Alessia Antelmi, Giuseppe DâAmbrosio, Andrea Petta, Luigi Serra ¡ 5 authors
The amount of accessible computational devices over the Internet offers an enormous but latent computational power. Nonetheless, the complexity of orchestrating and managing such devices requires dedicated architectures and tools and hinders the exploitation of this vast processing capacity. Over the last years, the paradigm of (Browser-based) Volunteer Computing emerged as a unique approach to harnessing such computational capabilities, leveraging the idea of voluntarily offering resources. This article proposes VFuse, a groundbreaking architecture to exploit the Browser-based Volunteer Computing paradigm via a ready-to-access volunteer network. VFuse offers a modern multi-language programming environment for developing scientific workflows usingWebAssembly technology without requiring the user any local installation or configuration. We equipped our architecture with a secure and transparent rewarding mechanism based on blockchain technology (Ethereum) and distributed P2P file system (IPFS). Further, the use of Non-Fungible Tokens provides a unique, secure, and transparent methodology for recognizing the usersâ participation in the network.We developed a prototype of the proposed architecture and four example applications implemented with our system. All code and examples are publicly available on GitHub.
The impacts of COVIDâ19 have spread rapidly to global financial markets. In this context, combining the spillover index method introduced by Diebold and Yilmaz (2012) and the complex network analysis framework, we examined the volatility connectedness and the topological structure among the top ten cryptocurrencies before and during the COVIDâ19 crisis. The results revealed that the total volatility connectedness of the cryptocurrency market markedly increased following the outbreak of COVIDâ19; statically, Bitcoin, Ethereum, Cardano, and Bitcoin Cash were the net transmitters before COVIDâ19, while Bitcoin, Ethereum, Ripple, Litecoin, Cardano, and Stellar became the major net transmitters in the market after COVIDâ19. Dynamically, the dynamic performance of different cryptocurrencies during the COVIDâ19 pandemic was heterogeneous, and the possible driving factors are diverse. Moreover, from network analysis, we further found that the COVIDâ19 crisis has significantly changed the topological structure of the cryptocurrency market. Our findings may help understand the typical dynamics in the cryptocurrency market and provide significant implications for portfolio managers, investors, and government agencies in times of highly stressful events like the COVIDâ19 crisis.
We examine the turn of the month effect (TOM) in cryptocurrency markets. In contrast to most calendar effect studies, we do not take for granted that the TOM period is the last trading day of the month up to the first three trading days (-1, 3), as Lakonishok and Smidt (1988) proposed in their seminal paper, but we employ an optimisation algorithm which tests several four-day intramonth periods. Our findings confirm the existence of the TOM effect because the most profitable four-day periods are those between the last days of one month and the first trading days of the next one [the (-1, 3) definition is included in these combinations]. We reach the conclusion that the existence of a TOM effect may not always lead to higher profits in comparison with a buy-and-hold (BnH) strategy, but it presents better returns to risk reward and it could be beneficial for investment strategies.
LÊo Besançon, Catarina Ferreira da Silva, Parisa Ghodous, Jean-Patrick Gelas
Decentralized Applications, or DApps, provide distributed trusted applications that use blockchains. They are often composed of several services, such as transaction scalability protocols, decentralized storage and distributed computing solutions. In order to help formalize these applications, facilitate their development and improve their interoperability, we propose a novel blockchain Ontology focused on the concepts involving DApps. This ontology extends the existing EthOn ontology. It defines several key concepts related to DApps development, as well as the relations between these concepts. It features the formalization of known use cases and design patterns of blockchain technology through blockchain patterns. We use Semantic Web Rule language (SWRL) in order to define rules that express constraints on the formalized concepts. We then execute an inference engine and obtain new constraints on the properties of a defined DApp, such as its cost, based on the DApp characteristics and the services it uses. For illustration we show the inference of constraints between the Ethereum blockchain and its sidechain Polygon. We apply our research work in the field of blockchain video games. This application shows how to use the ontology to model DApps, and can be adapted to other fields.
