A purely peer-to-peer version of electronic cash would allow online payments to be sent directly from one party to another without going through a financial institution.Digital signatures provide part of the solution, but the main benefits are lost if a trusted third party is still required to prevent double-spending.We propose a solution to the double-spending problem using a peer-to-peer network.The network timestamps transactions by hashing them into an ongoing chain of hash-based proof-of-work, forming a record that cannot be changed without redoing the proof-of-work.The longest chain not only serves as proof of the sequence of events witnessed, but proof that it came from the largest pool of CPU power.As long as a majority of CPU power is controlled by nodes that are not cooperating to attack the network, they'll generate the longest chain and outpace attackers.The network itself requires minimal structure.Messages are broadcast on a best effort basis, and nodes can leave and rejoin the network at will, accepting the longest proof-of-work chain as proof of what happened while they were gone.
Purpose-Cost considereations arising from risks specific to urban transformation make them difficult to be financed with conventional methods. Real estate investment funds structured in accordance with Turkish Capital Markets Board legislation cannot invest in private sector urban transformation projects. On the other hand, the Blockchain technology enables efficiently distributed trust systems when compared with the central ledger structures. The purpose of this study is to propose a crowdfunding and Blockchain-based, innovative but applicable real estate venture capital investment fund model through smart contracts, as a solution to conventional financing problems arising from the development risks of urban transformation projects. Methodology-The study employs desktop research, field observations and deductions methodology. Findings-The analysis reveals that there is a need for decentralized finance need for urban transformation projects. Conclusion-In this study, which examines the risks in urban transformation projects, risk management, financial support to be used in urban transformation projects and Blockchain-based tools, it was concluded that there are a lot of uncertainties, therefore there are risks. Accordingly, a financing model is proposed for solving valuation and financing problems faced by entrepreneurs in urban transformation projects.
Muhammad Izzul Syahmi Zulkepli, Mohammad Taqiuddin Mohamad, Saaidal Razalli Azzuhri
A contract is an important concept to enable a transaction without jeopardizing the rights and security of the transaction’s parties. Its implementation varies either through traditional or modern methods. To date, the smart contract gains attention among industry players and academicians. It is a modern technological innovation that can execute a contract by utilizing a blockchain network. In particular, the researchers view that smart contracts can be adapted in products offering based on various Shariah contracts in Islamic banking institutions, such as financing products based on the tawarruq contract. Nevertheless, it requires detailed research in terms of concept and structure to measure its potential to integrate with Islamic banking operations. Therefore, this study will examine the smart contract concept as well as identify its advantages for Islamic banking institutions’ operations, particularly in tawarruqbased financing products. A qualitative approach based on library studies concerning relevant documents and literature are implemented to achieve these objectives. The collected data were then analyzed using descriptive content analysis methods. The results found that the smart contract is a contract innovation based on blockchain technology that can implement tawarruq-based financing products terms automatically, decentralized, and distributed manner. Thus, its thorough implementation can reduce the risk of faults in transactions and potentially ensure the transparency of transactions’ is well-preserved. However, further research on the risks associated with this technology, especially Shariah risks, needs to be clarified before being fully integrated into Islamic banking operations.
The humanitarian sector has emerged as a powerful mechanism of legitimation for blockchain technology. Platform developers in the aid sector have been eager to showcase the promise of decentralization and encrypted blockchain data as the inheritance of the world's poor and developing nations. This article claims that humanitarian blockchain projects are inextricably linked to the politics of the crypto-economy, proprietary platforms, and a class of solutionists championing Silicon Valley's cultural values. Blockchain humanitarianism has emerged through a private-public partnership (PPP) model in the non-governmental organization (NGO) sector that embraces tech disruption and innovation. Ethically sound blockchain humanitarian projects are precluded by the inherent obscurantism of the technology, the inability to transpose blockchain's governance logic in the social realm, and inextricable ties to the political economy of cryptocurrencies. Projects in the developing world have thus embodied a colonial logic of techno-experimentation for platform developers and imbricate the NGO sector into the PR logic of blockchain solutionism.
