when the unit cash opportunity cost is moderate. We also show that, the retailer and the supplier have incentive alignment to adopt smart contract when the supplier's unit cash opportunity cost is high. We further study the impact of the supplier's merchant discount fee under traditional contract and its commission cost when the direct channel is an online store, finding that our main results are qualitatively unchanged.
This study presents conceptual research designed to assess how the sharing economy concept can be leveraged to increase the participation of commercial organisations, such as retailers and transporters, in disaster relief operations. Drawing on social exchange theory, the academic literature on the sharing economy and blockchain, as well as existing resource-sharing practices in commercial and humanitarian logistics, the study develops a theoretical framework for analysing the structure, benefits, and prerequisites of a logistics-sharing system in emergency response. In addition, it proposes to utilise the blockchain distributed ledger technology-a shared data platform that enables authenticated communication and the widespread sharing of real-time information-to facilitate interactions and enhance trust between emergency responders and commercial organisations. It is argued that using commercial logistics resources, including emergency supplies, transport capacity, and storage space, has the potential to improve the mobilisation and deployment of urgently needed relief items and augment the flexibility of emergency response.
Candy So Suk Yi Candice, Eric Yung, Samuel Lee, Christopher Fong · 5 authors
A Deloitte (2016) survey report states that blockchain technology can have an impact on the telecommunications industry in preventing fraud, identifying as-a-service and data management, 5G enabling, and IoT connectivity. For example, fraud costs more than USD 38 billion a year. In a panel of industry experts, Carrier Industry is looking for ways to cut costs, boost revenues, and market segments through blockchain technology (Total Telecom, 2018). Blockchain is treated as a breakthrough technology for managing the operation of telecommunications such as identity management, smart contracts, payments and transactions, reporting and analysis, network management, billing / OSS, etc. A statistical analysis shows that blockchain in telecommunications and postal services in 2017 amounted to more than USD 39 million and is expected to achieve an estimate of more than USD 641 million by 2023-end, suggesting powerful market growth over the next few years (Market Research Future Report, 2018). Since carriers apply telecom standards to run its business and operations, and thus blockchain technology, a high secure of distributed ledger and trust processes to solve the high traffics. According to a survey by IBM Institute for Business Value (2018), it states that 36 percent of Communication Service Providers (CSP) are already considering or actively engaged with blockchain, 41 percent of CSP may support their strategy by assuring data management, and 46 percent of CSP are already exploring or engaging with blockchain and already invested in it to develop new business models. Carriers in telecommunications Industry Hong Kong are mainly private-owned, and thus they must follow the Telecommunication Ordinance (Cap. 106) governed by Office of the Communications Authority (OFCA) of HKSAR. Telecommunications services such as fixed-line, internet broadband and mobile service support business and residential customers. Hong Kong Telecom (HKT), Hutchison Telecommunications Hong Kong Holdings Ltd (HTHK) and Hong Kong Broadband Network Limited (HKBN) are selected by this study as a number of operators (fixed-line and broadband, mobile, or a mix of both fixed-line, broadband and mobile). HKT (Stock Code: SEHK: 6823), is the major operator to meet the needs of public, local and international businesses with a wide range of services such as local telephony, local data and broadband, international communications, mobile service and enterprise solutions. HKT employs approximately 17,400 staff, the headquarters are located in Hong Kong, and telecommunications network covers more than 3,000 cities and 140 countries (HKT, 2019) Hutchison Telecommunications Holdings Hong Kong Limited (Stock Code: SEHK215), conglomerate of CK Hutchison Holdings, is the leading operator provides mobile service in Hong Kong and Macau. HTHK employs 1,180 staff and the headquarters are located in Hong Kong (HTHK, 2019). Hong Kong Broadband Network, Stock Code: SEHK: 1310), is the foremost operator provides broadband service to commerce and residential customers. HKBN is an aggressive operator with merger and acquisition with New World Telecommunications in February 2016 and WTT Holding Ltd in February 2019. HKBN employs approximately 3,000 staff, and the headquarters are located in Hong Kong (HKBN, 2019). An example of two dominating carrier representatives, Marc Halbfinger, Chief Executive Officer of PCCW Global (subsidiary of HKT) and the Chairman of the GLF, and Andrew Kwok, CEO of Hutchison Global Telecommunications (ex-mega conglomerate of CK Hutchison Holdings sold to Asia Cube Global in Jul 2017) partnering with Colt Technologies Service to conduct trial blockchain technology to re-shape business practices (Colt Technology News, 2018). Other example of blockchain, HKT and PCCW obtained a virtual banking license in early 2019 to expand finance business (South China Morning Post, 2019). Given examples of operators actively study on blockchain technology to its core business and the role of blockchain plays a tremendous role in telecommunications landscape. The research paper is focussed on blockchain/blockchain technology impact to Human Resources hiring and off-boarding practices in telecommunications sector in Hong Kong.