Nowadays, cloud-based storage systems play a vital role in IoT data storage, processing, and sharing. Despite its contribution, the current cloud-based architecture may cause severe data leakage or jeopardize user privacy. Meanwhile, the cloud-based architecture heavily relies on a trusted third-party auditor (TPA) and runs in a centralized control manner. However, the TPA may not be a completely trustworthy entity, and a single point of failure might cause the centralized system to collapse. Fortunately, with the advent of blockchain technology, the decentralized storage model has gained popularity. A decentralized storage system successfully eradicates the rule of TPA, solves the problem of a single point of failure, and has many advantages over a centralized control architecture, such as low storage prices and high throughput. This study offers a blockchain-based decentralized distributed storage and sharing scheme that provides end-to-end encryption and fine-grained access control. In our proposed IoTChain model, fine-grained permission is based on attribute-based access control (A-BAC) policy by employing the Ethereum blockchain as an auditable access control layer. Smart contracts are tailored for the IoTChain model, which combines the Ethereum blockchain and the interplanetary file system (IPFS). We used an advanced encryption standard (AES) for encryption and the elliptic curve Diffie-Hellman key exchange protocol for secret key sharing between data owners and users. Also, the proof-of-work (PoW) consensus mechanism is replaced with a proof-of-authority (PoA) to minimize system transaction cost and boost system throughput. Additionally, our solution has been tested on the Ethereum official test network Rinkeby, and the results demonstrate that our approach is realistic and economical on the IoT data.
With the rapid development of digitization technology, digital copyright of museum has become more and more valuable. Its collections can be opened to and shared with the people through the Internet. However, centralized authorization, untransparent transaction information and risk of tampering data in traditional digital rights management have a strong impact on system normal operation. In this paper, we proposed a blockchain-based digital rights management scheme (BMDRM) that realizes a distributed digital rights management and authorization system by introducing non-fungible tokens (NFTs) and smart contracts. To ensure the security and efficiency of transactions and authorization, we store all processing data in a high-security distributed ledger based on cryptographic signatures. We test our scheme on Ethereum private network and the experimental results show that BMDRM is feasible and secure for digital rights management in museums.
Open access
Blockchain Technology Applications and Security
Advanced Steganography and Watermarking Techniques
With the rapid development of Non-Fungible Token (NFT) market, various types of digital artwork are published via NFT in recent years for sale. In the current NFT system, ownerâs address of each NFT is stored in plaintext. This leads to a severe privacy problem: once a personâs blockchain address is known, all his NFT assets are viewable, which may further cause problems related to the privacy of holding sensitive NFT or premeditated scams to high-value NFT owners. However, due to the limitation of Ethereum and smart contract, it is hard to prevent others from tracking the owner of NFT. Meanwhile, current state-of-the-art NFT research usually assumes the relation between blockchain address and ownerâs identity is unknown, thus creating theso-called anonymity. In this paper, based on the most popular NFT marketplace OpenSeaâs system, we propose a new exchange scheme to hides the address of NFT owner during trading. To achieve our goal, a proof of commitment scheme is exploited to bind the owner to an NFT while hiding the identity. Moreover, An anonymous payment method is designed to prevent attackers from tracing the Ether flow in NFT trading. Our scheme is proven to be secure against curious users and malicious active attackers. Implementation on testnet also shows that the increased gas cost is acceptable, meaning it is suitable for application.
Open access
Blockchain Technology Applications and Security
Internet Traffic Analysis and Secure E-voting
Advanced Steganography and Watermarking Techniques
Noura Alnuaimi, Alanoud Almemari, Mohammad Madine, Khaled Salah ¡ 6 authors
Fine jewelry is a unique class of ornaments composed of precious metals and gemstones. Premium-grade metals such as gold, platinum, and sliver, and gemstones such as pearls, diamonds, rubies, and emeralds are used use to make fine jewelry. Paper-based certificates are typically issued by retailers and producers for fine jewelry and gemstones as a proof of origin, sale, ownership, history, and quality. However, paper certificates are subject to counterfeiting, loss, or theft. In this paper, we show how non-fungible tokens (NFTs) and Ethereum blockchain can be used for digital certification, proof of ownership, sale history, and quality, as well as proof of delivery for fine jewelry and gemstones.We present the proposed system design and architecture with sequence diagrams covering key interactions for jewelry production, purchase, and sale, along with algorithms related to NFT minting, auctioning, ownership management, and physical delivery. We demonstrate that our proposed NFT and blockchain-based solution can provide superior alternative in terms of verifiability, traceability, immutability, and security when compared with paper-based certification and traditional auctioning, delivery and ownership management. We make our developed smart contracts and testing scripts publicly available on GitHub.
