Blockchain Papers

John Taskinsoy

No abstract is available for this record.

Minhaj Uddin Chowdhury, Khairunnahar Suchana, Syed Md Eftekhar Alam, Mohammad Monirujjaman Khan

The 21st Century is all about technology. People are open to accepting new technologies as the need for modernization is increasing every single day. Blockchain is one of those new and revolutionary technologies that will have a significant impact on the market and industry. In layman’s terms, Blockchain is a data structure that stores transactional records while also ensuring security, transparency, and decentralization. There is a digital signature on every transaction on a blockchain, which proves the authenticity of the blockchain. In a Blockchain, data is stored which is tamper-proof and cannot be changed as it uses encryption and digital signatures. To change a record on a blockchain, one needs to change several records, and one needs to change the distributed ledger. That’s why it’s quite impossible to change the data which has already been entered into a Blockchain. The Blockchain is a technology that will allow transactions simply, safely, effectively, and also safely. This is a very promising technology. It’s already in a lot of places. It can also solve any problem in the banking sector. This technology became famous after introducing the first cryptocurrency, which is known as bitcoin. Right now, there is a huge problem with banking, and the Blockchain can solve these problems. This paper will demonstrate transacting over a secure, blockchain-based network and therefore eliminate the need for intermediary entities. This paper is a review-based paper that provides the application and opportunities of the Blockchain in the banking system. The purpose of this paper is to provide a review of the application and opportunities of the Blockchain for a secure banking system. In this review investigation and analysis of this paper at the beginning, related work from other authors in the same fields has been discussed. Then the working method of the Blockchain technology has been introduced with analysis. The use of blockchain technology for secure banking has been discussed. The main achievement of this paper is to demonstrate how the Blockchain works and how it can be useful in the secure banking industry.

Mohammad Madine, Khaled Salah, Raja Jayaraman, Yousof Al-Hammadi · 6 authors

Blockchain technology has the potential to revolutionize industries by offering decentralized, transparent, data provenance, auditable, reliable, and trustworthy features. However, cross-chain interoperability is one of the crucial challenges preventing widespread adoption of blockchain applications. Cross-chain interoperability represents the ability for one blockchain network to interact and share data with another blockchain network. Contemporary cross-chain interoperability solutions are centralized and require re-engineering of the core blockchain stack to enable inter-communication and data sharing among heterogeneous blockchain networks. In this paper, we propose an application-based cross-chain interoperability solution named appXchain which allows blockchain networks of any architecture type and industrial focus to inter-communicate, share data, and make requests. Our solution utilizes the decentralized applications as a distributed translation layer that is capable of communicating and understanding multiple blockchain networks, thereby delegating requests and parameters among them. The architecture uses incentivized verifier nodes that maintain the integrity of shared data facilitating them to be readable by the entities of their network. We define and describe the roles and requirements of major entities of inter-operating blockchain networks in the context of healthcare. We present a detailed explanation of the sequence of interactions needed to share an Electronic Medical Record (EMR) document from one blockchain network to another along with the required algorithms. We implement the appXchain solution with Ethereum-based smart contracts for two hospitals and also present its cost and security analysis. We have made our smart contracts code and testing scripts publicly available.

Wajde Baiod, Janet Light, Aniket Mahanti

Blockchain technology has become an active area of research and a technological option for many businesses and industrial communities. With its distributed, decentralized, and trustless nature, blockchain can provide businesses with new opportunities and benefits through increased efficiency, reduced costs, enhanced integrity and transparency, better security, and improved traceability. Although blockchain’s largest applications have been in the finance and banking sector, we now see experiments and proposed applications in different fields. This paper provides an overview of blockchain technology; it brings together all the key design features, characteristics, and benefits of blockchain that make it a superior and unique technology, and it presents the popular consensus protocols and taxonomy of blockchain systems. Additionally, the paper surveys blockchain-based applications across multiple domains such as in finance, insurance, supply chain management, energy, advertising and media, real estate and healthcare. It aims at examining the industries’ key issues, blockchain solutions and use cases. The paper highlights three broad limitations that blockchain technology presents: scalability, security, and regulation, and shows how these challenges could impact blockchain application and adoption.

Hilal Umucu

This article primarily focuses on how to set up a smart contract with Solidity. Considering that the usage and examples of smart contracts are increasing day by day, the number of contracts written with Solidity is increasing at the same rate. These contracts, in which computers describe the will of the parties in codes, have a relieving effect for the legal sector as well. Although “language” is the basis of the law, smart contracts are perfect for contracts that can be put forward concretely without human emotions. In this article, I started by defining what a smart contract is. Based on the definition of smart contract, I wrote in which sectors and in which projects smart contracts are used. Finally, I introduced the Solidity programming language, which is the main purpose of this article, and I wrote and explained the Inheritance Contract with Solidity.

