Several platform companies have been successful in competing with digital piracy by producing consumer-friendly services. Nowadays, however, the digital content service market has become more monopolized than ever, which forms barriers to the entry of new platform companies. The platform monopoly would cause considerable problems both to content providers and consumers as it limits the choice of consumers. To remove the platform monopoly in digital content markets, we propose a public blockchain-based digital content service method. The proposed method encrypts the digital content to a self-decryptable form, which we call Smart Propertized Digital Content (SPDC), and utilizes the decentralization and traceability of the public blockchain to provide a non-monopolistic ecosystem for the management and distribution of the SPDC license. The proposed method can be more beneficial both to content creators and users than the current winner-takes-all platform model. For instance, users can download SPDC once and play many times without requesting the decryption key, and SPDC owners can make SPDC licenses to be time-limited, device-limited, resellable, or terminated without resorting to help from other intermediaries. We conducted the threat analysis on the proposed method by examining possible attacks in various scenarios. Based on threat analysis, we conclude that the proposed method can provide a new type of digital content service ecosystem that can be operated in a completely decentralized way and neutrally beneficial to all participants.
Cross-border transactions have been more and more popular around the world. However, the current cross-border transactions still have risks and challenges, e.g., differences in regulation policies and unbalanced profits of banks. To address this critical issue, we construct a new framework for the transaction system with the support of blockchain technology. In this paper, we propose a new consortium blockchain system, namely asymmetric consortium blockchain (ACB), to ensure the implementation of cross-border transactions. Different from traditional consortium blockchain, the new blockchain system could support the supernode to regulate all the transactions timely. Furthermore, the new smart contract is designed to lower the opportunity loss for each node and make the profits allocation system fairer. In the end, the numerical experiments were carried out based on the transactions of Shenzhen and Hong Kong. The results show that the proposed ACB system is efficient to make the profit allocation fairer for the participants and keep intelligent for the new cross-border transaction system.
Galina Kondrateva, Elodie de Boissieu, Chantal Ammi, Éric Seulliet
Research literature on blockchain technology is starting to emerge. Blockchain technology is primarily associated with cryptocurrencies, raising interest in an application in other business sectors, thanks to its characteristics. The decentralized nature of blockchain creates the new concept of a token economy, which can help to trace and valorize intellectual property - one of the essential challenges in co-creation. This paper considers how blockchain technology and tokenization can solve challenges in co-creation projects consisting of large companies, startups and entrepreneurial accelerators. The paper proposes an exploratory analysis based on interviews conducted with French companies and startups. The findings include a framework of (1) challenges, lack of operating rules, trust, and traceability, and (2) the potential benefits of blockchain and tokenization to solve issues that arise. The findings can be useful for both startups and large companies as a starting point for understanding and adopting blockchain technology.JEL Codes: O3, L2
The key distinction among a smart contract and most other blockchain platforms
is that it can comprehend a general-purpose programming language. With the
introduction of smart contracts and a blockchain platform capable of executing
them, the possibilities for their application are endless. A smart contract is an
electronic transaction protocol that is intended to facilitate, verify, and enforce
the negotiation and execution of the terms of an underlying legal contract
to satisfy common contractual conditions such as payments, legal obligations,
and enforcement without the involvement of third parties. As a result, smart
contracts attempt to reduce transaction costs, such as arbitration and
enforcement, by establishing trackable and irreversible transactions on
distributed databases through blockchain technology. On the other hand, smart
contracts have the potential to go far beyond cost reductions by enabling the
entrepreneurial collaboration of cross-organizational business activities that are
prevalent in smart supply chains. A closer examination of current or continuing
smart contract projects reveals that the most prevalent smart contract
applications in business are supply chain management, the Internet of Things,
and Industry solutions. The author completed many European initiatives
involving transnational entrepreneurial networks and supply chains. As a result,
the study examines how and to what degree smart contracts and blockchain
technology might aid in the establishment of collaborative company structures
for long-term entrepreneurial activity in supply chains. The study was performed
using expert online interviews, questionnaires.
The insurance industry is heavily dependent on several processes executed among multiple entities, such as insurer, insured, and third-party services. The increasingly competitive environment is pushing insurance companies to use advanced technologies to address multiple challenges, namely lack of trust, lack of transparency, and economic instability. To this end, blockchain is used as an emerging technology that enables transparent and secure data storage and transmission. In this paper, we propose CioSy, a collaborative blockchain-based insurance system for monitoring and processing the insurance transactions. To the best of our knowledge, the existing approaches do not consider collaborative insurance to achieve an automated, transparent, and tamper-proof solution. CioSy aims at automating the insurance policy processing, claim handling, and payment using smart contracts. For validation purposes, an experimental prototype is developed on Ethereum blockchain. Our experimental results show that the proposed approach is both feasible and economical in terms of time and cost.
