Blockchain Papers

João Vinícius Hunoff Marchett, Mônica Pasolini, Mateus Müller Franco

No abstract is available for this record.

Md. Al-Amin, Khondoker Shahrina, Rubyet Hossain, Debashish Sarker · 5 authors

Blockchain has become a great trend and very popular in the present era. There are two types of Blockchain technology, centralized and decentralized. In this research, the main concern is about the decentralized payment gateway, which is a trustworthy architecture and does not depend on third parties. For recording the transaction, decentralized payment systems use distributed ledger. Previously, Bitcoin and Ethereum payment systems were used to verify the consistency of the ledger of blockchain and also the transaction data along with the sender-receiver address and transaction value, but as all the payment system is public, so the transaction mode is also public. However, here the main concern is privacy and security. Because anyone can easily access the network, the attacker can also attack the network and the identity and transaction records and the address of the user identity, which is a privacy challenge. This research incorporates the Hyperledger Fabric, which is private, to overcome this challenge. Moreover, no one can access it from outside of the network. The transaction cost is low and the timing is fast during transactions. Considering the above scenario, this research proposes a decentralized payment system architecture using Hyperledger Fabric.

Magomed Abrekov, Andrey Vlasov

The purpose of this work is to study the investment capital markets by analysing the IPO and ICO procedures, identifying the main trends, leading sectors and comparing their volumes. The methodological basis was a retrospective analysis of the development of various forms of investment attraction (IPO and ICO). The main research methods were deduction, induction, synthesis and logical analysis. This article examined the main trends taking place in the IPO and ICO markets; key types of used blockchain platforms were identified; the leading countries and sectors in terms of the amount of funds raised are presented. The ICO market showed high growth rates in 2013–2018, but did not reach volumes comparable to the IPO market. Most of the projects that used the ICO (digital token issuance) procedures chose the Ethereum blockchain system as a platform, implemented projects in the fintech and IT industries, infrastructure development and decentralized applications (DApps). The leading states, residents, which have carried out the largest number of ICO procedures, are the USA, Singapore, United Kingdom and Hong Kong. In the IPO market, the largest volume of funds was attracted by projects from such sectors as finance, consumer services, oil and gas, industry and healthcare. The US remains the main platform chosen by companies for IPOs. The US is followed by the UK, China and Hong Kong

Elvira Albert, Pablo Gordillo, Alejandro Hernández-Cerezo, Albert Rubio

Abstract Superoptimization is a compilation technique that searches for the optimal sequence of instructions semantically equivalent to a given (loop-free) initial sequence. With the advent of SMT solvers, it has been successfully applied to LLVM code (to reduce the number of instructions) and to Ethereum EVM bytecode (to reduce its gas consumption). Both applications, when proven practical, have left out memory operations and thus missed important optimization opportunities. A main challenge to superoptimization today is handling memory operations while remaining scalable. We present $$\textsf {GASOL}^{v2}$$ <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"> <mml:msup> <mml:mi>GASOL</mml:mi> <mml:mrow> <mml:mi>v</mml:mi> <mml:mn>2</mml:mn> </mml:mrow> </mml:msup> </mml:math> , a gas and bytes-size superoptimization tool for Ethereum smart contracts, that leverages a previous Max-SMT approach for only stack optimization to optimize also wrt. memory and storage. $$\textsf {GASOL}^{v2}$$ <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"> <mml:msup> <mml:mi>GASOL</mml:mi> <mml:mrow> <mml:mi>v</mml:mi> <mml:mn>2</mml:mn> </mml:mrow> </mml:msup> </mml:math> can be used to optimize the size in bytes, aligned with the optimization criterion used by the Solidity compiler , and it can also be used to optimize gas consumption. Our experiments on 12,378 blocks from 30 randomly selected real contracts achieve gains of 16.42% in gas wrt. the previous version of the optimizer without memory handling, and gains of 3.28% in bytes-size over code already optimized by .