Felix Bekemeier

No abstract is available for this record.

Geethu Mary George, L. S. Jayashree

Blockchain, the foundation of Ethereum, has received greater attention on recent years as a decentralised and distributed public ledger technology that offers different properties like security, privacy, scalability and immutability during online data transactions, reduces cost of transactions, and enables verification and efficient exchange of personnel information across many computers without any trusted parties. The goal of this survey is to propel some methods in preserving user privacy during data transactions using Ethereum smart contract. We analysed the privacy challenges in blockchain and figured out the existing cryptographic mechanisms in preserving the transaction privacy. We also addressed some technique for simplifying claim settlement process in healthcare insurance. By using Ethereum blockchain via smart contract, current challenges in insurance such as being time-consuming, can be avoided thereby preventing insurance frauds and thus improving transparency to all members in-network. It also helps to avoid paper-based contracts, which are prone to errors, and removes the intermediaries. Furthermore, there is still a need to examine and consider future research in order to overcome privacy attacks when using blockchain.

Nadia Pocher, Andreas Veneris

Central banks and governments all over the world are increasingly exploring digital versions of fiat money, known as retail Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs). Most initiatives rely on Distributed Ledger Technologies and are presented as alternatives to physical cash. Consequently, anonymity-related regulatory questions have naturally started to arise in terms of Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorist Financing compliance. Against this backdrop, this paper provides a techno-legal taxonomy of approaches to balance privacy and transparency in CBDCs without thwarting accountability, but it also underlines cross-sectoral impacts. The contribution heeds regulation-by-design as its core methodological foundation, with Privacy-Enhancing Technologies as the relevant use case. Thus, it highlights that not only technology aids legal purposes, but also that some regulatory requirements ought to be designed into technology for one to reach agreed-upon results and/or standards.

Nic Carter, Linda Jo Bone Jeng

No abstract is available for this record.

Rakesh Chandra

Decentralized Finance (DeFi) is transforming the financial services industry through blockchain technology, smart contracts, and decentralized protocols. By eliminating intermediaries such as banks and brokers, DeFi enables transparent, efficient, and accessible financial transactions. The ecosystem includes decentralized exchanges, lending and borrowing platforms, liquidity pools, yield farming, and tokenized assets, which have significantly influenced global financial markets.This study examines the structure of the DeFi ecosystem and its market implications using a conceptual and analytical approach. The findings highlight key benefits such as improved financial inclusion, reduced transaction costs, enhanced transparency, faster transaction processing, and increased financial innovation. Smart contracts automate financial operations, while decentralized exchanges and liquidity pools create new models for asset trading and liquidity provision. Despite these advantages, DeFi faces several challenges, including cryptocurrency price volatility, smart contract vulnerabilities, cybersecurity threats, governance issues, and regulatory uncertainty. The interconnected nature of DeFi protocols may also create systemic risks that can affect the broader ecosystem. The study concludes that DeFi represents a major advancement in financial technology by bridging traditional finance and blockchain-based systems. However, sustainable growth requires stronger security mechanisms, transparent governance frameworks, and adaptive regulatory policies. Hybrid models combining decentralized innovation with effective regulation are likely to shape the future of financial services.

Alexander A. Varfolomeev, Liwa H. Al-Farhani, Zahraa Ch. Oleiwi

Over time, our lives turn to digitization and technology and its multiple applications and uses. The smart city, its technologies and the services provided during it have become a way of life. The idea of smart cities relied on different mechanisms to provide reliable services. One of the important technologies is the blockchain that has proven to be extremely reliable and has a high security level technology. This paper presents a mechanism to explain the application of blockchain technology in smart contracts, how to increase reliability, data security, and many positive benefits as part of the multiple services provided by the smart city environment. This paper also provides important details about this technology and its impact on the overall administrative system of any service provided by smart governments. The paper dealt with an example of how to manage the real estate rental file electronically to explain the advantages of blockchain technology through which we overcome existing problems in this type of contract and service.