Gencay Tepe, Umut Burak Geyikçi, Fatih Mehmet Sancak
The financial-technology industry has recently attracted the attention of many sectors. The financial-technology industry designs new and unusual technological financial services in many areas. It combines technology with finance and provides an alternative to the traditional financial system. In the scope of this study, 636 publications were obtained from Scopus. Various tools, such as Microsoft Excel for frequency analysis, and VOSviewer for data visualization, were used. The open-source codes used for bibliometric analysis through the R Studio program were developed by the authors and used for citation-metrics analysis. The main aim of this study was to find out the most influential studies and authors and to reveal the distributions and impacts of publications in the FinTech area between 2015 and 2021 from the Scopus database. The results indicate that the most influential journal is Sustainability Switzerland, and the most cited author is Gomber et al. Additionally, Rabbani has the most publications, while China has emerged as the most productive country. On the other hand, this study found that FinTech research clustered in four areas. These areas are computer science, business management, economics, and social sciences. This FinTech study examines financial services, financial access, and financial technology, where FinTech is at the center. It also focuses on cryptocurrency, bitcoin, and smart contracts where the blockchain is at the center. The results reveal a systematic map of existing studies. Further, the study plays a guiding role in future research.
In traditional notarization processes, the correctness of the activities between the parties is guaranteed by a central authority or guaranteeing institution. In this case, the authority is not able to quickly establish the originality of the content to be notarized, or at least to have a large degree of certainty without the use of automated systems. This paper presents a new notarization platform that uses blockchain technology and integrates advanced anti-plagiarism approaches able to effectively detect copyright violations of documents that users want to notarize. In addition, our proposal includes the use of models, methods, and techniques, through which a very high level of privacy and information security can be guaranteed.
Open access
Blockchain Technology Applications and Security
FinTech, Crowdfunding, Digital Finance
Advanced Steganography and Watermarking Techniques
Son dönemlerde Bitcoin, bir yatırım ve ödeme aracı olarak yatırımcılar açısından oldukça popüler hale gelmiştir. Yatırımcıların dikkatle takip ettikleri bu sanal para biriminin finansal piyasalara etkisi açısından çalışmada Bitcoin ve BİST100 endeksi arasındaki eş bütünleşme ilişkisi incelenmiştir. Bu amaçla 14.08.2017-13.04.2021 dönemi günlük verileri kullanılmış ve Maki eş bütünleşme testi ile analiz gerçekleştirilmiştir. Elde edilen sonuçlar Bitcoin ve BİST100 endeksi arasında eş bütünleşme ilişkisinin olmadığını göstermektedir. Bunun yanında Hatemi-J nedensellik testi kullanılarak değişkenler arasında kısa dönemli asimetrik ilişkilerin varlığı test edilmiş ve test sonucuna göre yalnızca BİST100 endeksindeki pozitif bir şokun Bitcoin fiyatlarında pozitif bir şoka neden olduğu belirlenmiştir.
E-Donation cloud funding system is an indispensable part of the society. It is a feasible method to assist any donors in any part of the world. Donors require fully secured system where there all information will not be hacked by hackers. As Web 3.0 is the third generation of internet services that can make the system fully secured which is distributed decentralized and semantic. It means with the Artificial Intelligence (AI); it does not have a centralized control node. Public Blockchain- a decentralized, distributed ledger technology - is the implementation of Web 3.0 that technology will be used to develop this system which would be an open source. This paper will look into Ethereum Blockchain technology and recognize the fundamental support it provides for Web 3.0 framework.
This research aims to utilize macro-financial and liquidity elements as the factors that may affect the price of Bitcoin as the largest cryptocurrency in terms of market capitalization. The macro-financial factors analyzed in this study were foreign exchange, stock market index, interest rates, and gold, while liquidity ratio is the internal factor. This study applied a fixed-effect model (FEM) and Generalized Method of Moments (GMM) on gathered weekly data from 1 January 2017 to 29 December 2019 from 18 countries with the total of 2,826 observations. The analysis revealed that US Dollar amplifies Bitcoin trading; an increase in interest rate will decrease investors’ intention to invest in Bitcoin as a speculative asset, and gold could replace Bitcoin as a substitute asset. Moreover, Bitcoin was found to be highly liquid, which attracts many investors, while the stock market index proved to be insignificant.
Dave Murray-Rust, Chris Elsden, Bettina Nissen, Ella Tallyn · 6 authors
This paper presents an annotated portfolio of projects that seek to understand and communicate the social and societal implications of blockchains, distributed ledgers and smart contracts. These complex technologies rely on human and technical factors to deliver cryptocurrencies, shared computation and trustless protocols but have a secondary benefit in providing a moment to re-think many aspects of society, and imagine alternative possibilities. The projects use design and HCI methods to relate blockchains to a range of topics, including global supply chains, delivery infrastructure, smart grids, volunteering and charitable giving, through engaging publics, exploring ideas and speculating on possible futures. Based on an extensive annotated portfolio we draw out learning for the design of blockchain systems, broadening participation and surfacing questions around imaginaries, social implications and engagement with new technology. This paints a comprehensive picture of how HCI and design can shape understandings of the future of complex technologies.