Crowdfunding is an innovative way of financing projects that allows anyone to contribute money online and support various initiatives, such as businesses, causes, or solutions. However, traditional crowdfunding platforms face some challenges, such as lack of transparency and security, high fees, and limited control over the funds by the contributors and the project owners. Blockchain technology, which is a P2P, decentralized ledger, which is distributed can offer a more reliable, secure, and transparent solution for crowdfunding. Blockchain-based crowdfunding can leverage smart contracts, which are self-executing agreements that encode the rules and conditions of the funding process and ensure that the funds are released only when the predefined criteria are met. This paper aims to propose a concept for designing efficient smart contracts for crowdfunding, which can enable both the contributors and the project owners to have more control and influence over the funds and the project outcomes. Unlike the existing literature-based ideas, our proposed method not only allows the contributors to invest their own money, but also guarantees them that their token values will be preserved. This method can be integrated without disrupting the existing logic of the blockchain. The methodology provides higher control and transparency for all the parties involved in the crowdfunding process.
The fundamental purpose of agri-food supply chain management is to restrict opportunism caused by information asymmetry. Traditional Chinese agri-food supply chain management introduces a contract mechanism and a trust mechanism to manage the uncertainty of the agri-food quasi-organization. However, it is almost impossible to improve the efficiency of transactions and maintain agri-food supply chain stability in the case of asymmetric information. Nowadays, blockchain, Internet of Things technology and big data drive the agri-food supply chain into a vast smart network which would break the information constraints. This paper analyzes the coupling between blockchain-based digital system and the agri-food supply chain. In addition, this paper presents two cases from China, indicating that the proposed blockchain-based system can achieve disruptive transformation in agri-food supply chain management.
Blockchain technology is the cornerstone of FinTech. Blockchains offer the infrastructure for online platforms which store information and digital assets. Distributed ledgers are about to be employed everywhere. Regulators have opted for a regulatory sandbox approach which demonstrates the need for efficient private law rules to fill potential lacunae. This paper identifies the crucial parameters for ascertaining the private law foundations of blockchain technology and its applications. Aspects of contract and property laws will be assessed in order to determine whether digital assets are capable of acquiring erga omnes status. This will include a survey of current blockchain statutes and potential negative externalities of a blockchain which might trigger liability of its members.
Ludwig Trotter, Mike Harding, Chris Elsden, Nigel Davies · 5 authors
We demonstrate Smart Donations, a blockchain powered mobile platform and application that facilitates a novel model for real-time, condition-based donations using smart contracts. By leveraging the benefits of blockchain technology, Smart Donations empower donors to (i) attach conditions dependent on real-world phenomena to a donation, (ii) store funds in a secure, transparent and decentralised escrow, and (iii) automatically release funds to charitable organisations or particular projects once the donor's conditions have been met. We believe this mobile prototype demonstrates a compelling new approach to charitable giving that leverages dynamic pledge controls and considers new trust relationships between donors and NGOs.
