Blockchain Papers

A. Mutiso, Brian Maguru

economics research paper,research journal,paper publish,Economy journal,management ,finance , business,management journal,business journal, finance journal,business and management research journal human resources management

Karsten Schulz, Oskar Josef Gstrein, Andrej Zwitter

Societies at large still grapple to categorize digital space as a phenomenon. At the same time, scientists and developers are searching for innovative methods to better understand how the fundamental shifts caused by digital change will affect the future of humanity over the coming decades. Interdisciplinary governance research at the intersection of technological and environmental foresight is urgently needed to minimize the risks of technological change and explore how digitalization may support, hinder or re-shape sustainability transformations. In this article, we focus on the case of ‘blockchain’ or distributed-ledger technology (DLT) to investigate how recent digital technologies may support the implementation of sustainable development initiatives. Our investigation is centered on areas of public administration and governance which will most likely see an adoption of DLT over the next two decades, such as digital identity, social service provision, and innovative climate finance. To allow for a meaningful comparison of various use cases, we propose four guiding questions that can help researchers, decision-makers and practitioners to determine whether DLT might be an appropriate choice for the sustainability-related task at hand. Moreover, we illustrate how the initial design and subsequent implementation of DLTs may support more centralized or networked modes of governance.

Andrea Christie

This paper presents a literature review on the role of the distributed ledger technology in promoting stakeholder trust for charitable organisations. The purpose of this review is to capture existing knowledge on the relationship between the following key variables: charity, trust and accountability, and distributed ledger technology – with emphasis on blockchain technology as a primary example of this technology. After shortlisting the discovered literature pool to 35 papers, the following three themes were identified. The first theme presents the various definitions of key concepts in crypto-philanthropy literature. The second theme captures existing views on why stakeholder trust is declining in charitable conduct. These views include: (1) organisational boundary shifts; (2) monitory complexity; and, (3) poor regulatory design. The third and final theme presents a hypothesis on how the distributed ledger technology can promote trust for charities. The technology is hypothesised to promote trust by drawing on the following three elements: (1) decentralisation; (2) provenance; and, (3) rule-enforcement. A number of shortcomings are then highlighted in the literature pool. The first shortcoming pertains to the inconsistent treatment of key concepts in crypto-philanthropy studies. The second shortcoming pertains to the lack of discussion on whether the distributed ledger technology may potentially decrease stakeholder trust if implemented irresponsibly by charities. In conclusion, a series of future research pathways are provided. These recommendations include: (1) clarifying key concepts; (2) suggesting “crypto-philanthropy” as a formal disciplinary title; (3) highlighting under-researched areas; and, (4) recommending strategies for building a new crypto-philanthropic theory. From an academic perspective, the findings contribute to literature by bridging the gap between crypto-economic, institutional governance and nonprofit accountability theories. The findings may also guide charity managers, regulators and policy-makers in understanding the capacities of the distributed ledger technology in legitimising charitable conduct.

Omar Ali, Mustafa Ally, Clutterbuck, Yogesh K. Dwivedi

The modern trends of digitalization have completely transformed and reshaped business practices, whole businesses, and even a number of industries. Blockchain technology is believed to be the latest advancement in industries such as the financial sector, where trust is of prime significance. Blockchain technology is a decentralized and coded security system which provides the capability for new digital services and platforms to be created through this emerging technology. This research presents a systematic review of scholarly articles on blockchain technology in the financial sector. We commenced by considering 227 articles and subsequently filtered this list down to 87 articles. From this, we present a classification framework that has three dimensions: blockchain-enabled financial benefits, challenges, and functionality. This research identifies implications for future research and practice within the blockchain paradigm.