Sandra Kumi, Richard K. Lomotey, Ralph Deters

Data management is the collection, processing, storing, and sharing of data. In today's dispensation, data sharing and collaborative data processing is a necessity for multi-partner organizations as it can lead to the discovery of new insight. Shared data is generally for the purpose of marketing, advertising, and other institutional decision-making reasons. A challenge however is that the collected data (mostly about individuals known as data subjects or producers) is disseminated among organizations without meaningful consent from the data subjects. Hence, data subjects are not aware of what is happening to their data regarding use and misuse. Furthermore, data subjects can hardly determine which third-party institutions have access to their data. In this paper, we opined that data should be managed in a manner that can persuade the trust of data subjects. To achieve this, data subjects should have the rights to be informed about details of their data. Thus, this paper proposes a cloud-based data management and sharing platform to enable data subjects to control who can access their data and consent to its collection and usage based on smart contracts. The proposed system leverages blockchain to enforce accountability, provenance, and auditability of all events. We implemented a dynamic consent management prototype on top of Ethereum blockchain to demonstrate the feasibility of the proposed work.

Sabri Hisham, Mokhairi Makhtar, Azwa Abdul Aziz

Blockchain is one of the most anticipated technology revolutions, with immense promise in various applications. It is a distributed and encrypted database that can address a range of challenges connected to online security and trust. While many people identify Blockchain with cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, it has a wide range of applications in supply chain management, health, Internet of Things (IoT), education, identity theft prevention, logistics, and the execution of digital smart contracts. Although Blockchain Technology (BT) has numerous advantages for Decentralized Applications (DApps), it is nevertheless vulnerable to abuse, smart contract failures, security, theft, trespassing, and other concerns. As a result, using Machine Learning (ML) models to detect anomalies is an excellent way to detect and safeguard blockchain networks from criminal activity. Adapting ensemble learning methods in ML to create better prediction outcomes is a viable approach for anomaly identification. Ensemble learning, as the name implies, refers to creating a stronger and more accurate classification by combining the prediction results of numerous weak models. As a result, an in-depth evaluation of ensemble learning methodologies for anomaly detection in the blockchain network ecosystem is applied in this paper. It comprises numerous ensemble methods (e.g., averaging, voting, stacking, boosting, bagging). The review collects data from three established databases, which are Scopus, Web of Science (WoS), and Google Scholar. Specific keywords are employed, such as Blockchain, Ethereum, Bitcoin, Anomaly Detection, and Ensemble Learning, employing advanced searching algorithms. The results of the search found 60 primary articles from 2017 to 2022 (30 from Scopus, 20 from the WoS, and 10 from Google Scholar). Based on these findings, we decided to divide our debate into three primary themes: (1) the fundamentals of Blockchain Technology (BT), (2) the overview of ensemble learning, and (3) the integration and analysis of ensemble learning in blockchain networks for anomaly detection. In terms of awareness and knowledge, the results are also discussed in terms of what they mean and where future research should go.

Robel Tsegu

Bitcoin passed the test. Ethereum passed the test. Now, it is XRP’s turn. At the time of this writing, the SEC has the opportunity, through common law, to determine how to regulate the unregulated cryptocurrency world. This is a unique moment because guidance on SEC violations is usually promulgated through statutes, no-action letters, and quotes from SEC Commissioners, rather than common law. Therefore, the decision in SEC v. Ripple will pivot the direction on how cryptocurrencies and digital assets forever be used. Will this pivot be a “hard” or “soft” fork in how we use cryptocurrencies? This Case Note argues that XRP is not a security (investment contract) under the Howey test. The test consists of three elements (1) an investment of money (2) in a common enterprise and (3) with the expectation of profits derived from efforts of others. XRP does not satisfy all three factors. Although seemingly controversial, this Case Note explains why XRP is not an investment contract but, rather, a universal currency, allowing users to change payments instantly and cheaply into their local currency. It concludes by discussing an alternative classification for XRP created by the SEC.

Barbara Guidi

No abstract is available for this record.

Vatsal Patel, Sutharshan Rajasegarar, Lei Pan, Jiajun Liu · 5 authors

No abstract is available for this record.