Blockchain is a distributed ledger technology based on the underlying peer-to-peer network. In this paper, we focus on improving the chances of a transaction being packaged into a valid block so as to be recorded on the main chain. Blockchain nodes typically broadcast transactions they receive to the whole network. Hence, for recording transactions on the blockchain more efficiently, it becomes essential to determine influential nodes to publish transactions, where influential nodes are more actively involved in mining, recording, or broadcasting transactions in the network. To that aim, we propose an Influential Node Determination Framework (INDF) using a series of significant factors, such as hash rate, latency, active time, and degree of a node. Specifically, INDF consists of two parallel schemes: the first scheme figures out influential pools according to their hash rates where a truth-telling mechanism design is employed to encourage the pool nodes to report their true hash rate values; the second one determines influential individual nodes based on an improved L-H index algorithm. Remarkably, the proposed truth-telling mechanism is proved to be incentive-compatible. Our improved L-H index algorithm is comparatively studied to reflect the impacts of different node parameters on the node’s ranking. Extensive experiments are conducted to demonstrate the effectiveness of our proposed framework.
Saha Reno, Sheikh Surfuddin Reza Ali CHOWDHURY, Iqramuzzaman SADI
Lending systems in real world are not much secure and reliable as the borrower and third parties involved in this aspect may create various deceitful situations. Blockchain is a secure system where the utilization of smart contract can avoid deceptive phenomena involved in lending but the decline in exchange rate of cryptocurrency can create the opportunity to pay back less than the borrowed amount in terms of fiat money. In this paper, a blockchain and smart contract-based lending framework is designed which requires the borrower to provide Ethereum Request for Comments (ERC)-20 standard tokens as collateral to mitigate the associated risks. The smart contract feature is utilized to automate the system without any third-party management. Besides, transaction stored in the blocks creates transparency among the users of the system. To tackle the aforementioned issues, ERC-20 token value is increased periodically and the instability of the exchange rate is surveilled by the system. By the end of this paper, some test cases and charts relevant to the data set are evaluated to assess the effectiveness of the system.
A smart contract is a computer protocol for creating or improving a contract which makes it possible to create valid transactions without intermediaries. The most important feature is security and speed, because this technology runs on a blockchain platform and its information will remain confidential. Despite these benefits, unfortunately, companies still use paper contracts. Knowledge-based companies can save time and money by implementing smart contracts with their customers in the form of robotic process automation and process management, and by reducing errors and risks in processes. Increase productivity in business. The purpose of this study was to present a smart contract model in knowledge-based companies based on Grounded Theory by Focusing on the robotic process automation strategies and process management using qualitative and quantitative paradigms. The analysis approach in this research is quantitative-qualitative. To collect data in the qualitative part, semi-structured interviews were used. In the quantitative part, the structural equation method was used. The sample size was calculated according to confirmatory factor analysis of 110 experts. Based on the data analysis, due to the abnormality of the data distribution, the partial least squares method was used with the help of Smart PLS software version 2.
Abstract Blockchain has been receiving growing attention from both academia and practices. This paper aims to investigate the research status of blockchain-related studies and to analyze the development and evolution of this latest hot area via bibliometric analysis. We selected and explored 2451 papers published between 2013 and 2019 from the Web of Science Core Collection database. The analysis considers different dimensions, including annual publications and citation trends, author distribution, popular research themes, collaboration of countries (regions) and institutions, top papers, major publication journals (conferences), supportive funding agencies, and emerging research trends. The results show that the number of blockchain literature is still increasing, and the research priorities in blockchain-related research shift during the observation period from bitcoin, cryptocurrency, blockchain, smart contract, internet of thing, to the distributed ledger, and challenge and the inefficiency of blockchain. The findings of this research deliver a holistic picture of blockchain research, which illuminates the future direction of research, and provides implications for both academic research and enterprise practice.
