George Alexandris, Vassilis Katos, Sofia Alexaki, George Hatzivasilis
Implementing a circular economy business model which is profitable for businesses operating physical assets, while at the same time does not conflict with strategic goals of environmental policies can be a complex and risky undertaking for a single entity, especially if the asset operator is a small-to-medium enterprise (SMEs). To mitigate this, a collaborative circular economy business model is proposed, where the circular economy cycle is materialized by assets transitioning between asset operators on a demanddriven approach. Demand itself is partially based on the asset's state, which is described by its circular properties (location, condition, availability). The asset state and its transition between operators can be monitored by auditors and governmental regulators to ensure asset integrity and compliance with environmental targets. This common view of asset state between all parties can be enabled by blockchains and smart contracts, which can provide the underlying technology to share data with integrity, while simultaneously offering more efficient interoperability between participants. To demonstrate how this could be achieved, a conceptual asset record access and sharing mechanism is presented which is suitable for regulated environmental jurisdictions.
This project was focused on designing a tool for optimizing complex transactions in a traditional bank accounts, Bitcoin wallet accounts and Bitcoin exchanges. The challenges include transference fees eroding the amounts transferred, Bitcoin volatility and arbitrage. The tool should support hundreds of accounts with each account identifi ed by a bank or exchange, and a currency. The basic user-case, we call it Debit Scenario, appears when an account consumes it capital and has very little funding (sink or demand account), then the user set a minimum funding for the account, and we need to balance all the accounts of the network, using many currency circulations though many paths to satisfy the specifi ed funding limits. Another user case, we called it Custodian Scenario, is when certain accounts (i.e. supply or non-custodians) has upper limit on the amount of capital so we need to distribute the excess value in other accounts (i.e. demand or custodians) of the network. The problem was modelled as a multi-commodity min-cost max- flow problem with specifi c constraints including arbitrage information, and solved with linear programming. Simple and complex numerical scenarios are presented too.
Bitcoin is part of a wider range of opportunities to creating cryptocurrencies based on blockchains. Research has shown that the existing cryptocurrencies are very volatile and often illiquid. A cryptocurrency endorsed by a Central Bank, as the starter of a private blockchain, will most likely show more stability. It may even take the form of legal tender. However, since almost all countries have their own currency already, the governments will not feel the need for an additional currency. One exception is Palestine. It enjoyed the privilege of having its own currency in the past. The purpose of this research is the evaluation of the feasibility of a cryptocurrency as legal tender. The authors recommend a new Palestinian Pound built on a private blockchain using Hyperledger. In practice it would not differ from any other fiat (legal) currency. The current weakness of not having its own currency could be turned into a strength by becoming the most advanced economy where transactions are transparent and efficient. This paper fills a research gap by analyzing the opportunities of a cryptocurrency that is actual legal tender and endorsed by a monetary authority.
Nota: Currently, the implementation of smart contracts is growing at impressive speeds, the \nnew blockchain technology and the proven accuracy of the data it offers means that more and \nmore private and public institutions adhere to this type of technology with the aim of take \nadvantage of all the benefits they offer. \nA specific problem that we face at the moment is the price variation in terms of the value of the \ncryptocurrencies used in the Smart Contracts, the so-called volatility, which directly affects the \nrate of adoption of the user who is accustomed to agree a value and receive the same agreed \nvalue, when cryptocurrencies are used to deploy intelligent contracts, the resulting values to \ncomply with them, is usually a different value from the agreed one. \nTo solve this problem, we propose the creation of a Token fixed to the anchored value of a \nstable currency, such as Dollar USD, Euro EUR, GBP Pound Sterling, etc., in this work a token \nwill be created with parity 1: 1 With the value of the dollar and how the network used for \ndevelopment is Ethereum, it has been named Ethereum-USA, USA, because it is the place \nwhere the American Dollar was originally used, and its symbol will be "E-USA”. \nThe Tokens have been created through intelligent contracts through Solidity and the TestNet \nRopsten test network has been used. \nThe present work presents a particular and novel tonic that justifies its creation, using the \nvarious cryptographic techniques that maintain the security of the network, the intelligent \ncontract that creates and uses the Tokens valued at $ 1 usd for the payment of services and \nsuppliers for the value of salaries quoted in Ecuador on the date of implementation. The same \nthat will be paid each end of the month. And for security and veracity, its support in the \nblockchain.