TianLin Zhang, Jinjiang Li, Xinbo Jiang

With the emergence and development of blockchain technology, due to its innovation in the underlying technology, many potential innovations have been created in the financial aspects of different industries, and even disruptive changes have occurred. Especially mature applications in supply chain finance are more extensive, and at the same time, the technology also effectively promotes the development of finance-related technology. We proposed a blockchain-based framework and used an accessory technology, namely smart contracts. The credit mechanism can be reformed to promote the flow of credit value and make it highly coupled with financial scenarios to obtain the feasibility of supply chain process design.

Kyoung Tae Kim, Sherman D. Hanna, Sunwoo T. Lee

Cryptocurrency has been increasingly popular with investors. Using the 2018 National Financial Capability Study Investor survey, we examined the association between investment literacy and cryptocurrency investment—about 13% of investors invested in cryptocurrency directly or indirectly. Results from regression analyses show that objective investment literacy was negatively while sub- jective literacy was positively associated with holding cryptocurrency. Overconfident investors were more likely to invest in cryptocurrency, and results were robust across three overconfidence meas- ures. This study has implications for investment advice, financial education, and research.

Abderahman Rejeb, Karim Rejeb, John G. Keogh

<abstract> This study aims to better understand the role of centralized and decentralized ledgers in the money supply process. The aim is to highlight the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats of these tools in the context of finance and banking. A thorough investigation of the prior literature was carried out using sources extracted from various academic databases. A SWOT analysis based on an integrative literature review methodology was conducted to synthesize various research contributions and analyze relevant information related to centralized and decentralized ledgers. The findings reveal that centralized ledgers are still critical in the record-keeping of financial transactions, despite the strengths and opportunities of decentralized ledgers outweighing those of centralized ledgers. This study helps to increase the understanding of financial and banking sector managers concerning the importance of decentralized ledgers in delivering more value to customers. </abstract>

Adwitiya Mukhopadhyay, R. Vinayaka

The demand for IoT systems in healthcare services is increasing widely and the data generated from these networks should be transferred and stored in a highly secure manner. Blockchain technology helps in maintaining the privacy and integrity of the electronic health records (EHR) data with the help of smart contracts that authenticate the users and maintain confidentiality in the network. Integrating blockchain into IoT systems improves the overall security of the network. In this paper, we propose an architecture based on Hyperledger Fabric which is a private blockchain platform that is used for storing the EHR data which are collected from various IoT sensors. The deployed smart-contract helps in performing some of the basic database functionalities onto the blockchain.

Juan Ignacio Ibañez, Chris N. Bayer, Paolo Tasca, Jiahua Xu

Triple-entry accounting (TEA) is one of the novelest notions in the blockchain world. However, the lack of a consistent and comprehensive set of categories to give account of it impedes a proper apprehension of the concept, leading to contradictions and to overlooking its specificity. In order to clearly delineate the confines of TEA, we create a typology to distinguish between essential elements such as accounting and bookkeeping, as well as between decentralized systems, distributed ledgers and distributed journals.

AKM Bahalul Haque, A.K.M. Najmul Islam, Sami Hyrynsalmi, Bilal Naqvi · 5 authors

Although blockchain-based digital services promise trust, accountability, and transparency, multiple paradoxes between blockchains and GDPR have been highlighted in the recent literature. Some of the recent literature also proposed possible solutions to these paradoxes. This article aims to conduct a systematic literature review on GDPR compliant blockchains and synthesize the findings. In particular, the goal was to identify 1) the GDPR articles that have been explored in prior literature; 2) the relevant research domains that have been explored, and 3) the research gaps. Our findings synthesized that the blockchains relevant GDPR articles can be categorized into six major groups, namely data deletion and modification (Article 16, 17, and 18), protection by design by default (Article 25), responsibilities of controllers and processors (Article 24, 26, and 28), consent management (Article 7), data processing principles and lawfulness (Article 5,6 and 12), and territorial scope (Article 3). We also found seven research domains where GDPR compliant blockchains have been discussed, which include IoT, financial data, healthcare, personal identity, online data, information governance, and smart city. From our analysis, we have identified a few key research gaps and present a future research direction.

Michael S. Barr, Adrienne Harris, Lev Menand, Karin Thrasher

No abstract is available for this record.

Hakimah Yaacob

Blockchain and Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) have changed the regulatory landscape globally. Regulators are working hard to create conducive environment for the deployment of DLT and the blockchain. However, robust growth of technology does not come with speedy regulatory changes. This includes reviewing and adapting regulatory requirements or procedures that may unintentionally inhibit innovation or render them non-viable due to lacuna in law. This article is an attempt to analyse the DLT and blockchain from legal perspectives in Brunei. The issues raised in the article warrant considerable merits of law makers’ attention. The article concludes with several suggestions and recommendations.The paper employs library research with main references to the policy papers, Act and legislations. Where necessary, the paper makes reference to other countries for comparative purposes. The paper includes several suggestions and recommendations for authority’s consideration. The findings suggest that despite of the existing enabling provisions in Brunei, there is a need to have acomprehensive regulations for blockchain and DLT due to excessive big data and other liabilities issues involves.

