Blockchain Papers

Micky Lagvankar

No abstract is available for this record.

Daniel Liebau, Melody Ma

No abstract is available for this record.

Paul P. Momtaz

No abstract is available for this record.

Yixuan Fan, Lei Zhang, Yao Sun, Xinyi Lin · 5 authors

The development of blockchain technology and the emergence of Web3 have given rise to a new paradigm known as Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs), online communities jointly owned and managed by members working for the same interests. Voting is the primary decision-making method within DAOs aligning with the decentralization philosophy. However, existing DAO voting mechanisms often exhibit a strong tendency toward centralized control, contradicting DAOs’ pursuit of decentralization. In the absence of a decentralization standard, we define the decentralization coefficient as a novel metric to evaluate the overall decentralization performance of DAO voting mechanisms quantitatively by establishing the first stochastic process model for the DAO voting process. By analyzing and simulating four typical voting mechanisms, we uncover that quorum and voting power thresholds, often thought to improve voting performance, may negatively impact decentralization. Additionally, the study analyzes the impact of three main factors, including voting power distribution, participation rate, and voting process, on decentralization. The findings highlight that decentralization is shaped by the interplay between these factors, rather than merely by adopting specific voting rules. This study provides a quantitative benchmark for future research and offers practical guidance for DAO designers, emphasizing the need to prioritize inclusive participation over additional voting conditions.

Wulf A. Kaal

No abstract is available for this record.

Stefano Balietti, Pietro Saggese, Markus Strohmaier

Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs) use token-weighted voting to allocate resources, set protocol rules, and legitimate collective decisions. Yet, support in DAO voting is strikingly concentrated. What happens inside the ballot that produces this concentration? We study DAOs' governance at the proposal-choice level, linking each choice's voting-power share to three observable features: whether it expresses an approval-oriented stance, where it appears in the choice list, and whether it is selected by the proposal author. We find that (i) author-selected choices show the strongest and most robust association with voting-power share, with a 58.8% increase relative to non-author choices; (ii) approval-oriented choices retain a positive but slightly less consistent advantage (27.1%); and (iii) first-listed choices also attract systematically higher shares, consistent with position and order effects (7.7%). Results are robust across several specifications, which include subtracting an author's own voting power from computations. We use bias descriptively, to denote systematic associations rather than proven causal distortion. The results shift attention from proposal outcomes alone to the interface and social signals through which choices are presented. In DAO governance, ordering, author signals, and vote visibility should be treated as institutional design choices, not neutral implementation details.

Peiding Pi, Xiaolong Liang, Sangtian Guan, Fei–Yue Wang

No abstract is available for this record.

Phuong Lai, Phong Thanh Nguyen, Binh Nguyen Thanh

No abstract is available for this record.

Swaminathan Balasubramaniam, Jorge Sabat, Luana Zaccaria

No abstract is available for this record.

Omowonuola Alabi

For most of the last decade, Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) principles and the world of Bitcoin and Web3 have existed on opposite sides of the corporate conversation. ESG represented the rise of responsible capitalism — a commitment to sustainability, stakeholder accountability, and ethical governance that traditional institutions were being pressured to adopt. Bitcoin and Web3, meanwhile, were seen by many critics as antithetical to those ideals: energy-hungry, unregulated, ungoverned, and speculative. That characterisation is now rapidly becoming outdated.

Tiago Ferreira Cavazin

Este artigo explora a transposição analógica e matemática da Equação de Rayleigh, originalmente concebida no domínio da física acústica e teoria de sinais, para a modelagem de fenômenos complexos em ambientes Web3 e infraestruturas de blockchain. A pesquisa fundamenta-se na premissa de que a distribuição de Rayleigh, ao descrever a magnitude de vetores compostos por componentes gaussianas independentes, oferece um arcabouço robusto para analisar a volatilidade de criptoativos, a latência de propagação de rede, e a resiliência de sistemas de consenso. Através de uma abordagem interdisciplinar que integra econofísica, teoria de sinais e auditoria algorítmica, o estudo discute como a variabilidade estocástica impacta a segurança e a eficiência de protocolos descentralizados. São analisadas as conexões entre a distribuição de Rayleigh e a Lei de Benford na detecção de fraudes em tokenomics, além de contrastar o Efeito Cantillon com o Efeito Nakamoto na distribuição de riqueza digital. Por fim, propõe-se o Modelo de Resiliência Estocástica ECDM (Environment, Consensus, Distribution, Magnitude) como uma ferramenta preditiva para a governança e auditoria de ecossistemas blockchain.<br>

Arpan Mondal

No abstract is available for this record.