Micael Ferreira, Sven Rodrigues, Catarina I. Reis, Marisa Maximiano
Bitcoin continues to get more and more attention from the media, mainly because of the volatility of its value and insignificantly associated with the technological innovation. This cryptocurrency is supported by an immutable database and is distributed throughout a network of thousands of nodes, known as Blockchain. One way to ensure that all the concepts behind the Blockchain technology and infrastructure are seized is to conduct the development of one of the most popular context applications for it: a wallet for well-known cryptocurrencies. Yet Another Bitcoin Wallet (YABW) is a hybrid application available for both Android and iOS, which was developed with the Ionic and Angular frameworks. This application communicates with Bitcoin Blockchain to send, receive and store bitcoins; provides a set of features focused on security and user experience, and is available on the Play Store and Apple Store. A rather relevant issue that is becoming a major subject of current research is the application of the Blockchain infrastructure to other contexts that are neither directly connected to cryptocurrencies, nor are finance related. The implementation of a proof-of-concept application proposes the use of a blockchain for a specific case study: the exchange of meal vouchers of an institution amongst students. This is achieved using the decentralized platform Ethereum, which allows us to create a Smart Contract using the Solidity programming language to create a token that follows the Ethereum Request for Comment (ERC), the ERC-20 standard and represents the meal vouchers. This second application uses the architecture defined for YABW, reusing major components and custom developing specific modules to enhance the required features. There is still a lot of research to be done on the non-financial applicability of the Blockchain infrastructure and technology, but for the moment, we have left further evidence that it is possible and is a relative straight-forward process to accomplish from the technological perspective.
The aim of the article is to study the current state of financial provision of the social sphere of the Black Sea region and to develop practical recommendations for its optimization in conditions of decentralization processes. Methodology. We have made a generalization of the theoretical provisions of the financial mechanism of the social sphere of the region. We propose to investigate the financial mechanism of the social sphere of the Black Sea region by means of analysis of indicators of income and expenditure parts of the budget of regions of the Black Sea region. At the present stage of the gradual transformation of the socio-economic development of the regions and in the context of the implementation of the budget decentralization reform, a number of acute problems from the financial support of social development, the guarantee of social standards for the population, and the improvement of the quality of social services arose. The solution of these problems needs a substantial research in the direction of developing the best models for financing social development of the regions, which will promote the achievement of decent social standards and stimulate economic growth. The financial mechanism for providing social development of the Black Sea region is analysed, the current state of the regional budget in terms and trends in financing social expenditures of the region is identified. It is determined that despite the increase in tax revenues, local authorities still do not have sufficient financial resources to perform their functions and tasks. It adversely affects the development of social infrastructure, provision of social services, and does not contribute to the effective human development, which serves not only as the main goal but also as a key determinant of the economic development of the region. It is substantiated that in order to improve the situation in the social sphere of the region, it is necessary to improve the financial mechanism of social security. On the basis of the investigated scientific approaches, the concept of “mechanism of the financial provision of socially-oriented regional development” is clarified, directions of budget and extrabudgetary financing of social expenditures are substantiated, and proposals on the improvement of financial management of social sphere in the conditions of decentralization are developed. Results. To improve the system of financial provision of social development of the region, it was proposed to establish clear and transparent financial relations in the areas of income generation and distribution of regional budget expenditures at all levels, to create conditions for additional attraction of financial resources from extrabudgetary sources aimed at the implementation of regional social programs, and to form an effective system control over the functioning of the financial mechanism, primarily on the part of the territorial communities. Value/originality. The concept of the mechanism of the financial provision of socially-oriented regional development is generalized. An estimation of the social sphere of the Black Sea region is carried out on the basis of the analysis of indicators of income and expenditure parts of budgets of regions of the Black Sea region, the use of which allows determining the perspective directions of the social sphere of the Black Sea region.
The rise of popular cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum has increased the popularity of blockchain technology, the framework these cryptocurrencies are built upon. The security and access control that blockchain technology has provided for cryptocurrencies has peaked the curiosity of other industries, realizing its potential value and future outlook. In this paper, we analyze two types of blockchains, permission-ed and permission-less, and introduce a two-tier blockchain concept utilizing both types for secure data sharing. We provide background on the consensus algorithms used for each blockchain type, Proof-of-Work and Proof-of-Authority. Testing on both Mac OS and Ubuntu Linux-based system environments, preliminary results show that by increasing the number of miners in a Proof-of-Work consensus, there is a correlating increase in the total block count in a permission-less blockchain, where the rate of increase is dependent on the system environment. In the Proof-of-Authority permission-ed blockchain, the block count observed little to no change across both environments.
