Blockchain Papers

Ikhlaas Gurrib

No abstract is available for this record.

Rebecca Webster

Although more common internationally, some US companies are paying their employees in cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin either internally or using a third-party administrator such as Bitwage.Bitwage boasts two-

Sheila Ogochukwu Nnabuife, Yosra Jarrar

Given the economic hardship in Nigeria in the past few years, Nigerians resorted to finding alternative ways as a survival strategy. Bit-coin and a good number of other crypto currencies formed the long sought economic alternative to such extent that it is gradually getting public acceptance as a means of transaction. Subsequent upon the collapse of MMM, the Nigerian government dismissed the use of crypto as legal means of exchange in Nigeria. This brought about reaction from bit-coin participants, experts and government officials. This study therefore is an examination of online media coverage aimed at ascertaining the slant of coverage, the dominant media source and type and how detailed the reports issued in the media concerning Bit-coin are. The researcher used the qualitative and quantitative content analysis research method to examine the manifest contents of the selected online media while framing and social responsibility theory formed the benchmark for the study. The study spanned for three months covering December 2017 through February 2018. Findings revealed that Nigerian online media gave negative slant to their coverage of Bit-coin crypto currency. It was also found that while government source dominates news source, straight news reports dominated the types of media used in the coverage of Bit-coin crypto-currency. The researcher concluded that the media had played their social responsibility role to the public by providing detailed reports on bit-coin and recommended that the mainstream media should also join hands in delivering detailed messages on salient issues.

Aleksander Bjørnå Spade

This thesis analyzes whether inflation rates, government bonds and corruption levels have an impact on the difference between local prices of bitcoin and prices on the most liquid exchanges globally. Bitcoin may act as a preferred alternative to local currencies in countries with high levels of financial uncertainty, hence people who live in these countries might be willing to pay a premium to purchase bitcoin as they reduce the risk related to the future value of their own fiat currency. Daily average prices on bitcoin, in 15 different fiat currencies, are downloaded from LocalBitcoins and converted to USD at official exchange rates. The data covers the period of Jan.2015-Dec.2017. By calculating daily deviations from the BNC Liquid Index and aggregating to monthly observations, we consider three different panel data models: the static- and dynamic fixed effects and a within-between random effects model. The results suggest that countries with higher average inflation rates has a higher premium, while a within increase in monthly inflation has a negative impact. If the premium on 10Y government bonds increases, the premium increases significantly, but when comparing across countries, the average bond rate is not significant, but positive. A within increase in corruption levels has a positive impact on the premium, but surprisingly we get a negative relationship at country level. Countries with poor economic performance and high levels of uncertainty seems to be willing to pay a premium to acquire Bitcoins

Stefan Seebacher, Maria Maleshkova

The concept of blockchain technology has gained significant momentum in practice and research in the past few years, as it provides an effective way for addressing the issues of anonymity and traceability in distributed scenarios with multiple parties, which have to exchange information and want to securely collaborate with each other. However, up-to-date, the impact of the structure and setup of business networks on successfully applying blockchain technology, remains largely unexplored. We propose a model-driven approach, combining an ontology and a layer model, that is capable of capturing the properties of existing blockchain-driven business networks. The layers are used to facilitate the comprehensive description of such networks. We also introduce the Blockchain Business Network Ontology (BBO), formalizing the concepts and properties for describing the integral parts of a blockchain network. We show the practical applicability of our work by evaluating and applying it to an available blockchain use case.

Konstantin Koshechkin, G.S. Klimenko, Ilya Ryabkov, Pavel Kozhin

Blockchain as technology described to be used in closed systems to conduct registers of official data in public healthcare. Also this technology had found its use in different other ways, for example it is education of medical staff, control of the contracts for healthcare services. And the role of Blockchain in CALS / PLM-technologies suggested.