Yield farming has been an immensely popular activity for cryptocurrency holders since the explosion of Decentralized Finance (DeFi) in the summer of 2020. In this Systematization of Knowledge (SoK), we study a general framework for yield farming strategies with empirical analysis. First, we summarize the fundamentals of yield farming by focusing on the protocols and tokens used by aggregators. We then examine the sources of yield and translate those into three example yield farming strategies, followed by the simulations of yield farming performance, based on these strategies. We further compare four major yield aggregrators -- Idle, Pickle, Harvest and Yearn -- in the ecosystem, along with brief introductions of others. We systematize their strategies and revenue models, and conduct an empirical analysis with on-chain data from example vaults, to find a plausible connection between data anomalies and historical events. Finally, we discuss the benefits and risks of yield aggregators.
The construction industry has dynamic supply chains with multiple suppliers usually engaged in short-term relationships. Government legislation, novel types of payment agreements, conventional information technology solutions, and supply chain management best practices have endeavoured to solve payment-related financial issues in the construction industry, which are mainly caused by the complexities of the construction supply chain. Nevertheless, payment-related issues persist as one of the key challenges in the industry. Applications of blockchain technology–a trusted, distributed data storing mechanism–along with smart contracts are gaining focus as solutions for complex interorganisational processes. A smart contract is a self-executing script that codifies a set of rules or agreements between multiple parties and runs across the blockchain network. This paper identifies the suitability of blockchain and smart contract technologies in solving payment issues in the construction industry. An expert forum of construction industry stakeholders served as the primary data collection method through a structured questionnaire. The key finding of the paper is that blockchain and smart contract powered solutions can significantly mitigate the payment and related financial issues in the construction industry, including partial payments, nonpayments, cost of finance, long payment cycle, retention, and security of payments.
Hossein Baharmand, Naima Saeed, Tina Comes, Matthieu Lauras
Blockchain technology promises to improve the efficiency, transparency, and accountability of humanitarian operations. Yet at the same time, especially the humanitarian context with its characteristic volatility poses unique challenges to any technology. Most prominent are the humanitarian principles that are fundamental to humanitarian operations. These ethical principles are set to protect the most vulnerable populations. Designing blockchain projects in the humanitarian context therefore requires a systematic framework that helps humanitarians make critical choices. While some design instructions can be found for commercial applications, the humanitarian context requires different design principles and guidelines. To address the lack of a design framework for humanitarian blockchain projects, in this paper, we design and validate guidelines for humanitarian blockchain-projects. We use data from two humanitarian blockchain pilots in Jordan and Kenya to design our framework. Thereafter, we benchmark its applicability and relevance against another pilot in Vanuatu. Our framework highlights the need to consider infrastructure, end-users, ethics, stakeholders, and privacy in contexts, scalability and in/out mechanisms in technology, and knowledge/skills and intellectual property in organisation-related design requirements.
Smart contract is the building block of blockchain systems that enables automated peer-to-peer transactions and decentralized services. With the increasing popularity of smart contracts, blockchain systems, in particular Ethereum, have been the "paradise" of versatile fraud activities in which Ponzi, Honeypot and Phishing are the prominent ones. Formal verification and symbolic analysis have been employed to combat these destructive scams by analyzing the codes and function calls, yet the vulnerability of each \emph{individual} scam should be predefined discreetly. In this work, we present SCSGuard, a novel deep learning scam detection framework that harnesses the automatically extractable bytecodes of smart contracts as their new features. We design a GRU network with attention mechanism to learn from the \emph{N-gram bytecode} patterns, and determines whether a smart contract is fraudulent or not. Our framework is advantageous over the baseline algorithms in three aspects. Firstly, SCSGuard provides a unified solution to different scam genres, thus relieving the need of code analysis skills. Secondly, the inference of SCSGuard is faster than the code analysis by several order of magnitudes. Thirdly, experimental results manifest that SCSGuard achieves high accuracy (0.92$\sim$0.94), precision (0.94$\sim$0.96\%) and recall (0.97$\sim$0.98) for both Ponzi and Honeypot scams under similar settings, and is potentially useful to detect new Phishing smart contracts.