Uang elektronik menjadi pilihan yang mulai ramai digunakan oleh banyak orang, terutama para pengusaha, pebisnis dan investor, karena menganggap bahwa uang elektronik akan menggantikan uang fisik dimasa depan. Cryptocurrency muncul sebagai jawaban atas kendala uang eletronik yang sangat bergantung kepada pihak ketiga. Salah satu jenis Cryptocurrency yaitu Bitcoin. Analogi keuangan Bitcoin sama dengan analogi pasar saham, yakni fluktuasi harga tidak tentu setiap detik. Tujuan dari penelitian yang dilakukan yaitu melakukan prediksi harga Cryptocurrency dengan menggunakan metode KNN (K-Nearest Neighbours). Hasil dari penelitian ini diketahui bahwa model KNN yang paling baik dalam memprediksi harga Cryptocurrency adalah KNN dengan parameter nilai K=3 dan Nearest Neighbour Search Algorithm : Linear NN Search. Dengan nilai Mean Absolute Error (MAE) sebesar 0.0018 dan Root Mean Squared Error (RMSE) sebesar 0.0089.
In this paper we use the blockchain technology to develop a peer to peer energy trade platform without a trusted third party. Our main contribution is a novel distributed double auction mechanism which allows any peer to act as an auctioneer and the blockchain mechanism ensures that a peer behaves lawfully while acting as an auctioneer. Using experimental evaluation we show that (1) the distributed auction converges quickly, (2) it minimizes energy loss due to long transmission, (3) computational overhead due to employing a blockchain is negligible, (4) it is efficient and (5) it can implement trade restrictions imposed by the energy distribution network.
Using a variety of solar power plants is one of the solutions governments use to respond to energy and sustainable development needs. While Iran has a strong potential for using solar energy, the application of solar energy, especially through PV technology, has been limited due to the country’s richness of fossil fuels and their low prices. Therefore, it is important to adopt effective strategies and policies to promote the development and application of this technology. The purpose of this study is to identify factors affecting the use of photovoltaic technology in Iran. To this end, 142 factors were first identified through a comprehensive review of the literature. Then, all of these factors were prioritized and categorized by “semi-structured interview” with 15 energy policy experts. The “content analysis” of the experts’ opinions showed that only 59 of these factors were considered important at the sectorial level for Iran. Based on the same content analysis, a conceptual framework for the application of decentralized photovoltaic power plants in Iran was developed. The framework shows that 10 generic categories of factors should be considered by policy-makers at the solar energy sector to promote PV technology application in Iran. They include policy factors, institutional factors, finance and budgeting factors, system economy factors, macroeconomic factors, socio-cultural factors, human resource factors, factors influencing capabilities of industries, technological and related infrastructural factors, geographical, climatic and environmental factors, and foreign political factors. It is also emphasized that all these categories should be considered at three levels: industry (electricity industry) level, national level, and international level. Thus, renewable energy policy-makers in Iran should take into account all means that influence these factors in order to improve the conditions for decentralized photovoltaic technology application.
Smart contracts play an advent role in automated business participation by rendering collaboration processes more time-efficient, cost-effective and establishing more transparency. Smart contracts facilitate trust-less systems, without the need for intervention from third-party intermediaries. Existing smart-contract languages mainly focus on technical utility and do not take into consideration social and legally relevant issues, e.g., lack of semantics, ontological completeness, and so on. In this research, we address the gap by developing with rigorous means a smart contract's language that aims to be legally relevant, and that comprises socio-technical utility for cross-organizational business collaboration. The proposed language seeks to retain the strengths of the already existing languages of different generations while eluding their limitations. We aim to identify and implement abstract grammar patterns for a smart-contract language that has the expected application utility and verifiability. We evaluate the developed language based on automating industry-collaboration cases with our novel smart-contract language to test the suitability, utility, and expressiveness.
A blockchain framework is presented for addressing the privacy and security challenges associated with the Big Data in smart mobility. It is composed of individuals, companies, government and universities where all the participants collect, own, and control their data. Each participant shares their encrypted data to the blockchain network and can make information transactions with other participants as long as both party agrees to the transaction rules (smart contract) issued by the owner of the data. Data ownership, transparency, auditability and access control are the core principles of the proposed blockchain for smart mobility Big Data.
In the Bitcoin blockchain, rewarding methods for remunerating miners participating in a pool have to meet certain requirements in order to guarantee the proper functioning of the cryptocurrency ecosystem. In particular, these allocation rules reward pool participants in proportion to their contribution in the transaction validation process. Deployed rewarding methods met fairness concerns at the expense of vulnerability to miners exploiting pools' attractiveness for deciding when to mine for a pool and when to `hop' to another one resulting more attractive: a phenomenon called pool-hopping. The most used score-based methods are designed to prevent this practice, but are not completely hopping proof. In this work, we propose a methodology to analyze the pool-hopping phenomenon, focusing on the detection of pool-hoppers. Analyzing those Bitcoin transactions that pools create for rewarding its participants, it is possible to determine time epochs where miners worked. Thus, we analyze those miners that have worked intermittently for pools adopting a rewarding system which pays out for each validated block. This evaluation leads us qualifying the miners that have hopped along with their hopping behavior and financial performance.