Dwi Hidayatul Firdaus

INDONESIA: Artikel ini membahas tipologi dan karakteristik smart contract dengan peraturan perundang-undangan tentang kontrak, peraturan tentang ITE (informasi dan transaksi elektronik) di Indonesia, undang-undang tentang perlindungan konsumen dan unsure perjanjian syariah dalam bingkai maqosid syariah. Tidak seperti kontrak normal, yang dirancang oleh pengacara, ditandatangani oleh pihak yang ikut serta, dan ditegakkan oleh hukum, Smart Contract menetapkan hubungan dengan kode kriptografi.Untuk menemukan jawaban atas problematika tersebut, tipe penelitian yang digunakan dalam penelitian ini adalah normatif dengan pendekataan statute approach (undang-undang) dan konseptual perjanjian syariah. Adapun hasil dari penelitian ini adalah Smart Contract merupakan kontrak sah dan dapat diaplikasikan dengan berpedoman pada regulasi mengenahi kontrak, khususnya kontrak elektronik dengan mengedepankan asas kebebasan berkontrak, itikad baik, saling ridlo dan kemaslahatan. ENGLISH: This article discusses characteristics of the smart contract with theclaws and regulations concerning contracts, information and electronic transactions in Indonesia, consumer protection and elements of sharia agreements in the sharia maqosid frame. Unlike normal contracts, designed by lawyers, signed by participating parties, and enforced by law, Smart Contract establishes a relationship with cryptographic codes. To find answers to these problems, researchers used a type of normative research with a legislative approach and a conceptual approach to sharia agreements. The result of this research is that Smart Contract is a legal contract and can be applied by referring to regulations concerning the contract, especially the electronic contract by prioritizing the principles of freedom of contract, good faith, mutual respect and benefit.

Daniel Liebau, Thomas Lambert, Peter Roosenboom

The years 2017 and 2018 saw an influx of ventures raising substantial amounts of money through initial coin offerings (ICOs). The Ethereum blockchain greatly facilitated the spectacular surge of ICOs, even though utility tokens and cryptocurrencies are not primarily meant for raising external capital for start-up firms. Now that the ICO market bubble ebbed away security token offerings (STOs) have emerged, allowing investment in regulated securities recorded on a blockchain. Blockchain Capital paved the way with its crowd sale of equity tokens on a blockchain in April 2017. In August 2018, tZERO successfully completed the largest STO thus far, raising USD 134 million. More recently, in April 2019, Societe Generale SFH issued and settled covered bonds worth over USD 100 million as a security token. While the literature has succeeded in providing many insights about the gains and losses in both ICO and cryptocurrency markets, much less is known about this nascent STO market.

Olakunle Alao, Paul Cuffe

Sub-Saharan Africa requires affordable, reliable, and sustainable electricity to boost its economic, social, and human development. The main challenge posed to the region's electricity sector is the large investment gap needed to finance new power projects. The employment of new and innovative financing options is required to bridge this investment gap. Independent power projects have become one of the fastest-growing sources of new finance in the region. However, their development is constrained by the limited availability of debt finance for project implementation. The limited capital and bureaucratic burden of traditional financial institutions coupled with the high risks in the region ensures that the debt finance required by independent power projects is raised only after an arduous voyage and at high interest rates. We address these challenges by proposing a novel decentralized finance instrument, a blockchain special purpose vehicle that streamlines the processes in the financial layer of a traditional special purpose vehicle -- finance mobilization, revenue collection, and revenue disbursal. Specifically, the proposed decentralized finance instrument facilitates the mobilization of finance for the special purpose vehicle from a location-independent crowd, revenue collection from the electricity offtaker in a risk-mitigated manner, and disbursal of eventual project revenues to investors.