Imran Makhdoom, Mehran Abolhasan, Wei Ni

Copyright © 2018 by SCITEPRESS – Science and Technology Publications, Lda. All rights reserved Bitcoin has revolutionized the decentralized payment system by excluding the need for a trusted third party, reducing the transaction (TX) fee and time involved in TX confirmation as compared to a conventional banking system. The underlying technology of Bitcoin is Blockchain, which was initially designed for financial TXs only. However, due to its decentralized architecture, fault tolerance and cryptographic security benefits such as user anonymity, data integrity and authentication, researchers and security analysts around the world are focusing on the Blockchain to resolve security and privacy issues of IoT. But at the same time, default limitations of Blockchain, such as latency in transaction confirmation, scalability concerning Blockchain size and network expansion, lack of IoT-centric transaction validation rules, the absence of IoT-focused consensus protocols and insecure device integration are required to be addressed before it can be used securely and efficiently in an IoT environment. Therefore, in this paper we analyze some of the existing consensus protocols used in various Blockchain-based applications, with a focus on investigating significant limitations in TX (Transaction) validation and consensus mechanism that make them inappropriate to be implemented in Blockchain-based IoT systems. We also propose a way forward to address these issues.

Jonathan Chiu, Thorsten V. Koeppl

No abstract is available for this record.

Jan Hajný, Petr Dzurenda, Lukáš Malina

Card‐based physical access control systems are used by most people on a daily basis, for example, at work, in public transportation, or at hotels. Yet these systems have often very poor cryptographic protection. User identifiers and keys can be easily eavesdropped on and counterfeited. The privacy‐preserving features are almost missing in these systems. To improve this state, we propose a novel cryptographic scheme based on efficient zero‐knowledge proofs and Boneh‐Boyen signatures. The proposed scheme is provably secure and provides the full set of privacy‐enhancing features, that is, the anonymity, untraceability, and unlinkability of users. Furthermore, our scheme supports distributed multidevice authentication with multiple RFID (Radio‐Frequency IDentification) user devices. This feature is particularly important in applications for controlling access to dangerous sites where the presence of protective equipment is checked during each access control session. Besides the full cryptographic specification, we also show the results of our implementation on devices commonly used in access control applications, particularly the smart cards and embedded verification terminals. By avoiding costly operations on user devices, such as bilinear pairings, we were able to achieve times comparable to existing systems (around 500 ms), while providing significantly higher security, privacy protection, and features for RFID multidevice authentication.

A. V. Balega, S. Vyzhva, М. Kurylo

The national experience of institutional support for the study and use of subsoil are defined. The subjects of interaction in the sphere of geological mining use are defined, the mechanism of interaction is shown. The institutional provision of the study and use of subsoil is divided into three blocks of influence: institutions of general competence, inter-sectoral institutions of special competence and sectoral institutions of special competence. The role of the State Service of Geology and Mineral Resources of Ukraine in the system of institutional support of geological study and use of subsoil is determined. The structure of the State Service of Geology and Mineral Resources of Ukraine was systematized and the basic functions and directions of activity are defined. It is revealed that state financing of development of mineral base of Ukraine takes place through the system of enterprises and organizations belonging to the State Service of Geology and Mineral Resources of Ukraine. The structure and features of geological services in Germany, Poland and Australia were investigated. In the course of this analysis, a number of typical and a number of distinctive functions were identified for the geological services of the above mentioned countries. The State Service of Geology and Mineral Resources of Ukraine does not provide a number of key and progressive functions in the field of geological study and use of subsoil, such as: monitoring the state of the market of mineral resources, popularization of the mineral raw materials complex and enhancement of the investment attractiveness of the mineral base of Ukraine. It is concluded that for the introduction of foreign experience, changes should be made to the structure of the State Service of Geology and Mineral Resources of Ukraine. The study of the functional experience and the role of geological services in Australia and Germany testify to the effectiveness of regional geological services in the development of mineral base of these countries. Since the decentralization process in Ukraine has not been completed, experience in providing broad powers to local government bodies, a mineral base cannot be easy implemented.

António Brandão, Henrique São Mamede, Ramiro Gonçalves

No abstract is available for this record.

Mutugi Mutegi

No abstract is available for this record.