Yue Liu, Qinghua Lu, Liming Zhu, Hye-Young Paik · 5 authors

Blockchain has been increasingly used as a software component to enable decentralisation in software architecture for a variety of applications. Blockchain governance has received considerable attention to ensure the safe and appropriate use and evolution of blockchain, especially after the Ethereum DAO attack in 2016. However, there are no systematic efforts to analyse existing governance solutions. To understand the state-of-the-art of blockchain governance, we conducted a systematic literature review with 37 primary studies. The extracted data from primary studies are synthesised to answer identified research questions. The study results reveal several major findings: 1) governance can improve the adaptability and upgradability of blockchain, whilst the current studies neglect broader ethical responsibilities as the objectives of blockchain governance; 2) governance is along with the development process of a blockchain platform, while ecosystem-level governance process is missing, and; 3) the responsibilities and capabilities of blockchain stakeholders are briefly discussed, whilst the decision rights, accountability, and incentives of blockchain stakeholders are still under studied. We provide actionable guidelines for academia and practitioners to use throughout the lifecycle of blockchain, and identify future trends to support researchers in this area.

Yassine Ait Hsain, Naziha Laaz, Samir Mbarki

In the Blockchain context, Smart Contracts are computer programs that run on the Ethereum platform. Benefiting from the properties of Blockchain, SCs development represents a major challenge to developers, as the code is deployed to an immutable system, besides the Ethereum platform is still evolving. This paper highlights how we can exploit model-driven engineering for generating long terms and high productivity smart contracts. It reviews researches on Smart Contracts generation in the Ethereum blockchain from a model-driven perspective. Based on the studied approaches, we defined a comparative framework to outline the advantages and disadvantages of each approach. The result can be used as a basis of tool selection for specific development aspects of SCs.

Xinyu Huang, Weihao Han, David Newton, Emmanouil Platanakis · 6 authors

We examine the diversification benefits of cryptocurrency asset categories. To mitigate the effects of estimation risk, we employ the Bayes-Stein model with no short-selling and variance-based constraints. We estimate the inputs using lasso regression and elastic net regression, employing the shrunk Wishart stochastic volatility model and Gaussian random projection. We consider nine cryptocurrency asset categories, and find that all but two provide significant out-of-sample diversification benefits. The lower is investor risk aversion, the more beneficial are cryptocurrencies as portfolio diversifiers. During uncertain economic environments, such as the post-Covid-19 period, cryptocurrencies provide the same diversification benefits as in more stable environments. Our results are robust to different portfolio benchmarks, regression technique, transaction cost, portfolio constraints, higher moments and Black–Litterman models.

Eva Micheler

Abstract This chapter explores the English law as an example of a particular model for the analysis of intermediated securities. It analyzes the rights of investors through the lens of trust law rather than through bailment and highlights the advantages and disadvantages of the no-look-through model. It also reviews cases where individuals hold a relatively small number of securities through a financial service provider, including the Duomatic principle that gives license to the court to override the formal requirements for shareholder decisions contained in the Companies Act. The chapter demonstrates why the intermediated holding structure that has evolved across the world does not sit comfortably with English law. It cites the recent scoping study conducted by the UK Law Commission combined with the UK Government’s ambition to attract a global pool of investors, which suggests that the UK Government is motivated to address the problem with the English law.

Zhongmin Liu

Blockchain technology has the characteristics of decentralization and immutability. Since it appears, blockchain technology has received widespread attention and is considered to be the most revolutionary technology with the most promising development after cloud computing, Internet accelerated speed, and big data. Therefore, a wave of application of blockchain technology has set off around the world today. Supply chain finance is based on multi-party, relatively closed environment, and requires controllable and trusted data as supporting factors. Naturally, it has great potential room for combining with blockchain technology. The application of blockchain technology in the field of supply chain finance can provide new solutions to the problems in the development of supply chain finance. Therefore, the research on supply chain finance based on blockchain has become a new research hotspot. This article reviews the current literature on the application of blockchain to supply chain finance. Numerous studies have shown that the application of blockchain technology will open a new door for the development of supply chain finance and promote the vigorous and healthy development of supply chain finance.