Eduardo Lopes

Cryptocurrency has become a popular asset in global financial markets, meaning that not only individual investors but also asset management companies around the world are considering this new investment class. The main contribution of this research is to address an intra-day forecasting problem with hourly granularity by comparing deep network architectures, including ones with and attention mechanisms for the Ethereum intrinsic cryptocurrency (ETH). The results showed that the TCN outperformed other architectures considered for a short-term forecast period in terms of processing time and it is amongst the most accurate models using an ARIMA model as a baseline.

Engin Zeydan, Jorge Baranda, Josep Mangues‐Bafalluy

Existing network service provisioning and lifecycle management (LCM) workflows rely on heterogeneous devices from multiple vendors and collaboration between multiple network actors, which can lead to numerous trust management and interoperability issues. Blockchain networks (BCNs) are a revolutionary way to establish trust in untrusted environments. In this complex environment, BCNs can help ensure transparency and security for network service LCM. However, BCNs are also vulnerable to quantum attacks. Advances in quantum computing will challenge the security of existing blockchain technology based on Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) technologies. In this paper, we explore how network services can be managed in a multiple administrative scenario. Our approach uses BCNs to track the operational steps of network service instantiation metrics while benefiting from the security features of post-quantum cryptography (PQC). Together with the use of N-th degree Truncated polynomial Ring Units (NTRU) as an example of a PQC algorithm that relies on the parallelization power of the Toom-Cook computation method with different security levels, we have shown that Quorum can provide a lower average time-to-write value compared to other BCNs considered (Ethereum and Hyperledger). At the end of the paper, we discuss the evaluation results and future directions regarding the coexistence of PQC algorithms and BCNs for network service orchestration and service federation between multiple administrative domains.

Kahlid S. Alqarni, Faris A. Almalki, Ben Othman Soufiene, Obaid Ali · 5 authors

Agriculture is confronted with several significant difficulties, such as rising air temperatures and population growth, causing the implementation of smart farming operations as an optimum solution. This research aims to contribute to the growing knowledge of the potential role of blockchain technology in promoting the concept of smart farming by enhancing the efficiency of farming operations by boosting agricultural production, lowering environmental impact, and automating the work of farmers. It proposes a secure blockchain‐based framework to establish trust among smart farming users. The framework utilizes asymmetric key exchange mechanism using an ECC authentication algorithm and SHA‐256 hash function cryptography to secure communication between sensors and drones in the farm field. The SHA‐256 hashing function ensures data integrity as attempts to tamper with data result in a different hash value, breaking the chain of blocks. To demonstrate the feasibility of the proposed framework, a proof‐of‐concept implementation was developed on the Ethereum blockchain, in which smart contracts were used to model the framework operations. The proof of concept’s performance was examined using Hyperledger Caliper for latency, throughput, and transaction success rate. The findings clearly indicate that blockchain technology can provide an efficient and scalable mechanism to advance smart farming and address some of the barriers that inhibit smart farming, particularly regarding to data integrity and availability.

Pradnya Patil, M. Sangeetha

Know Your Customer (KYC) process plays a vital role for all banks in authenticating the identity of their customers. KYC verification is crucial to prevent banks from being used by illegal elements for money laundering activities such as drug trafficking, terrorism and other crimes. Manual KYC process in mainstream at present is less secure, time consuming and outdated. Since Blockchain offers features like decentralization, immutability and security, these limitations can be eliminated by using Blockchain based KYC verification. In this paper, we have proposed decentralized KYC verification process using Ethereum Blockchain platform. It would allow all the banks in the Blockchain network to verify and vote for legitimacy of the data provided by the customer. Depending on number of votes KYC status of customer gets stored on the Blockchain. Major enhancement in our proposed method is, banks can also vote for other banks if any bank is tampering with the KYC data and it will get removed from the network based on this voting. In this way, Blockchain can be used to improve the efficiency of KYC process with its distinctive features.