Blockchain is a very attractive technology since it maintains a public, append-only, immutable and ordered log of transactions which guarantees an auditable ledger accessible by anyone. Blockchain systems are inherently interdisciplinary since they combine various fields such as cryptography, multi-agent systems, distributed systems, social systems, economy, and finance. Furthermore, they have a very active and dynamic ecosystem where new blockchain platforms and algorithms are developed continuously due to the interest of the public and the industries to the technology. Consequently, we anticipate a challenging and interdisciplinary research agenda in blockchain systems, built upon a methodology that strives to capture the rich process resulting from the interplay between the behavior of agents and the dynamic interactions among them. To be effective, however, modeling studies providing insights into blockchain systems, and appropriate description of agents paired with a generic understanding of their components are needed. Such studies will create a more unified field of blockchain systems that advances our understanding and leads to further insight. According to this perspective, in this study, we propose using a generic multi-agent organizational modeling for studying blockchain systems, namely AGR4BS. Concretely, we use the Agent/Group/Role (AGR) organizational modeling approach to identify and represent the generic entities which are common to blockchain systems. We show through four real case studies how this generic model can be used to model different blockchain systems. We also show briefly how it can be used for modeling three well-known attacks on blockchain systems.
The research aims to organize, examine, and analyze the provisions on smart contracts available in Romanian civil law. “Smart contracts” are not smart, and are not necessarily contracts, although they can be. As self-executing computer programs, smart contracts are operational on the blockchain and unlike traditional legal contracts, once the agreement has been concluded and the smart contract is set in motion, no party can intervene and it will be executed without interruption, modification, or breach. The crucial question in the final contract law topic is what happens when the smart contract's outcomes deviate from those required by law. To answer this issue, we must first understand that whether a smart contract becomes legally enforceable is determined by several circumstances, together with the unique use case, the type of smart contract employed, and the existing legislation. The paper addresses the subject of determining and regulating smart contracts under Romanian current laws. Particular emphasis is placed on two ambiguous definitions of smart contracts: as computer code and as a civil-law contract. The authors conclude that the concept of smart contracts requires more legal regulation, particularly in terms of managing their meaning and comprehension.
Inessa Tyan, Mariemma I. Yagüe, Antonio Jesús Guevara Plaza
This study aims to move forward a blockchain tourism research and add understanding regarding blockchain adoption in the tourism industry. Grounded theory method based literature review was applied as a research methodology. Based on the literature review, the authors developed a conceptual model of blockchain adoption in tourism by defining casual, context, intervening conditions that affect blockchain adoption and outlining the consequences of blockchain adoption on the tourism sector. This research will contribute to the blockchain adoption literature as well as will give answers to the industry practitioners on how this innovative technology can be adopted and whether it worth investments or not.
Abstract Since the introduction of Ethereum in 2015, blockchain technology (BT) has been evolving, and BT has been associated with the concept of the sharing economy by business academics. Despite the marketing research on the sharing economy that has been extensively conducted in the last decade, the linkage between BT and ethical marketing in the sharing economy remains unclear. Through a systematic literature review of 163 articles and a co-citation analysis, this study identifies the key elements of blockchain capabilities, blockchain attributes, and the underlying economic theories of blockchain. It also synthesizes and proposes a shift of ethical marketing logic in the blockchain-based sharing economy that delineates the principles of stakeholder capitalism. The article concludes with a list of future research directions that underline three approaches of stakeholder theory (i.e., the descriptive, instrument, and normative approaches). These directions aim to guide marketing scholars concerning how BT enables an institutionally embedded view of ethical marketing activities and practices that enhance collaborative marketing and subsequently innovate value chains and create sustainable business models in the sharing economy, as well as to the metaverse.