Rosa Lombardi, Charl de Villiers, Nicola Moscariello, Michele Pizzo
Purpose This paper presents a systematic literature review, including content and bibliometric analyses, of the impact of blockchain technology (BT) in auditing, to identify trends, research areas and construct an agenda for future research. Design/methodology/approach The authors include studies from 2010 to 2020 in their structured literature review (SLR), using accounting journals on the Scopus database, which yielded 40 articles with blockchain and auditing at its core. Findings One of the contributions of the authors’ analyses is to group the prior research, and therefore also the agenda for future research, into three main research areas: (1) Blockchain as a tool for auditing professionals to improve business information systems to save time and prevent fraud; (2) Smart contracts enabling Audit 4.0 efficiency, reporting, disclosure and transparency; (3) Cryptocurrency and initial coin offerings (ICOs) as a springboard for corporate governance and new venture financing. The authors’ findings have several important implications for practice and theory. Practical implications The results of this study emphasise that (1) the disruption of blockchain in auditing is in a nascent phase and there is a need for compelling empirical studies and potential for the involvement of practitioners; (2) there may be a need to reconsider audit procedures especially suited for digitalisation and BT adoption; (3) standards, guidelines and training are required to pivot towards and confront the challenge BT will represent for auditing; and (4) there are two sides to the BT coin for auditing, enthusiasm about the potential and risk upon implementation. These practical implications can also be seen as a template for future research in a quest to align theory and practice. Originality/value The authors’ SLR facilitates the identification of research areas and implications, forming a useful baseline for practitioners, professionals and academics, as they draft the state of the art on the disruption of blockchain in auditing, highlighting how BT is changing auditing activities and traditions.
New technologies are playing a fundamental role in the postmodern era of globalization where interpersonal interactions at the international level and the exchange of goods, services, information and capital are the basis of all activities. The agriculture sector is constantly facing numerous challenges including the steady growth of the population, climate change, the increasing number of catastrophes, the loss of biodiversity and the spread of parasites. This paper analyzes the impacts of Blockchain applications in agriculture and the food supply chain, through a survey literature review, providing the various players in the agriculture value chain with new tools and key technologies to improve production and distribution processes. To demonstrate the importance of applying the Blockchain in the agriculture sector, especially for emerging countries, the case of South Africa is examined. This focus is one of the unique aspects of this paper, which is the first to deal with this kind of solution applied to the South African context. Our findings indicate that Blockchain, in the e-agricultural context, has the potential for reshaping the entire sector, contributing also to the resolution of the food crisis. This paper discusses the overall implications, limits, challenges and potentials of these applications, from a critical point of view.
The rapidly evolving blockchain technology space has put decentralisation back into the focus of the design of techno-social systems, and the role of decentralised technological infrastructures in achieving particular social, economic, or political goals. In this entry we address how blockchains and distributed ledgers think about decentralisation.
Blockchain technology is one of the most critical emerging technologies. Countries are promoting the development of blockchain technology vigorously. Theoretically, blockchain technology improves the trust between enterprises, reduces information asymmetry, and promotes efficiency. It should promote corporate performance, but analyzing the actual data of Chinese listed companies, contrary to expectation, blockchain technology makes corporate performance decline. We found that this is mainly due to the effect of adverse selection through analysis and empirical tests. The enterprises that use blockchain technology are not accompanied by the increase in R&D expenditure, investment expenditure, and patents. The companies’ abnormal stock return and stock turnover rate have increased. The enterprises with worse performance are more likely to use blockchain to the hype. They can gain a short-term stock return. However, in the long run, the market-to-book ratio of government subsidies and the growth rate of corporate income are declining. Furthermore, the financial constraints are not alleviated as adverse selection only plays a role in the short term. Besides, the heterogeneity tests find that from the prospects of internal governance environment, the higher proportion of the largest shareholder, the better earning quality of the company. The enterprises with state-owned property rights have lower motivations of using blockchain to make an adverse selection. The study also found that the external environment prospects of enterprises with a lower degree of marketization and law environment are more likely to use the blockchain.
The work presented in this thesis describes the design and development of smart contract system for blockchain based applications. The main objective is to investigate the current state of blockchain technology and its implementations and to reveal how main principles of this disruptive technology can reshape "business as normal" activities. This work examines the Blockchain technology as a whole and addresses its potential for the development of distributed applications. Blockchain based smart contract system for different applications that demonstrate a streamlined access management system using Ethereum blockchain has been designed and implemented. Ethereum reinforces the second gen of blockchain technology by providing an open and global computing/environment platform allowing for the exchange of cryptocurrency (Ether) and the creation of self-verified smart contract applications. Smart contracts provide a framework for the ownership of digital assets and a range of distributed applications in the blockchain region. Ethereum and smart contracts are open, decentralized and unalterable, as such, they are susceptible to vulnerabilities that arise from developers ' simple coding errors. We have designed and implemented smart contract system for blockchain based applications across healthcare management to Facilitate Medical Ecosystems and Energy systems to increase energy efficiency by designing smart contract system for energy-saving certificates. We also identified key themes, developments and emerging areas of healthcare and energy research. In this thesis, blockchain technology has been applied in areas such as healthcare and Energy sector. Healthcare applications are the main contribution of this thesis and the work on the Energy systems reflects as an additional contribution of this thesis. Hopefully the work presented in this thesis will give enough motivation towards developing distributed applications (ĐApps) using blockchain based smart contract system.