Hemanth Kumar N P, S Prabhudeva

In recent years, cloud-based medical record sharing has greatly improved the process of researching the disease and patient diagnosis. However, since cloud systems are centralized, there is serious concern about data security and privacy. Blockchain technology is viewed as a promising method of dealing with privacy issues and data security because of its exclusive features of distributed ledgers, secrecy, verifiability, and enhanced security. The literature review has shown significant works on integrating blockchain technology with cloud system for managing and sharing healthcare data. It has been analyzed that previous works are primarily dependent on the centralized data storage approach, which raises privacy concerns. The previous works also do not emphasize handling big medical data and lack the reliability of the end-to-end security features system. This paper has presented an authorization framework for ensuring data security and privacy preservation using blockchain technology with IPFS as decentralized file storage and sharing system. The proposed study devises a proof of replication algorithm using smart contracts to provide a better access control mechanism. The implementation of the proposed framework is based on the symmetric encryption and Ethereum blockchain platform. The study outcome illustrates the efficiency and availability of the proposed scheme compared to the typical cloud-based blockchain method.

Sara Ait Bennacer, Abdessadek Aaroud, Khadija Sabiri, Mohamed Rguibi · 5 authors

In the context of COVID-19 pandemic, the Moroccan Interior and Health Ministries have proposed to use the health pass with a QR code to identify vaccinated people. Additionally, the government suggested a mobile application to control the health passport authenticity. However, the key problem is the possibility of anyone scanning the QR code and figuring out citizens' private information, causing severe issues about individual privacy. In this work, the main contribution is integrating a private Blockchain-based digital health passport to ensure high protection of sensitive information, security and privacy among all the actors (Government, Ministry of Interior, Ministry of Health, verifiers) that comply with the CNDP (National Commission for the Control of Personal Data Protection) and the Moroccan Law 09-08. In our proposed architectural framework solution, we identify two types of actors: authorized and unauthorized, to limit and control access to the citizens' personal information. Besides, to preserve individuals' privacy, we adopt on-chain and off-chain storage (Interplanetary File Systems IPFS). In our case, smart contracts improve security and privacy in the health passport verification process. Our system implementation describes the proposed solution to grant individual privacy. To verify and validate our approach, we used Remix-IDE and Ethereum Blockchain to build smart contracts.

Vivien Czeczeli, Martin Vilonya

As the cryptocurrency market dynamically evolves, important financial and economic issues arise. The main focus of the present research is on the price of cryptocurrencies. Following the exploration of the literature base, special emphasis was put on the comparison between the crypto market and markets for different asset classes (gold, stocks, foreign currency) and on the identification of connection points. Next, the article focuses on the period after 2020, and applies the event study methodology in order to establish, how the two cryptocurrencies with the highest market capitalization (Bitcoin and Ethereum) reacted to selected events. These events mainly encompassed hacker attacks aimed at the systems that form the basis of the operation of cryptocurrencies, and also certain steps regarding their regulation and application. Overall, it was established that hacker attacks did not have a significant effect on the exchange rates of the two examined cryptocurrencies. Effects of regulatory action on prices are mixed, however even significant effects can be regarded as short-lived.

Forbes Kaseke

The emergency of cryptocurrency has caused a shift in the financial markets. Although it was created as a currency for exchange, cryptocurrency has been shown to be an asset, with investors seeking to profit from it rather than using it as a medium of exchange. Despite being a financial asset, cryptocurrency has distinct, stylised facts like any other asset. Studying these stylised facts allows the creation of better-suited models to assist investors in making better data-driven decisions. The data used in this thesis was of three leading cryptocurrencies: Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Dogecoin and the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE) data as a guide for comparison. The sample period was from 18 September 2017 to 27 May 2021. The goal was to research the stylised facts of cryptocurrencies and then create models that capture these stylised facts. The study developed risk-quantifying models for cryptocurrencies. The main findings were that cryptocurrency exhibits stylised facts that are well-known in financial data. However, the magnitude and frequency of these stylised facts tend to differ. For example, cryptocurrency is more volatile than stock returns. The volatility also tends to be more persistent than in stocks. The study also finds that cryptocurrency has a reverse leverage effect as opposed to the normal one, where past negative returns increase volatility more than past positive returns. The study also developed a hybrid GARCH model using the extreme value theorem for quantifying cryptocurrency risk. The results showed that the GJR-GARCH with GDP innovations could be used as an alternative model to calculate the VaR. The volatile nature of cryptocurrency was also compared with that of the JSE while accounting for structural breaks and while not accounting for them. The results showed that the cryptocurrencies’ volatility patterns are similar but differ from those of the JSE. The cryptocurrency was also found to be an inefficient market. This finding means that some investors can take advantage of this inefficiency. The study also revealed that structural breaks affect volatility persistence. However, this persistence measure differs depending on the model used. Markov switching GARCH models were used to strengthen the structural break findings. The results showed that two-regime models outperform single-regime models. The VAR and DCC-GARCH models were also used to test the spillovers amongst the assets used. The results showed short-run spillovers from Bitcoin to Ethereum and long-run spillovers based on the DCC-GARCH. Lastly, factors affecting cryptocurrency adoption were discussed. The main reasons affecting mass adoption are the complexity that comes with the use of cryptocurrency and its high volatility. This study was critical as it gives investors an understanding of the nature and behaviour of cryptocurrency so that they know when and how to invest. It also helps policymakers and financial institutions decide how to treat or use cryptocurrency within the economy.