Tiago Ferreira Cavazin

O estudo analisa o cenário de investimento no ecossistema de startups Web3 entre os anos de 2024 e 2025, identificando um processo de maturação e consolidação setorial. Observa-se a transição de um modelo de financiamento especulativo para uma abordagem estratégica, com foco em infraestrutura crítica e modelos de negócio sustentáveis. Embora os dados apontem uma redução quantitativa no volume de transações — exemplificada pela queda de 34% no primeiro trimestre de 2025 em comparação ao período anterior —, constata-se um aumento no valor médio por investimento. Conclui-se que o mercado atravessa uma fase de ajuste pós-volatilidade, na qual a sofisticação dos investidores prioriza a robustez tecnológica e a viabilidade comercial de longo prazo em detrimento do volume de operações.<br>

Rafael Minuti

This paper develops a principles-based issuer-side accounting framework for token issuance, promotional airdrops, governance tokens, utility tokens and Web3 loyalty programmes. It argues that tokens should be classified according to the economic substance of the rights and obligations created by the issuer, rather than by their technological form. The framework is anchored in IAS 32, IFRS 9, IFRS 15, IAS 37, the IFRS Conceptual Framework, U.S. GAAP analogues and Brazilian CPC literature. It is intended to support technical analysis by preparers, auditors, academics, regulators and accounting standard-setters.

Randy Abdul Rahman

No abstract is available for this record.

Xiang Chen, Kan Lu, Alpamis Kutlimuratov

Inderscience is a global company, a dynamic leading independent journal publisher disseminates the latest research across the broad fields of science, engineering and technology; management, public and business administration; environment, ecological economics and sustainable development; computing, ICT and internet/web services, and related areas.

A. Galdeman, M. Zignani, C. Quadri, S. Gaito

No abstract is available for this record.

Sonja Kivinen

Tämän opinnäytetyön tavoitteena oli selvittää, miten kassanhallinta ja talousohjaus tulisi suunnitella web3-pohjaisessa startup -yrityksessä, jonka liiketoimintamalli on kehitysvaiheessa. Tutkimus kohdistui case-yritykseen, jonka toiminta yhdistää kotimaisen luonnonkalan välittämiseen perustuvan kalaliiketoiminnan sekä digitaalisen toimitusketjuratkaisun kehittämisen. Tutkimus toteutettiin laadullisena kehittämistyönä, jossa aineistona hyödynnettiin yrityksen edustajien haastatteluja sekä kassanhallinnan ja talousohjauksen teoreettista viitekehystä. Työssä analysoitiin yrityksen rahoitusrakennetta, operatiivisen kassavirran haasteita sekä taloushallinnon nykytilaa. Tulosten perusteella kassanhallinta kehitysvaiheessa olevassa startup -yrityksessä tulee rakentaa integroiduksi kokonaisuudeksi, joka yhdistää maksuperusteisen kassavirtaennusteen, burn rate- ja runway-seurannan, operatiiviset ja strategiset mittarit sekä vaiheittaisen järjestelmäintegraation. Kalaliiketoiminnan erityispiirteet, kuten ostojen ja myyntien ajoituserot sekä varaston kiertoon sitoutuva pääoma, korostavat käyttöpääoman hallinnan merkitystä. Web3- ja ERP-ratkaisut voivat parantaa kassavirran läpinäkyvyyttä ja reaaliaikaista seurantaa, mutta niiden tulee tukea selkeästi määriteltyä talousohjausmallia. Taloushallinnon osalta suositeltavaksi ratkaisuksi muodostui hybridimalli, jossa lakisääteiset toiminnot ulkoistetaan ja operatiivisesti kriittiset prosessit integroidaan yrityksen omaan järjestelmään. Opinnäytetyön tuloksena syntyi käytännönläheinen kassanhallinnan ja mittariston malli, joka tukee yrityksen siirtymää kehitysvaiheesta kohti taloudellisesti kestävää liiketoimintaa.

Steven L. Schwarcz, Jack Tiedemann

Decentralized finance (DeFi) promises cheaper, faster and more accessible financial services by replacing traditional regulated intermediaries with software protocols and smart contracts. But removing those intermediaries also removes the practical chokepoints for implementing modern financial regulation: customer identification and screening, disclosure, recordkeeping, operational safeguards and incident reporting. This paper argues that the core compliance challenge in DeFi is therefore a governance problem: regulators should focus less on DeFi’s underlying computer code and more on the control points where compliance duties could realistically be assigned, supervised and enforced. Identifying those control points could be challenging, however, because DeFi responsibilities are dispersed across software developers, governance structures, parties that interface with investors and third-party service providers. To address that challenge, the paper proposes a layered regulatory strategy comprising four complementary approaches: identifying and regulating gateway intermediaries that facilitate access to DeFi services; prescribing the compliance obligations those intermediaries should assume; establishing targeted governance standards for smart contracts and the oracle and data inputs on which they depend; and applying shadow-banking-type safeguards to constrain spillover channels between DeFi and the traditional financial system. No single approach would be sufficient on its own; their combined effect would reconstruct, at workable control points, the most critical accountability and oversight functions that DeFi displaces. Properly designed and implemented, this strategy could help to preserve DeFi’s efficiency benefits while cost-effectively restoring regulatory protection and accountability.