Shaimaa Alghamdi, Sara Alqethami, Tahani Alsubait, Hosam Alhakami
In recent years, many investors have used cryptocurrencies, prompting specialists to find out the factors that affect cryptocurrenciesâ prices. Therefore, one of the most popular methods that have been used to predict cryptocurrency prices is sentiment analysis. It is a widespread technique utilized by many researchers on social media platforms, particularly on Twitter. Thus, to determine the relationship between investorsâ sentiment and the volatility of cryptocurrency prices, this study forecasts the cryptocurrency prices using the Long-Term-Short-Memory (LSTM) deep learning algorithm. In addition, Twitter usersâ sentiments using Support Vector Machine (SVM) and Naive Bayes (NB) machine learning approaches are analyzed. As a result, in the classification of the bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH) datasets of investorsâ sentiments into (Positive, Negative, and Neutral), the SVM algorithm outperformed the NB algorithm with an accuracy of 93.95% and 95.59%, respectively. Furthermore, the forecasting regression model achieves an error rate of 0.2545 for MAE, 0.2528 for MSE, and 0.5028 for RMSE.
The Internet of Things (IoT) is a network of active and passive objects that interact with each other for information exchange. Due to the immense acceptance of the concept, the IoT utility rate has increased exponentially in recent years. Being an open (and sometimes not-physically-observed) network, the issue of data privacy and security becomes a severe concern on account of the presence of untrusted and malicious users on the network. Most of the existing security approaches are centralized in nature, which leads to bottlenecks and obscurity in public verifiability. Due to its functionality, blockchain technology could be a solution to these problems, owing to its distributed immutable ledger that is cryptographically secured. In this research, we intend to address the security issues in terms of confidentiality, integrity, and access control mechanisms in the IoT for a healthcare system where the data files of a particular patient are encrypted and stored on the blockchain storage in a distributed fashion and accessed through smart contracts. We have observed the efficiency and time complexity of IoT based medical health care system with the utilization of kovan, binance smart chain, rinkeby, and matic blockchain networks. The authors propose a secure model for IoT based healthcare systems with the incorporation of the blockchain network.
This paper studies when entrepreneurs disclose qualitative or soft firm information to raise external capital through token offerings. By using transaction-level blockchain data and real-time disclosure for a sample of 3,009 token offerings, this study demonstrates three main results. First, successful entrepreneurs report more soft information in the pre-announcement period when information asymmetry is high. Second, among all information items disseminated to investors, corporate strategy is the most value-relevant type of content. Third, during fundraising campaigns, soft information disclosure becomes costly because it increases the risk of creating investor disagreement. Consistent with theory, this study shows that a low-disclosure practice induces more investments when information asymmetry decreases.
Feruz K. Elmay, Khaled Salah, Raja Jayaraman, Ilhaam A. Omar
The maritime industry is a complex multi-tiered sector that plays a major role in international shipping and trade. Seaborne transportation is responsible for 90% of goods moved globally, and containerized shipments account for more than 50% of those goods. This volume of movement requires efficient tracking and traceability methods that secure the documentation process and ensure the involved stakeholders. However, due to its complexity, the maritime industry suffers from a lack of trust, lack of ownership evidence, protracted documentation procedures, and excessive data aggregation. These shortcomings are reflected in delays and elevated costs in the shipping process. To mitigate these problems, we propose in this paper a blockchain-based solution for the ownership history and traceability of shipping containers in the industry. Our solution utilizes smart contracts and non-fungible tokens (NFTs) on the Ethereum blockchain to accelerate the inefficient shipping process by digitizing ownership transfer and process documentation. Furthermore, the proposed system allows the owners to auction off their cargo in the destination ports, freeing warehouses and containers in the process. We analyze our proposed system in terms of transaction costs and smart contract security. The smart contracts are developed using the Solidity language in the Remix IDE and the code is made publicly available on GitHub.