Tom Barbereau, Reilly Smethurst, Orestis Papageorgiou, Johannes Sedlmeir · 5 authors

No abstract is available for this record.

Muhammad Shoaib Farooq, Zareen Kalim, Junaid Nasir Qureshi, Saim Rasheed · 5 authors

Distributed Agile Software Development (DASD) is the most important approach for the modern software industry that allows geographically independent software development. In the past, different tools and frameworks were proposed to solve communication and collaboration issues in DASD but they lacked transparency, trust, traceability, and security. These shortcomings resulted in project failure or overdue, customer dissatisfaction, project deal cancellations, and payment clashes between the customers and development teams. This paper addresses and overcomes the major issues of transparency, trust, security, traceability, coordination, and communication in DASD by embedding blockchain technology. We have proposed a novel blockchain-based framework named as AgilePlus which executes the smart contracts on a private ethereum blockchain for acceptance testing, secure payment, verification of developer’s payment requirements, and automatic payment distribution into the digital wallets of development teams. The execution of these smart contracts automatically assign penalties to the customers for late or non-payments and also to the developers for overdue tasks. Moreover, we have also solved the blockchain’s scalability challenge in AgilePlus by utilizing Interplanetary File System (IPFS) as off-chain storage. Lastly, experimental results prove that the proposed framework enhances transparency, communication, coordination, traceability, security and solves trust issues of both customers and developers in DASD.

Mohamed Abdel Kader Mohamed Elgendy, Mohamed Aborizka, Ali Allam

A blockchain is a data structure that is implemented as a distrusted database or digital ledger. The transactions are saved to a block of transactions that is attached in turn to the blockchain after the verification process, in which each block in the chain contains a hash signature of the previous block in addition to the hash signature of the block itself. The blocks on the blockchain are chained as an immutable list using the proof-of-work procedure, where there is no way to alter or delete an attached block due to the strict security policy used for structuring the chain of blocks. Each node holds a copy of the blockchain in which the miners take the responsibility of verifying and attaching blocks to the blockchain. The Ethereum blockchain introduced the smart contract which holds logic to be processed once the contract is established. These smart contracts are developed via the Solidity programming language. This proposed paper exploits the Ethereum blockchain along with smart contracts as the base technology for implementing the proposed blockchain-based model. The paper aims to develop a multilayered blockchain-based model, in which the blockchain model is set up on a private blockchain Ethereum network where the nodes share the electronic medical records (EMR) among the P2P (peer-to-peer) network that will be used to secure the IoT medical transactions. Solidity smart contract, introduced by Ethereum, is deployed to handle the EMR “open-query-transfer” operations on the private network, whereas the miners are responsible to validate the transactions. Finally, the research conducts a performance analysis of the Ethereum network using the Ethereum Caliper, considering several performance factors, which are: Maximum Latency, Minimum Latency, Average Latency, and Throughput.