Kayode S. Adewole, Neetesh Saxena, Saumya Bhadauria

Owing to the distinctive properties of the blockchain, which is the decentralized and distributed ledger that is used to record transactions done, cryptocurrencies are being used as an online payment source in transactions. The cryptocurrencies, attributable to their notable characteristics, such as decentralized consensus, anonymity, distributed and shared ledger, immutability, and autonomy, are best managed with the blockchain. However, similar to other payment sources, the blockchain and cryptocurrencies are also prone to security attacks. The blockchain technology itself faces abuses, such as links to child abuse content, money laundering, tax evasion, financing illegal activities such as sex and drugs, and terrorism. In this chapter, the practical reach of cryptocurrencies to people and their use as an investment option are studied by getting responses from people through a questionnaire. To understand the real-time security threats that people have of cryptocurrencies and the prospects of cryptocurrency as a potential investment, a questionnaire on cryptocurrencies and its applications, potential risks seen by people, and its likelihood as an investment option is administered to a sample of 100 educated professionals. Analysis of responses shows that people are skeptical to adopt cryptocurrencies as an online payment medium owing to the security risks posed by it. The major security issues reported with cryptocurrencies are attacks on cryptocurrency wallet, time jacking, 51% attack, double spending, selfish mining, and fork issues. These issues are addressed by applying appropriate resolution techniques. Lack of common international governance and regulation has been found to be the primary cause of abuses of blockchain technology. This mandates that the world community come together and lay regulations and policies for preventing abuses on blockchain technology.

Longbing Cao, Qiang Yang, Philip S. Yu

Financial technology (FinTech) has been playing an increasingly critical role in driving modern economies, society, technology, and many other areas. Smart FinTech is the new-generation FinTech, largely inspired and empowered by data science and new-generation AI and (DSAI) techniques. Smart FinTech synthesizes broad DSAI and transforms finance and economies to drive intelligent, automated, whole-of-business and personalized economic and financial businesses, services and systems. The research on data science and AI in FinTech involves many latest progress made in smart FinTech for BankingTech, TradeTech, LendTech, InsurTech, WealthTech, PayTech, RiskTech, cryptocurrencies, and blockchain, and the DSAI techniques including complex system methods, quantitative methods, intelligent interactions, recognition and responses, data analytics, deep learning, federated learning, privacy-preserving processing, augmentation, optimization, and system intelligence enhancement. Here, we present a highly dense research overview of smart financial businesses and their challenges, the smart FinTech ecosystem, the DSAI techniques to enable smart FinTech, and some research directions of smart FinTech futures to the DSAI communities.

P. Dekker, Vasilios Andrikopoulos

The following topics are dealt with: cryptocurrencies; cryptography; distributed databases; data privacy; financial data processing; Internet; contracts; meta data; peer-to-peer computing; cryptographic protocols.

Ashutosh Ashish Khanolkar, Ashish Rajendra Gokhale, Amrish Sanjay Tembe, Vinayak Ashok Bharadi

The proposed system is a decentralized authentic platform that aims to leverage blockchain along with other technologies to design a trusted framework which would enable charity donations to be as accountable, trustworthy and transparent. The paper explores the potential for deploying blockchain within existing organizations to support smooth conduction of charity funds from the donor to the actual needy person using a stable Ethereum based Blockchain oriented platform. In this fast developing world of modernization, some people are becoming too competitive to earn money while others have no clue about getting even a penny. But at the same time, there exist people who wish to contribute to the society out of altruism. There exist many online donation platforms in the world and yet issues concerning extra fees, accountability and processing delay still exist as well as these existing centralized systems for charities are so corrupt that people lose belief in these trustless systems and hence the charities become futile. This paper explores how the blockchain can be leveraged in the philanthropic sector, through charitable donation services via a web- based donor platform.

Jonas Groß, Manuel Klein, Philipp Sandner

Zusammenfassung Zahlreiche Zentralbanken planen innerhalb der nächsten Jahre, eigene digitale Zentralbankwährungen einzuführen. Die Blockchain-Technologie kann dafür die technologische Basis darstellen. Zentralbanken experimentieren mit dieser Technologie, um Währungen perspektivisch auf Blockchain-Basis abzubilden. Mögliche Vorteile einer digitalen Zentralbankwährung wären eine höhere finanzielle Stabilität, eine höhere Sicherheit und Effizienz im Zahlungsverkehr und ein höherer Automatisierungsgrad von Geschäftsprozessen. Risiken beständen darin, dass es nach einer Einführung zu einem digitalen Bank Run kommen könnte, dass Banken immens an Bedeutung verlieren könnten und letztlich die Datenschutzproblematik geklärt werden muss.