Health-related data analysis plays an important role in self-knowledge, disease prevention, diagnosis, and quality of life assessment. With the advent of data-driven solutions, a myriad of apps and Internet of Things (IoT) devices (wearables, home-medical sensors, etc) facilitates data collection and provide cloud storage with a central administration. More recently, blockchain and other distributed ledgers became available as alternative storage options based on decentralised organisation systems. We bring attention to the human data bleeding problem and argue that neither centralised nor decentralised system organisations are a magic bullet for data-driven innovation if individual, community and societal values are ignored. The motivation for this position paper is to elaborate on strategies to protect privacy as well as to encourage data sharing and support open data without requiring a complex access protocol for researchers. Our main contribution is to outline the design of a self-regulated Open Health Archive (OHA) system with focus on quality of life (QoL) data.
Pilar Grau Carles, Diego Jaureguizar Arellano, Carlos Jaureguizar Francés
In this paper we examine the characteristics of the daily price series of 16 different cryptocurrencies between July 2017 and February 2018. The methodologies used for the analysis are the so-called Minimum Spanning Tree (MST) and hierarchical analysis by dendrogram, both obtained Pearson correlations between daily returns. This methodology visualizes the market relationships between the assets analyzed, identifying a high correlation between price movements for all the currencies. In addition, it has been possible to identify Ethereum’s position as a benchmark currency in the cryptocurrency market, rather than Bitcoin, as one might expect, due to its popularity and trading volume.
Machine Learning is part of Artificial Intelligence that has the ability to make future forecastings based on the previous experience. Methods has been proposed to construct models including machine learning algorithms such as Neural Networks (NN), Support Vector Machines (SVM) and Deep Learning. This paper presents a comparative performance of Machine Learning algorithms for cryptocurrency forecasting. Specifically, this paper concentrates on forecasting of time series data. SVM has several advantages over the other models in forecasting, and previous research revealed that SVM provides a result that is almost or close to actual result yet also improve the accuracy of the result itself. However, recent research has showed that due to small range of samples and data manipulation by inadequate evidence and professional analyzers, overall status and accuracy rate of the forecasting needs to be improved in further studies. Thus, advanced research on the accuracy rate of the forecasted price has to be done.
Xiaochen Zheng, Raghava Rao Mukkamala, Ravi Vatrapu, Joaqun Ordieres-Mere
With the advent of rapid development of wearable technology and mobile computing, huge amount of personal health-related data is being generated and accumulated on continuous basis at every moment. These personal datasets contain valuable information and they belong to and asset of the individual users, hence should be owned and controlled by themselves. Currently most of such datasets are stored and controlled by different service providers and this centralised data storage brings challenges of data security and hinders the data sharing. These personal health data are valuable resources for healthcare research and commercial projects. In this research work, we propose a conceptual design for sharing personal continuous-dynamic health data using blockchain technology supplemented by cloud storage to share the health-related information in a secure and transparent manner. Besides, we also introduce a data quality inspection module based on machine learning techniques to have control over data quality. The primary goal of the proposed system is to enable users to own, control and share their personal health data securely, in a General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) compliant way to get benefit from their personal datasets. It also provides an efficient way for researchers and commercial data consumers to collect high quality personal health data for research and commercial purposes.