Mohammad Madine, Khaled Salah, Raja Jayaraman, Ammar Battah ¡ 6 authors
Digital data has enabled organizations to anticipate future threats, opportunities, and trends. However, digital data owners do not know how their data is accessed, shared, and monitized. In this paper, we propose using blockchain technology and non-fungible tokens (NFTs) to enable time-bound access and monitization of private data. Our approach allows users to upload encrypted content and mint it into NFTs. Other users can access the NFTsâ content by requesting a purchase or a license. Purchasing content transfers the ownership of the NFTs to the buyer; whereas, licensing them permits accessing the private data for a limited period of time, after which the data gets automatically deleted. Our developed approach uses the decentralized application (DApp), proxy reencryption (PRE), InterPlanetary File System (IPFS), and trusted execution environment (TEE) for managing a fully decentralized and robust system. We implement a proof-of-concept system in an Ethereum-based environment, which is used for testing and vulnerability checks. We present the cost and security analyses and discuss the generalization aspect of the solution. Our smart contracts and testing scripts are publicly available under an open-source license.
Simone Casale-Brunet, Mirko Zichichi, Lee Hutchinson, Marco Mattavelli ¡ 5 authors
This paper presents an analysis of the role of social media, specifically Twitter, in the context of non-fungible tokens, better known as NFTs. Such emerging technology framing the creation and exchange of digital object, started years ago with early projects such as "CryptoPunks" and since early 2021, has received an increasing interest by a community of people creating, buying, selling NFT's and by the media reporting to the general public. In this work it is shown how the landscape of one class of projects, specifically those used as social media profile pictures, has become mainstream with leading projects such as "Bored Ape Yacht Club", "Cool Cats" and "Doodles". This work illustrates how heterogeneous data was collected from the Ethereum blockchain and Twitter and then analysed using algorithms and state-of-art metrics related to graphs. The initial results show that from a social network perspective, the collections of most popular NFTs can be considered as a single community around NFTs. Thus, while each project has its own value and volume of exchange, on a social level all of them are primarily influenced by the evolution of values and trades of "Bored Ape Yacht Club" collection.
Open access
3 source records
Digital Marketing and Social Media
Social Media and Politics
Additive Manufacturing and 3D Printing Technologies
M D Praveen, Shashikumar G. Totad, Mahadev Rashinkar, Ribhav Ostwal ¡ 6 authors
Blockchain and Distributed Ledger Technology are evolving in today's digital world for faster processing and secure transactions. Most IT industries are migrating their applications to blockchain frameworks because of high security and faster processing operations. Cryptocurrencies and bitcoin applications use Blockchain and distributed ledger technology to perform decentralized transactions. With the current blockchain technology, there is a limitation in storing and processing a large volume of transactions and data, affecting memory and throughput. To overcome this limitation, we propose a methodology to integrate Blockchain with IPFS to enhance the throughput and optimize the memory. As a case study marks card validation application is being developed on the Ethereum framework considering Geth and Parity clients. Blockchain consensus protocol, i.e., proof of work (POW) and proof of stake (POS), are used to build smart contracts and process transactions. InterPlanetary File System (IPFS) is integrated with Blockchain to enhance the throughput and performance of the application. The results indicate that Blockchain integrated with IPFS performs better by optimizing the memory and reducing the transaction delay. The comparative analysis shows that the proposed approach reduces the transaction processing cost by 10% and enhances the throughput by 8% compared to the Fileshare and BlockIPFS techniques.