Tsung-Ting Kuo, Xiaoqian Jiang, Haixu Tang, Xiaofeng Wang · 12 authors

Author(s): Kuo, Tsung-Ting; Jiang, Xiaoqian; Tang, Haixu; Wang, XiaoFeng; Bath, Tyler; Bu, Diyue; Wang, Lei; Harmanci, Arif; Zhang, Shaojie; Zhi, Degui; Sofia, Heidi J; Ohno-Machado, Lucila

Michael Sober

In den letzten Jahren sind das Internet of Things (IoT) und Blockchain-Technologien immer beliebter geworden. Blockchain-Technologien bieten die Möglichkeit, Transaktionen in einem Logbuch zu speichern, in welchem Daten nur angehängt werden können und das nur schwer manipuliert werden kann. Dieses Logbuch wird von einem Peer-to-Peer-Netzwerk verwaltet. Blockchains der zweiten Generation bieten darüber hinaus die Ausführung von Smart Contracts an. Hierbei handelt es sich um Codeteile, die in der Blockchain gespeichert und von jedem Teilnehmer des Netzwerks ausgeführt werden können. Das IoT wird durch miteinander verbundene Objekte gebildet, wobei ein Objekt jedes Rechengerät sein kann, welches eindeutig adressierbar ist und über standardisierte Protokolle kommunizieren kann. Das IoT wächst stetig, ebenso wie die Menge an Daten,die über das Netzwerk generiert und ausgetauscht werden. Da die Anzahl der vom IoT generierten Daten weiter zunimmt, gestaltet sich das Auffinden von Datenquellen ohne Datenmarktplatz als sehr schwierig. Zu diesem Zweck bieten Datenmarktplätze eine Plattform auf der verschiedene Parteien ihre Daten anbieten können. Die Kombination von Blockchain-Technologien mit dem IoT bietet vielversprechende Anwendungsfälle, einschließlich dezentraler Datenmarktplätze. Die Forschung hat bereits verschiedene Konzepte und Lösungen im Zusammenhang mit Datenhandel und Datenmarktplätzen hervorgebracht, das heißt sowohl traditionelle Ansätze als auch Ansätze, die bereits Blockchain-Technologien verwenden. Viele dieser Arbeiten decken jedoch nicht alle wesentlichen Funktionen von Datenmarktplätzen ab. Im Rahmen dieser Arbeit entwerfen und implementieren wir ein Framework für einen dezentralen IoT-Datenmarktplatz. Das Design des Frameworks basiert auf einer Drei-Schichten-Architektur, bei der Smart Contracts verwendet werden, um verschiedene Funktionen zu implementieren und die Regeln des Datenmarktplatzes durchzusetzen. Zu diesem Zweck wurden unter anderem mehrere Smart Contract-Plattformen miteinander verglichen, um festzustellen, welche Unterschiede bestehen und welche für diese Anwendung am besten geeignet ist. Darüber hinaus enthält das Framework grafische Benutzeroberflächen, einen Proxy, der es Anbietern und Verbrauchern ermöglicht, IoT-Geräte zu integrieren und einen Broker, der den Datenhandelsprozess erleichtert und ressourcenintensive Aufgaben übernimmt. Abschließend evaluieren wir die Kosten, die durch die Verwendung von Smart Contracts entstehen und diskutieren Probleme, die während der Implementierung aufgetreten sind.

Irina Bogdana Pugna, Adriana Duţescu

Abstract Blockchain remains still an experimental technology, with current applications addressing only some elements of small-scale projects. Once the technology matures however, it has the potential to transform industries and even the economy, as it begins to integrate complementary technologies such as AI and IoT. It has the potential to bring fundamental changes to financial accounting and auditing, and even to entire financial markets. This paper explores the potential for blockchain applications in accounting, identifying major benefits and shortcomings, and analysing opportunities and possible threats. We investigate mainly the organizational challenges raised by an accounting blockchain systems and its potential to enhance the accounting activity. We discuss blockchain’s potentially disruptive effect on the accounting profession, and conversely, the potential role of this professions in further developing blockchain technology.