S. P. Novikov, Олег Казаков, Н. А. Кулагина, Natalya Y. Azarenko
The blockchain typically described as a decentralized system in which transactional or ancient statistics are recorded, stored, and maintained throughout a peer-to-peer community of personal computers referred to as nodes. Counterfeit drugs are one consequence of such limitations within existing supply chains, which not only has serious adverse impact on human health but also causes severe economic loss to the healthcare industry. Blockchain technology has gained tremendous attention, with an escalating hobby in a plethora of several applications like safe and relaxed healthcare records management. Similarly, blockchain is reforming the traditional healthcare practices to an extra reliable means, in phrases of powerful progno- sis and treatment through safe and cosy facts sharing using SHA Hash Generation Algorithm. Within the future, blockchain will be an era that can probably assist in personalized, authentic, and at ease healthcare by means of merging the entire actual-time scientific information of a patient’s fitness and offering it in an up to date cosy healthcare setup. In this paper, we evaluation each the present and modern day trends inside the subject of healthcare with the aid of imposing blockchain as a model. We also talk the packages of blockchain, at the side of the demanding situations confronted and destiny views. The proposed system executed blockchain implementation in distributed computing surroundings and it gives the automated restoration of invalid chain by using Consensus and Mining Algorithm. In this system, we present a Custom blockchain- based approach leveraging smart contracts and decentralized off-chain storage for efficient product traceability in the healthcare supply chain. The smart contract guarantees data provenance, eliminates the need for intermediaries and provides a secure, immutable history of transactions to all stakeholders. We present the system architecture and detailed algorithms that govern the working principles of our proposed solution. We perform testing and validation, and present cost and security analysis of the system to evaluate its effectiveness to enhance trace- ability within pharmaceutical supply chains. Keywords— Blockchain Technology, Decentralization / Decentralized System, Distributed Com- puting, Peer-to- Peer Network, Healthcare, Supply chains, etc.
Cryptocurrencies are often thought to operate out of the reach of national regulation, but in fact their valuations, transaction volumes and user bases react substantially to news about regulatory actions. The impact depends on the specific regulatory category to which the news relates: events related to general bans on cryptocurrencies or to their treatment under securities law have the greatest adverse effect, followed by news on combating money laundering and the financing of terrorism, and on restricting the interoperability of cryptocurrencies with regulated markets. News pointing to the establishment of specific legal frameworks tailored to cryptocurrencies and initial coin offerings coincides with strong market gains. These results suggest that cryptocurrency markets rely on regulated financial institutions to operate and that these markets are segmented across jurisdictions, bringing cryptocurrencies within reach of national regulation.
Libing Fang, Elie Bouri, Rangan Gupta, David Roubaud
We assess whether the long-run volatilities of Bitcoin, global equities, commodities, and bonds are affected by global economic policy uncertainty. Empirical results provide evidence supporting that, except for the case of bonds. We further examine whether the correlation between Bitcoin and global equities, commodities, and bonds are affected by global economic policy uncertainty and the results reveal that global economic policy uncertainty has a negative significant impact on the Bitcoin-bonds correlation, and a positive impact on both Bitcoin-equities and Bitcoin-commodities correlations, suggesting a possibility for Bitcoin to act as a hedge under specific economic uncertainty conditions. Interestingly, the hedging effectiveness of Bitcoin for both global equities and global bonds enhances slightly after considering the level of global economic policy uncertainty. Implications for investors and policy-makers are discussed.
Benjamin D. Trump, Marie‐Valentine Florin, H. Scott Matthews, Douglas Sicker · 5 authors
Blockchain and distributed ledger technologies (DLTs) have the capacity to improve how many companies and organizations conduct transactions or store information securely, among many other potential benefits. However, their development and implementation does not occur in a contextual vacuum and instead must adapt to the needs and requirements of their given user. As such, we argue that the governance of DLT and blockchain must be applied against two core questions: who should have access to information within a given DLT/blockchain, and should management of that system be open or restricted/permissioned? While the technology is still emerging, its application to and success within various organizations will be largely dependent upon these key governance concerns.
Bitcoin, merkezi otoriteye ihtiyaç duymayan, dağıtık ve dijital bir para birimi olarak, son yıllarda finans dünyasındaki popüler konuların başında gelmektedir. İlk dönemde Bitcoin’in finansal özelliklerine duyulan ilgi, zaman içerisinde Bitcoin’e hayat veren blok zinciri teknolojisine doğru kaymaya başlamıştır. Hemen her gün yeni bir uygulama alanını duymaya başladığımız blok zinciri teknolojisi alanındaki akademik araştırmalar sınırlı sayıdadır. Ülkemizde de gerek uygulama gerekse akademik anlamda yeterli sayıda çalışma olmadığını söyleyebiliriz. Bu inceleme, blok zinciri teknolojisini sistematik olarak gözden geçirerek, kullanım alanlarını, açık noktalarını ve gelecek beklentilerini tartışmaktadır.
The common signs of development and its financing of cryptocurrency, artificial intelligence and basic income were determined. The main tendencies and problems of the development of cryptocurrency and artificial intelligence from their appearance to the present time were considered. The combination of cryptocurrency, artificial intelligence and basic income in a unified system of innovative tools for the creation of a new global financial and technological system was substantiated. These three technologies have the features of combining into one innovative system of interaction at different levels from hardware and software to the level of ultimate practical implementation and application in the future. The perception and consideration of these technologies as a single system makes it possible to significantly simplify the approach to their study, design and implementation.