Matija Šipek, Martin Žagar, Nikola Drašković, Branko Mihaljević
Blockchain technology provides a private, secure, transparent decentralized exchange of data. Also, blockchain is not limited to a particular area, but it has a wide range of applications and can be integrated into a variety of Internet interactive systems. For example, the Internet of Things (IoT), supply chain tracking, Electronic Health Records (EHR), digital forensics, identity management, trustless payments, and other key business elements will all benefit from its implementation. Next layer solutions such as Ethereum 2.0, Polkadot, Cardano, and other Web 3.0 technologies provide developers versatility. Moreover, these platforms utilize smart contracts which are similar to standard, traditionalized software during development but offer key utilities to end-users such as online wallets, secure data with transparent rules. Blockchain is receiving a lot of attention in educational technology (EduTech) as it aims to achieve a more transparent and multipurpose educational system. In addition to smart contract technology which defines how data should be registered, gathered and processed, blockchain can be used as an IoT intermediary for mobile usage. Therefore, we implemented an educational learning platform powered by blockchain technology to examine feasibility in industry and academic environment. In essence, this is a web application which is adapted to mobile platform and connected to blockchain for crucial data exchanges. In this paper we want to emphasize the potential of blockchain technology in multiple sectors as well as the need to really understand the underlying principles which are allowing disruptability of traditional centralized software solutions.
Threat information sharing is considered as one of the proactive defensive approaches for enhancing the overall security of trusted partners. Trusted partner organizations can provide access to past and current cybersecurity threats for reducing the risk of a potential cyberattack - the requirements for threat information sharing range from simplistic sharing of documents to threat intelligence sharing. Therefore, the storage and sharing of highly sensitive threat information raises considerable concerns regarding constructing a secure, trusted threat information exchange infrastructure. Establishing a trusted ecosystem for threat sharing will promote the validity, security, anonymity, scalability, latency efficiency, and traceability of the stored information that protects it from unauthorized disclosure. This paper proposes a system that ensures the security principles mentioned above by utilizing a distributed ledger technology that provides secure decentralized operations through smart contracts and provides a privacy-preserving ecosystem for threat information storage and sharing regarding the MITRE ATT\&CK framework.
Comprendre la consommation énergétique des blockchains : un regard sur les contrats intelligents Les systèmes de chaînes de blocs sont des registres répliqués dans un réseau pair à pair. Elles ont connu un développement rapide depuis quelques années en s'illustrant dans de nombreux domaines d'activités. En permettant le traitement et la sauvegarde de données dans un contexte distribué et Byzantin, ces technologies ont le potentiel de modifier de nombreux secteurs. Par exemple, dans le cadre de la finance décentralisée, les cryptomonnaies se développement comme une alternative aux monnaies fiduciaires en proposant un système de paiement dépourvu de tiers de confiance. Cependant, une certaine inquiétude vis-à-vis de l’impact environnemental des chaînes de blocs a émergé en parallèle de leur développement. En particulier, de nombreuses recherches ont démontré le coût énergétique important des chaînes basées sur les preuves de travail. Dans cette thèse, nous proposons de contribuer à l'étude expérimentale du coût énergétique des solutions logicielles basées sur les chaînes de blocs. Face à l'enrichissement progressif de l'écosystème lié aux chaînes de blocs, nous proposons BCTMark, un nouvel outil de déploiement et d'évaluation des performances des chaînes de blocs. Partant de cet outil, nous concentrons notre étude sur l'impact des contrats intelligents sur la chaîne de blocs Ethereum. D'une part, nous proposons un modèle pour l'estimation du coût énergétique des contrats intelligents développé pour Ethereum. D'autre part, nous proposons un nouveau protocole pour l'identification et l'élimination des contrats non utilisés dans le but de proposer des chaînes de blocs plus frugales en calculs et espaces de stockages.
The Financial Scheme that plays an important role in helping students is the Gamification Scholarship Scheme. The Gamification scholarship scheme helps human life in the world of education. Gamification is an approach that uses elements in games or video games with the aim of motivating students in the learning process and maximizing feelings of enjoyment and engagement in the learning process. To encourage higher education, the government has done various things. However, there are several things that make it difficult for students to use it, such as distributing scholarships to students belonging to underprivileged families. The Gamification scholarship scheme is one of the most financially instrumental schemes in helping students, but it has not been verified which results in a lack of transparency between students and their respective Education Offices, then there is still a lack of tracking of application forms in this study, we propose a Smart Contract which addresses the lack of Scheme Scholarships for Colleges and Universities outlined above. It has four entities: Board of Education, Students, College and Bank. This Blockchain based smart contract has been developed to provide a user-friendly and transparent and constant environment between students and the education board. Blockchain platform has developed many applications but none can overcome the government scholarship scheme.