Andrei-Dragoş Popescu

Blockchain Technology can enhance the basic services that are essential in traditional finance and it has the potential to become the foundation for decentralized business models, empowering entrepreneurs and innovators with all the right tools. By means of a trustless and distributed infrastructure, blockchain technology is optimizing transactional costs and allows the rise of decentralized, innovative, interoperable, borderless and transparent applications which facilitate open access and encourage permissionless innovations. DeFi stands for "Decentralized Finance" and refers to the ecosystem comprised of financial applications that are being developed on top of blockchain and distributed ledger systems. The Decentralized Finance (DeFi) or Open Finance movement takes that promise a step further. Imagine a global, open alternative to every financial service you use today - savings, loans, trading, insurance and many others - accessible to anyone in the world only by means of a smartphone and internet connection.

Yuan Zhuang, Zhenguang Liu, Peng Qian, Qi Liu · 6 authors

The security problems of smart contracts have drawn extensive attention due to the enormous financial losses caused by vulnerabilities. Existing methods on smart contract vulnerability detection heavily rely on fixed expert rules, leading to low detection accuracy. In this paper, we explore using graph neural networks (GNNs) for smart contract vulnerability detection. Particularly, we construct a contract graph to represent both syntactic and semantic structures of a smart contract function. To highlight the major nodes, we design an elimination phase to normalize the graph. Then, we propose a degree-free graph convolutional neural network (DR-GCN) and a novel temporal message propagation network (TMP) to learn from the normalized graphs for vulnerability detection. Extensive experiments show that our proposed approach significantly outperforms state-of-the-art methods in detecting three different types of vulnerabilities.

Zeeshan Rais Khattak, Muhammad Anas Rizwan

In an Islamic framework, the scholars need to verify all aspects of the emerging phenomenon known as cryptocurrency. It works as an agent for the prevailing forms of currencies and substitutes the need to carry it everywhere in its physical form which may become a security threat. The theologians have always disapproved what seem to them innovative, alien and working as an agent of change. However, whatever may be their stance about previous innovations, the society had to act otherwise due to the compelling needs that had to be fulfilled. The difference of opinion between the Muslim Scholars about the cryptocurrency has once again divided the Ummah about its acceptance, substituting other forms of currency like fiat currency, plastic currency etc. No doubt these forms of currency have heavily damaged the financial markets due to their speculative nature. It seems that Muslim Ummah is again standing on the cross roads where it is unable to decide its fate. This article presents the basic concept of cryptocurrency & virtual money, its pros & cons, its status regarding Pakistani & Islamic Perspective. At the end, various conclusions and suggestions have been drawn.

Mario Pečarić, Ivan Peronja, Mislav Mostarac

The aim of this paper is to find alternative method of executing reimbursement loan, as a form of documentary loan, that is, to investigate new digital technology methods (fintech) to improve the efficiency of the international exchange. Reimbursement loans are often used to credit the trade of overseas goods. The reason of such case is that the shipment of goods by the maritime transport requires a significant amount of time and those trades are often associated with high financial amounts. Since international trade (exchange) is a kind of a generator of society’s progress, it is necessary to explore the possibilities for making international payment cheaper, more efficient and more secure. In this case, we based our research on the implementation of modern technologies, more precisely “blockchain”/DLT (Distributed Ledger Technology) and “smart contracts”. The new reimbursement loan model presented in the paper is based on the aforementioned technologies. It could potentially change not only the documentary lending techniques, but also, eventually, overall financial paradigm. The effectiveness of the application of modern technologies is proven comparing the results of the so called conventional and unconventional reimbursement credit model on a real case involving two companies in Indonesia and Singapore. The paper also tackles on the further implementation of “smart contract” technology and “blockchain”/DLT, thus considering the potential impact of these technologies on overseas trade, credit markets and financial institutions. Finally, the paper argues on the limitations in implementing this new technique (e.g. legal, political and technical challenges).