Decentralized applications (DApps) gained traction in the context of the blockchain technology. Ethereum is currently the public blockchain that backs the largest amount of the existing DApps. Onboarding new users to Ethereum DApps is a notoriously hard issue to solve. This is mainly caused by lack of cryptocurrency ownership, needed for transaction fees. Several meta-transaction patterns emerged for decoupling users from paying these fees. However, such solutions are mostly offered via off-chain, often paid relayer services and do not fully address the security issues present in the meta-transaction path. In this paper, we introduce a new meta-transaction architecture that makes use of the Intel Software Guard Extensions (SGX). Unlike other solutions, our approach would offer the possibility to deploy a fee-free Ethereum DApp on a web server that can directly relay meta-transactions to the Ethereum network while having essential security guarantees integrated by design.
the phenomenon of cryptocurrencies has become one of the most controversial topics in the last few years, both among the professional public in economics and finance and among ordinary people who trust and invest in them.The main goal of the work is to find out the correlation between stablecoins that failed and did not maintain the promised stability around their peg and prominent cryptocurrencies with a large market capitalization, namely Bitcoin and Ethereum.The task is to find out the connection of stablecoins to significant cryptocurrencies.With a high correlation, these stablecoins cannot be stable if they are connected to a highly volatile asset.Price movement data of selected cryptocurrencies are used with a daily resolution from freely available portals. the correlation is calculated based on the primary return indicator and the Pearson correlation coefficient.The calculations show that the returns of Qcash and nuBits cryptocurrencies are correlated with Bitcoin and ethereum, and this correlation was not confirmed for the other studied failed stablecoins.
This survey presents a comprehensive study of recent advances in block-chain technologies, focusing on how issues that affecting the enterprise adoption were progressively addressed from the original Bitcoin system to Ethereum, to Solana etc. Key issues preventing the wide adoption are scala-bility and performance, while recent advances in Solana has clearly demon-strated that it is possible to significantly improve on those issues by innovat-ing on data structure, processes and algorithms by consolidating various time-consuming algorithms and security enforcements, and differentiate and balance users and their responsibilities and rights, while maintaining the re-quired security and integrity that blockchain systems inherently offer.
Pratyush Kumar Patro, Raja Jayaraman, Khaled Salah, Ibrar Yaqoob
Efficient traceability management is necessary for managing products in the fishery supply chain. Any negligence in products’ traceability can result in food fraud that may adversely affect the consumer’s health. Monitoring and tracking of the fishery supply chain operations can assist system stakeholders in identifying the origins and causes of product fraud and malpractice. Most of the existing systems and technologies used to manage the fishery supply chain processes fall short of providing traceability, accountability, transparency, reliability, trust, privacy, and security features. In this paper, we propose a private Ethereum blockchain-based solution to efficiently manage the fishery supply chain operations in a manner that is decentralized, transparent, traceable, secure, private, and trustworthy. We present the solution architecture and propose five smart contracts to automate the processes in fishery supply chain. We present ten algorithms along with their full implementation, testing, and validation details. We conduct a security analysis to show that the proposed solution is both secure and trustworthy. We compare our solution with the existing blockchain and non-blockchain-based solutions to show its effectiveness and novelty. We make the smart contract code publicly available on GitHub.
Crypto-coins (also known as cryptocurrencies) are tradable digital assets. Notable examples include Bitcoin, Ether and Litecoin. Ownerships of cryptocoins are registered on distributed ledgers (i.e., blockchains). Secure encryption techniques guarantee the security of the transactions (transfers of coins across owners), registered into the ledger. Cryptocoins are exchanged for specific trading prices. While history has shown the extreme volatility of such trading prices across all different sets of crypto-assets, it remains unclear what and if there are tight relations between the trading prices of different cryptocoins. Major coin exchanges (i.e., Coinbase) provide trend correlation indicators to coin owners, suggesting possible acquisitions or sells. However, these correlations remain largely unvalidated. In this paper, we shed lights on the trend correlations across a large variety of cryptocoins, by investigating their coin-price correlation trends over a period of two years. Our experimental results suggest strong correlation patterns between main coins (Ethereum, Bitcoin) and alt-coins. We believe our study can support forecasting techniques for time-series modeling in the context of crypto-coins. We release our dataset and code to reproduce our analysis to the research community.