Wahome E. Wangui, Thomas Ogoro Ombati, Robert Oboko

In the last decade, research and development around distributed ledger technology (DLT) has grown exponentially. The financial services industry has been revolutionized by the explosion of cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum. Researchers have taken the principles used in these cryptocurrencies and are using them to develop other DLTs in various fields. This study explores how blockchain can be used to provide traceability, visibility, and transparency in the Kenyan informal distributed manufacturing industry. SOKO, an aggregator of artisans spread all over Nairobi, was the case study used. Purposive and convenience-based were the sampling methods used. 48 SOKO supply chain employees and active artisans were the sample population. Interviews and observations were data collection methods used. Content analysis, a qualitative data analysis method, was used to capture emerging and predetermined themes. Google sheets and Dovetail were the tools used for this study. This paper finds that the use of the immutability and proof of origin features of blockchain greatly enhances traceability within a supply chain. It is imperative that the granular information collected should be intuitive and accessible to all parties to enhance visibility. Amplified traceability and visibility greatly improved transparency and accountability within the SOKO ecosystem. A pivotal recommendation for future research is the usage of unit-based tagging technologies e.g. barcodes, QR codes, or RFID. The combined use of such technologies and blockchain would achieve the highest level of traceability, especially when working with diverse producers who produce similar products.

Muhammad Imran, Bin Yao, Waqas Ali, Adnan Akhunzada · 7 authors

Blockchain technology in recent years has become potentially pervasive in the cryptocurrency market, thus providing tamper-proof security to decentralized transaction management systems. Structurally, the design foundation is an ideal advancement of the distributed ledger technology that maintains a set of global states across nodes. As technology expands with a higher trend towards mobile computing, the development of new applications demands understanding the current progression, especially concerning performance, data management, and storage prospects. Here, we report the principle design structure of the blockchain technology combined with the state of the arts, thus characterizing their original topological contexts. We depart from the fundamental concepts of the technology and analyze performance of the Ethereum blockchain on two devices having different computing power. Our presentation is tailored to provide a systematic review of the technology, thus facilitating their possible adoption into the new application domains like the Internet of Things (IoT). Further, we developed Debug-Bench, the first VSCode (Visual Studio Code) extension that enables benchmarking and profiling of the blockchain applications. Finally, we demonstrate several critical challenges concerning the design space of the current blockchain platforms for their implementation over resource-constrained devices.

Anas Elmelki, Najeh Chaâbane, Riadh Benammar

The increasing interest in digital currencies, their exceptional price rise, and the continuous discussions about their benefits raise the question: to what extent can it be an alternative to the traditional currencies in the future? It has become a prominent topic of discussion among several investments and market stakeholders seeking to enhance the growth of their wealth. This paper aims to bring answers to the nature of relationships between four major cryptocurrencies (Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin, and Ripple), and the stock market return (S&P500). This study applies the wavelet method to daily data from 1 June 2017 to 15 November 2021, in COVID-19 sanitary crisis time. According to the results, this study shows a positive co-movement in the medium and long run between the four studied cryptocurrencies and S&P500 during different periods, especially in times of uncertainty. These findings have practical implications as they can be used strategically to make optimal investment decisions and build portfolio diversification strategies with the conventional financial market asset.

Nicole Horta, Rui Dias, Catarina Revez, Paulo Alexandre · 5 authors

The purpose of this study is to examine the synchronism between the US capital markets (DJ, S&amp;P 500), the United Kingdom (FTSE 100), Canada (S&amp;P/TSX), Germany (DAX 30), France (CAC 40), Japan (Nikkei 225), Italy (Italy Ds Market and major cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin (BTC), Litecoin (LTC), Ethereum (ETH), and the Crypto 10 index, from February 2018 to November 2021. Based on the findings, we found that BTC and ETH cryptocurrencies drastically reduced their level of integration with their peers over the 2020 worldwide pandemic era, whereas LTC maintained. We also discovered that the Dow Jones, S&amp;P 500, and DAX 30 stock indexes lowered their level of integration when compared to the pre-covid subperiod. For the UK capital market (FTSE 100), Canada (S&amp;P/TSX), Japan (Nikkei 225), France (CAC 40), and Italy (Italy Ds Market) the level of integration increased significantly. These findings support, in part, our research question, that during periods of stress and uncertainty in the global economy capital markets tend towards integration, thus calling into question the hypothesis of efficient portfolio diversification.