The achievements of west and central Africa in producing more than 60% of the world's cocoa, and sub-Saharan Africa's achievement in producing 13% of the world's cotton, hide child labor. These significant levels of production often involve child exposure to issues such as a lack of education; pesticides; dangerous farming tools; work accidents; human trafficking; etc. Blockchain offers an immutable register that allows for digital transactions, smart contract creation, as well as end-to-end product traceability. The main aim of this article is to provide an intelligent contract framework that protects child labor in farming while further enlightening understandings of adoption-related challenges. This framework considers conditions that farmer associations need to satisfy and gives them a tool to improve children's welfare. A research model for the adoption of this tool has been proposed and validated through surveys in the cotton and cacao sectors.
Aleksandar Erceg, Jovanka Damoska Sekuloska, Ivan Kelić
As one of the most interactive economic activities, tourism has improved significantly since the Internet allowed customers (travelers) to look for and create their trips without the need to go to a travel agency. Through the development of Internet marketing, tourists are able to receive information in real-time and view them on the screens of their devices (computers, laptops, mobile phones or tablets), and consequently they can create their own content and share it with others. Due to this development, we are witnessing a new phenomenon, so-called app capitalism, in which companies like Uber and Airbnb make money on services and goods they do not own and finding new business models in the tourism sector which enable customer-to-customer models. To be able to respond to these changes, the tourism industry needs to bring together knowledge, money, and technology for the purpose of creating new business models. The development of technology in all social spheres, including tourism, has provided a strong tool for consumers in terms of both acquiring and disclosing information to others. One of the rapidly growing technologies which is also one of the cutting-edge technologies entering tourism is blockchain. Blockchain technology captured worldwide attention in 2017 and its implementation has been revolutionizing various industries (e.g., retail, healthcare, tourism). The aim of this paper is to analyze the potential of the tourism industry in terms of blockchain implementation. Blockchain technology provides significant benefits to the tourism industry since its implementation can help increase competitive advantage, improve customer satisfaction and enhance performance. In this paper, the authors present the current situation in the Republic of Croatia and the Republic of Macedonia regarding the use of blockchain technology in the tourism industry. The main findings of this paper comprise the detection of key areas regarding why blockchain technology is not implemented in the tourist industry, and what processes should be handled. By presenting a case study of the implementation of blockchain technology in tourism, the authors analyze the potential of using blockchain technology in the tourism industry and discuss topics for further research.
Yueyue Dai, Du Xu, Ke Zhang, Sabita Maharjan · 5 authors
Vehicular Edge Computing (VEC) is a promising paradigm to enable huge amount of data and multimedia content to be cached in proximity to vehicles. However, high mobility of vehicles and dynamic wireless channel condition make it challenge to design an optimal content caching policy. Further, with much sensitive personal information, vehicles may be not willing to caching their contents to an untrusted caching provider. Deep Reinforcement Learning (DRL) is an emerging technique to solve the problem with high-dimensional and time-varying features. Permission blockchain is able to establish a secure and decentralized peer-to-peer transaction environment. In this paper, we integrate DRL and permissioned blockchain into vehicular networks for intelligent and secure content caching. We first propose a blockchain empowered distributed content caching framework where vehicles perform content caching and base stations maintain the permissioned blockchain. Then, we exploit the advanced DRL approach to design an optimal content caching scheme with taking mobility into account. Finally, we propose a new block verifier selection method, Proof-of-Utility (PoU), to accelerate block verification process. Security analysis shows that our proposed blockchain empowered content caching can achieve security and privacy protection. Numerical results based on a real dataset from Uber indicate that the DRL-inspired content caching scheme significantly outperforms two benchmark policies.