George Bouchagiar

Initial Coin Offering (ICO) has become global. Cryptocurrencies are offered to finance projects in the blockchain arena. This crypto-phenomenon challenges traditional capital raising and investment mechanisms and many strongly believe in its potential. This paper analyses some key characteristics of ICOs and investigates potential risks. It also examines the shift from traditional mechanisms to “cryptos” and studies several features of blockchains. An overview on trust is provided to detect some trust-enhancing and trust-diminishing aspects of technologies. Finally, cryptology is discussed to test cryptocurrencies’ potential as objects of trust.

Elena Rozhentsova

No abstract is available for this record.

Nataliya Krasnikova, Nataliia Stukalo, O. O. Balash

The article reveals a conceptual basis of the cryptocurrency functioning. The main types of cryptocurrencies are featured and analyzed as well as their general strengths and weaknesses. Based on the price dynamics correlation analysis of some cryptocurrency types, a general low level of dependence between digital assets is established. The main functions of the cryptocurrency are formulated in the form of transformed money functions. Also, additional functions of cryptocurrencies are defined on the basis of their innovative nature, as well as the role in the modern financial system and world economic relations.

Juan Emmanuel Delva Benavides, Alondra Guadalupe Mora Hernández

The inherent changes brought by the implementation of technology in everyday life have repercussions in all areas, one of them, to mention a few among the most significant, is in the financial market, which it is among the most regulated sectors by both national governments and international entities

Dan Freeman, Tim McWilliams, Sudip Bhattacharyya, Craig Hall · 5 authors

Trust is paramount for the effective operation of any monetary system. While the distributed architecture of blockchain technology on which cryptocurrencies operate has many benefits, the anonymity of users on the blockchain has provided criminal users an opportunity to hide both their identities and illicit activities. In this paper, we present a scoring mechanism for cryptocurrency users where the scores represent users’ trustworthiness as safe or risky transactors in the cryptocurrency community. In order to distinguish law-abiding users from potential threats in the Bitcoin marketplace, we analyze historical thefts to profile transactions, classify them into risky and non-risky categories using several machine learning techniques, and finally calculate a reputation score for every unique user based on their past association with any unlawful Bitcoin incident. The Support Vector Machine model based on two key attributes produces an accuracy of 86% and is considered the most applicable for our dataset. Our reputation score ranges from 0 to the total number of transactions by a given user where a higher score indicates greater trustworthiness in making Bitcoin transactions. This score helps to identify reputable users and, therefore, acts as a guideline for safe Bitcoin transactions. In the cryptocurrency marketplace, our self-attestation metric in the form of a reputation score offers a foundation for enhancing trust between transacting parties.

Mark Fenwick, Wulf A. Kaal, Erik P. M. Vermeulen

No abstract is available for this record.

Robert Anascavage, Nathan Davis

No abstract is available for this record.

Emanuele Borgonovo, Alessandra Cillo, Stefano Caselli, Donato Masciandaro

No abstract is available for this record.

Wawrzyniec Michalczyk

Streszczenie: Artyku powicony jest tematyce bitcoina, prekursora wrd kryptowalut i wci najwaniejszej z nich. Na drodze do coraz szerszego wykorzystania go jako nowej formy pienidza midzynarodowego stoi wiele barier. Celem opracowania jest identyfikacja i charakterystyka najistotniejszych z nich: stabilizacji kursu, odpowiedniego zakresu i jakoci regulacji na poziomie pastwowym i midzynarodowym, zwikszenia stopnia bezpieczestwa systemu oraz koniecznoci upowszechnienia si bitcoina

Christian Fries, Peter Kohl-Landgraf

No abstract is available for this record.

Pelin Angın, Melih Burak Mert, Okan Mete, Azer Ramazanli · 6 authors

No abstract is available for this record.

Damian Gruber, Wenting Li, Ghassan Karame

Lightweight clients are gaining increasing adoption in existing blockchain deployments, owing to their reduced resource consumption. There are currently a number of libraries that implement lightweight clients (e.g., BIP37, Electrum, LES, filter commitments). Notice that these libraries are intrinsically different and require significant effort to be integrated across blockchain platforms. Additionally, lightweight clients require the cooperation of full nodes, which are expected to invest in their computational (to run filters) and bandwidth resources in order to serve lightweight clients. Existing blockchains however offer no rewards for full nodes in exchange-which offers little incentives for full nodes to correctly serve lightweight clients.