Joshua Ellul, Jonathan Galea, Max Ganado, Stephen McCarthy · 5 authors

Abstract Blockchain, Smart Contracts and other forms of Distributed Ledger Technology provide means to ensure that processes are verifiable, transparent, and tamper-proof. Yet the very same enabling features that bring decentralisation also pose challenges to providing protection for the various users and stakeholders. Most jurisdictions which have implemented regulatory frameworks in this area have focused on regulating the financial aspects of cryptocurrency-based operations. However, they have not addressed technology assurance requirements. In this paper we present a world-first technology regulatory framework.

Mattis Jacobs

Abstract The role that trust plays in blockchain-based systems is understood and portrayed in various manners. The blockchain technology is said to enable and establish trust as well as to redirect it, to substitute for it, and to make it obsolete. Furthermore, there is disagreement on whom or what users have to trust when using the blockchain technology: (only) code, math, algorithms, and machines, or still (also) human actors. This paper hypothesizes that the divergences of the depictions largely rest on implicitly adhering to different accounts of trust. Thus, the goal of this paper is to outline how the current lack of a shared understanding of the term “trust” leads to diverging interpretations of the blockchain technology’s core features. Furthermore, it shows how this lack of common understanding obstructs scholars from referring to one another meaningfully in the discourse on blockchain technology. To do so, this paper outlines the most prominent depictions of the setup of relevant trust relationships within blockchain-based systems and traces their roots to different underlying assumptions on the nature of trust.

Jun‐Ho Huh, Seong-Kyu Kim

Blockchain and artificial intelligence are the most important keywords in the Fourth Industrial Revolution. This study sought to apply these core technologies to future validated algorithms that make real estate transactions secure to come up with an encryption algorithm. In addition, the real estate transaction is being paid a large fee by the middlemen, the real estate agent. Furthermore and recently, P2P (peer-to-peer) real estate exchange is used a lot. However, these P2P real estate exchanges also have problems that have not been identified by each other between landlords and tenants. In particular, a research model was established to compare and verify the PBFT (practical Byzantine fault tolerance) algorithm of Hyperledger through the blockchain agreement process. Subsequently, a process for verifying the real estate contract was established. Through VM (virtual machine) research methodology for the verification of blockchain real estate contracts, ElGamal communication was provided to prove quantum cryptography. We also automated lightweight encryption test verification tools and blockchain smart contract VM (virtual machine) models using artificial intelligence. Verification was performed through a reservation server and a monitoring server using a test verification tool for network-based lightweight security IoT (Internet of things) GW (gateway). It presents important ECP (elastic curve program) and elastic curve Qu-Vanstone (ECQV) models among the main functions of the blockchain smart contract, and it is equipped with quantum-based encryption algorithm. In addition, the necessary UML (unified modeling language) source code and performance data were calculated according to the actual experimental environment, and the average value for blockchain for administrative or government authorized assets—4000 TPS (transaction per second) were tested. In the future, we want to use this technology for real estate transactions.

Refito Ilham

Voting has become one of the methods used by humans to determine decisions. Voting is also often used in determining something that are very important, such as determining people's representative council. In addition, the current voting is still using the Conventional system that uses paper in balloting, and vote counting. This can cause human error. The technology that is increasingly developing in the current era of globalization is e-voting. From this research, an e-vote system will be developed that applies the concept of the block chain node with smart contract. Smart contracts generate unique code for each new election. So that manipulation of election results will not be possible because each voter has only one account and one address block chain. From the results of the test the author can conclude that the smart contract block chain can be used to prove the results of a safe choice and create e-voting that is honest.

Aditya Putri Pertiwi

Digital streaming also experiencing rapid expansion, the digital streaming application enables us to access and download videos using the existing electronic platform. All this time, services require the content provider to register the copyright to the marketplace or third party. With the existence of blockchain technology makes it possible for the customer to control their data, the available blockchain technology is Smart Contract. Smart Contracts enables instant payment without delay, without obstacles, and without a third party (mediator) which are performed in a decentralized network. Based on the reasons above, this paper will be focusing on a discussion about the smart contract blockchain on digital video streaming application by creating design a streaming video platform with a decentralized peer-to-peer concept.