Purpose Blockchain, which was originally created to enable peer-to-peer digital payment systems (bitcoin), is considered to have several benefits for different sectors, such as the real estate one. In a standard European-wide real estate transaction, several intermediaries are involved. As a consequence, these agreements are usually time-consuming and involve extra difficulties to cross-border operations. As blockchain, combined with smart contracts, may have an important role in these transactions, this paper aims to explore its prospective challenges, limitations and opportunities in the real estate sector and discover how the traditional intermediaries have to face a possible implementation of this technology. Design/methodology/approach This paper analyses the current intermediaries in the real estate sector in European Union (EU), their functions and how can blockchain strengthen the security of these transactions while reducing their time. The author uses a legal methodology to approach it. Findings Blockchain, combined with smart contracts, has both challenges and opportunities for the real estate sector. On the one hand, it may improve procedures, allow EU transactions and the interconnection between public administration. However, to not reduce parties rights, this blockchain should have some special features, such as the possibility of being amended. Originality/value This paper provides a valuable overview of all the intermediaries that could be affected by blockchain protocols. It is of interest of blockchain developers, public administrations and researchers who are working on blockchain and property conveyancing.
The Shariʿa Law has a comprehensive vision of all human activities, including commerce. The peculiarities of the commercial legal system that derives from the legal principles of Shariʿa emanates from the concepts of forbidden or Haram and permissible or Halal. These principles are applied today to breakthrough commercial developments such as the Blockchain/Digital Ledger Technologies. On the other hand, there is a growing debate about the possibility of the application of Shariʿa Law in the Member States of the European Union, either for social reasons or for commercial reasons. The controversy and opportunities created in the smallest State of the Union, Malta, serves as a sample.
Radical changes in the technological environment have been forcing service providers to consider whether, if so, how to automate any aspects of their services with robots and other emerging technologies. Some service providers have been adopting robotic service assistants, and even creating organizations partially or fully automated by robots. However, some service providers have not been able to fully take advantage of RSAs’ benefits in a way that enhances customer service experiences. We review those challenges of RSAs and discuss the potential application of blockchain technology in governing a robotic service organization, the concept we propose in this study. Drawing on transaction cost theory and resource-based theory, we discuss theoretical implications of the impact of blockchain technology on the governance of a robotic service organization. Our study represents one of the first theoretical research to evaluate the impact of blockchain technology in a robotic service economy.
An online review system is an important part of almost every e-commerce platform, especially a tourism e-commerce. However, various problems exist in the current online review systems. The review content is stored in a centralized database of each individual platform. Each platform differs in review management methods. In some cases, the review score of the same product disagrees across different platforms. Moreover, a centralized system has low transparency because it is difficult to trace individual actions within the system. As a result, some users are skeptical of the reliability of online reviews in centralized systems. This work proposes a global travel review framework based-on the blockchain technology. The incorporation of blockchain helps improve an online review system. The best practices for online review management from popular platforms, and the guidelines from trusted sources are used to develop the new system. The use of blockchain improves an online review system through its unique features of high transparency, security, and reliability. Additionally, the proposed framework relies on a community-driven environment. The accessibility level of users is controlled by using the smart contract. There is no single authoritative owner of the system. All participants in the system can exert controls on the system equally. This work illustrates the details of a blockchain-based global travel review framework. The advantages and disadvantages of such a system are discussed. The proposed framework can be easily integrated with any existing platforms since it can be accessed publicly.
The vehicle information in used-car transactions is always asymmetric and disputes always happen in China. In order to reduce such disputes caused by the lack of transparency in a transaction, Blockchain technology is adopted to construct a trust mechanism for vehicle information storage and sharing in a transparent manner. In this work, a Blockchain-based vehicle history storing and tracking service, named BCVehis, is proposed. BCVehis allows vehicle owners, vehicle authority, mechanic workshops, insurance brokers and other related individuals/organizations to upload vehicle historical records via simple manners (i.e. mobile app or application programming interfaces). The system provides trustworthy vehicle history to used-car dealers, potential buyers, and other business-related parties. The design rationale and functional implementation of the BCVehis are introduced, and the increased deal volume in a local used-car dealer X is presented, which integrated BCVehis to its online dealing system.