The function of money plays an essential and indisputable role in the development of trade. Typically, banknotes and coins have always been introduced by central authorities. Emerging after the 2008 crisis, however, Bitcoin, considered to be the original cryptocurrency, contributed to money in an unprecedented dimension as it is the first decentralized peer-to-peer payment network. Cryptocurrencies are in constant interaction and the casualty relationship, among other variables, with Brent Oil. This study attempts to investigate the relationship between Bitcoin, Ethereum and Brent Oil price movements using 210 daily data from 10.12.2019 to 01.10.2020, featuring the period of the start and the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic. In this study, the casualty relationship among Brent Oil, Bitcoin and Ethereum was examined with the Granger Causality test. As a result of the study, a bidirectional casualty relationship is determined between Brent Oil and Ethereum. However, a one-way causality relationship is found between Brent Oil and Bitcoin. On the other hand, there is no causality relationship between Ethereum and Bitcoin.
"This is a study for applying Decentralized Finance (DeFi) operations in a real life Agricultural finance application focusing on how assets tokenization in general and crop insurance in particular may take advantage of fundraising, global capital markets, atomic swap operations over blockchain and finally peer-to-peer trading without intermediaries under standardized regulations and revolutionary custodial services. Descriptive statistical data presentations such as graphs and tables are used to do the analysis and evaluate the development of the sector. The paper is exploring the boundaries and the depth of Decentralized Finance while focusing on Asset Tokenization Application that are being deployed mainly in different agri-businesses starting with crop insurance and ending up with tokenizing the products over blockchain. In conclusion, asset tokenization as a representational digital asset for a traditional financial instrument is becoming an increasingly important part of modern finance and “blockchainization” of the real world. This paper addresses how agriculture sector as production sector can use asset tokenization in securing the crops by smart contracts and issuing digital tokens to fundraising for micro-insurance. Also, using blockchain to tokenize the crops for future contracts while in the same time boosting the efficiency of the agribusiness finance, crop insurance, trading in primary and secondary markets as well as exploring new markets without intermediaries, are aspects that are found in the present research."
In the rapidly evolving landscape of the sixth generation (6G) network, smart contracts emerge as a pivotal technology for enforcing trustful rules. However, the conventional lifecycle model of smart contracts—encompassing stages from initiation to the termination of a contract instance—suffers from rigidity and lack of customization, leading to notable operational challenges. These challenges primarily manifest as heightened resource demands, including longer waiting periods and escalated transaction costs, which hinder the adaptability of smart contracts in the varied and dynamic contexts of 6G-connected environments. Driven by these issues, this article conducts a comprehensive analysis of the smart contract lifecycle. We introduce an innovative lifecycle model that offers customizable flexibility, allowing for the merging or separation of different stages in the smart contract process. Meanwhile, we propose a unique transaction data structure designed to integrate parameters of combined stages, each marked with distinct identifiers for differentiation. Further, we introduce an innovative address scheme for smart contract instances, which provides an identifier to simplify instance access while also maintaining a mechanism for traditional access methods. The verification results show that the model can save 52.72% of processing fee and 68.09% of completion time compared with the conventional method.
<div>In cross-chain scenarios, there are different blockchains, which need to cooperate. Cooperation among different blockchains is done by smart contracts that work together to complete cross-chain tasks. When numerous cooperative smart contracts are involved, smart contracts form a complex interaction network, which makes it difficult to evaluate the cooperation. It needs a common model to quantitatively analyze the cross-chain cooperation of associated smart contracts. In this paper, we model the cooperation among smart contracts as conditions and their corresponding actions, the condition-trigger model. Then we propose the method to calculate the cooperation probabilities by the graph weight. As the edge weight lacks the information of interaction probabilities, we introduce the dimension of the edge weight to calculate the probabilities. Finally, we verify the proposed condition-trigger model and its different types. It demonstrates that our proposed methods can effectively analyze the cross-chain cooperation among smart contracts.</div>