Swaminathan Balasubramaniam

No abstract is available for this record.

Hong Kong Institute for Monetary and Financial Research

No abstract is available for this record.

Soonduck Yoo, Dae-Yeol Kim, Do-Yup Kim

Agent-based federated learning (FL) enables multiple nodes to collaboratively train a global model without sharing raw data, thereby mitigating privacy and security concerns. However, FL inherently relies on the credibility of participating agents, making trust assurance critical in environments susceptible to malicious attacks and operational faults. This paper proposes a procedural architecture for evaluating and enhancing agent credibility in distributed ledger-based FL (DLFL) systems. The proposed architecture spans the agent life cycle, consisting of the pre-training, in-training, and post-training stages, and integrates three verification domains: data-based, behavior-based, and technology-based verification. In the pre-training stage, data-based verification assesses data integrity and quality through reference distribution analysis and entropy reduction to improve learning stability. During the in-training stage, behavior-based verification establishes a dual mechanism that monitors and analyzes agents’ learning processes and outcomes and detects anomalies in updates and performance. In the post-training stage, technology-based verification ensures record immutability and accountability through blockchain, cryptographic validation, and auditing mechanisms. By combining these multi-layered procedures, the proposed architecture enables systematic and continuous evaluation of agent credibility, fostering a trustworthy FL ecosystem and enabling future applications in autonomous agent collaboration and trust-oriented AI governance.

Omar D. Eldesouky

Consensus protocols underpin the security and correctness of decentralized blockchain systems by enabling mutually untrusted participants to agree on a shared state. Early blockchain networks relied on Proof-of-Work (PoW), which achieves strong security by making participation computationally expensive, but its high energy consumption has driven the transition toward Proof-of-Stake (PoS) and its variants. Nominated Proof-of-Stake (NPoS) addresses PoS centralization tendencies by separating stake from block production, allowing participants (known as nominators) to delegate their staked tokens to validators, aiming to enable broader, fairer, and more decentralized participation in consensus. This thesis addresses the gap between NPoS’s design intentions and its realworld effectiveness by using Polkadot as a case study: we employ multi-year on-chain data and a graph-based methodology that models the evolving relationships between nominators and validators, and introduce metrics to evaluate centralization, fairness, and inclusiveness in NPoS systems. The analysis reveals persistent structural concentration. Validator turnover is limited, with around 90% of validators remaining active across consecutive eras, and nomination patterns are highly persistent, with fewer than 20 nominators controlling up to one-third of the active validator set. Regarding fairness, while validator rewards converge to near-equality, nominator rewards remain highly unequal as an inherent consequence of stake-proportional allocation. Regarding inclusiveness, participation remains constrained: a non-trivial fraction of active validators charge 100% commission, retaining all staking rewards and distributing nothing to their nominators, which constitutes a structural barrier to meaningful economic participation for the nominators backing them. Overall, these findings indicate that NPoS still exhibits concentration dynamics that limit its effectiveness in achieving decentralization and inclusiveness.

Tiago Ferreira Cavazin

O presente diagnóstico econômico investiga as falhas estruturais e as vulnerabilidades sistêmicas inerentes aos modelos de engenharia econômica da Web3, fundamentando-se no princípio da não neutralidade da moeda conhecido como Efeito Cantillon. A pesquisa articula como a distribuição assimétrica inicial de tokens, frequentemente favorecendo fundadores e investidores institucionais, estabelece uma assinatura econômica de fragilidade que compromete a descentralização e a sustentabilidade dos protocolos digitais. Através de uma abordagem interdisciplinar, o relatório integra o conceito de Doppler Econômico para explicar a defasagem informacional entre agentes privilegiados e o público geral, além de utilizar a metáfora do Mammoth Money para descrever dinâmicas de predação de capital. Para a verificação empírica, aplica-se a Lei de Benford como ferramenta de auditoria estatística e a Curva de Laffer para determinar os limites de incentivos de emissão. O estudo conclui que a resiliência dos ecossistemas Web3 depende de um redesenho fundamental dos mecanismos de alocação inicial e de uma transparência radical que mitigue as distorções perceptivas e econômicas que levam a colapsos catastróficos e eventos de Cisne Negro.<br>