A blockchain is an ever-growing list of records that are linked to each other in a distributed network. These linked records called ledgers are immutable in nature providing resistance to change. Blockchain provides a secure way of processing the data in a distributed environment. It was widely involved in crypto currencies in the earlier days and however its application in bit coin motivated and inspired other applications to adapt its concepts. Its application in healthcare requires blockchain to be highly secure, provide a more trusted environment than the traditional blockchain, that is by design should be an enterprise level blockchain by restricting access to the public. Hyperledger Fabric caters to all these requirements in providing a secure and distributed environment for healthcare systems. In healthcare there are a lot of fields where Hyperledger Fabric can be adopted, but the focus here is given to management of patient's medical records. Traditionally the medical records are either stored centrally in a database that is accessible to only the hospitals owning it, this creates a several of problems for patients. The aim is to consider the records are handled, how the patient will interact in the real world and design a system using hyper ledger Fabric to tackle major problems using smart contract.
This work introduces a novel approach for the governance of a blockchain containing social constructs and technical viability for widescale applications for the next generation of distributed ledgers. Functional requirements for this new blockchain distributed ledger (BDL) were garnered from an analysis of the needs for large-scale applications. Applied research was employed as part of this endeavor to test the practicality and scalability of the solution outline. Novel features in this application draw together controls and enforcement for cybersecurity, digital content management, licensing, and configuration management. The Synchronous Trust Consensus Model applied research project named Project Philos was sponsored by the BlockChain Development Community (BCDC) with support from the University of Colorado. Research has followed both theorized conceptual and theory-to-practice models to prove the scientific soundness and the viability of incentive for community engagement. Results show that this new model proves the feasibility of an indefinitely expandable blockchain distributed ledger capability, while also providing a new participant incentive that is highly effective in engaging a community of practitioners.
Abstract Decentralized Finance (DeFi) is a system of financial products and services built and delivered through smart contracts on various blockchains. In recent years, DeFi has gained popularity and market capitalization. However, it has also been connected to crime, particularly various types of securities violations. The lack of Know Your Customer requirements in DeFi poses challenges for governments trying to mitigate potential offenses. This study aims to determine whether this problem is suited to a machine learning approach, namely, whether we can identify DeFi projects potentially engaging in securities violations based on their tokens’ smart contract code. We adapted prior works on detecting specific types of securities violations across Ethereum by building classifiers based on features extracted from DeFi projects’ tokens’ smart contract code (specifically, opcode-based features). Our final model was a random forest model that achieved an 80% F-1 score against a baseline of 50%. Notably, we further explored the code-based features that are the most important to our model’s performance in more detail by analyzing tokens’ Solidity code and conducting cosine similarity analyses. We found that one element of the code that our opcode-based features can capture is the implementation of the SafeMath library, although this does not account for the entirety of our features. Another contribution of our study is a new dataset, comprising (a) a verified ground truth dataset for tokens involved in securities violations and (b) a set of legitimate tokens from a reputable DeFi aggregator. This paper further discusses the potential use of a model like ours by prosecutors in enforcement efforts and connects it to a wider legal context.
Purpose This paper explores how the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) has dealt with the emerging issue of accounting for cryptocurrencies by investigating its constituents' expectations and the motivations underlying its regulatory response. Design/methodology/approach The theoretical lens of regulatory space is used to analyse the four-year debate around cryptocurrency holdings and informs the extensive thematic analysis of public documents, meetings recordings and comment letters on the topic. Findings Facing national standard setters' initiatives to regulate accounting for cryptocurrency, the IASB defended its position in the regulatory space through an agenda decision based on ewct 2xisting standards, which was finalised by the International Financial Reporting Standards Interpretation Committee (IFRS IC) despite criticism from constituents and Board members. Research limitations/implications The paper provides insights into the IASB approach to a regulatory vacuum regarding a new class of items, which derive from a new and rapidly-evolving technology. Disruptive technology impacts the contested arena of accounting regulation, in which the constituents ask for new solutions and the IASB tries to resist such pressures, while defending its position. Practical implications The paper sheds light on the growing importance of agenda decisions in the IFRS environment and on the limits of the IASB long regulatory process in the circumstance of emerging accounting issues deriving from rapidly-evolving technology. Originality/value This investigation is timely and relevant as it considers the regulatory issues arising from disruptive technological innovations (i.e. cryptocurrency), shedding light on the limits of regulatory processes in times of technological change.