Blockchain Papers

Sabrina Scuri, Gergana Tasheva, Luísa Barros, Nuno Nunes

No abstract is available for this record.

Joon Park, Ruzanna Chitchyan, Anastasia Angelopoulou, Jordan Murkin

No abstract is available for this record.

Niclas Kannengießer, Sebastian Lins, Tobias Dehling, Ali Sunyaev

Distributed ledger technology (DLT), including blockchain, enables secure processing of transactions between untrustworthy parties in a decentralized system. However, DLT is available in different designs that exhibit diverse characteristics. Moreover, DLT characteristics have complementary and conflicting interdependencies. Hence, there will never be an ideal DLT design for all DLT use cases; instead, DLT implementations need to be configured to contextual requirements. Successful DLT configuration requires, however, a sound understanding of DLT characteristics and their interdependencies. In this manuscript, we review DLT characteristics and organize them into six groups. Furthermore, we condense interdependencies of DLT characteristics into trade-offs that should be considered for successful deployment of DLT. Finally, we consolidate our findings into DLT archetypes for common design objectives, such as security, usability, or performance. Our work makes extant DLT research more transparent and fosters understanding of interdependencies and trade-offs between DLT characteristics.

Bronwyn Howell, Petrus H. Potgieter, Bert M. Sadowski

Blockchains are the most well-known example of a distributed ledger technology (DLT). Unlike classic databases, the ledger is not maintained by any central authority. The integrity of the ledger is maintained automatically by an algorithmic consensus process whereby nodes vote and agree upon the authoritative version. In effect, the consensus algorithm operates in the manner of a decision-making process within a governance system. The technological characteristics of blockchain systems are well documented (Narayanan, Bonneau, Felton and Miller, 2016). We propose that one of the reasons why it has so far proved very difficult to seed large-scale commercial DLT (blockchain) projects lies in the arena of project ownership and governance. Unlike classic centralised database systems, DLTs have no one central point of “ownership” of any of the system’s infrastructure or data. In this piece of exploratory research, we propose applying theories of club governance to both the technical design and operational development of a range of DLT (blockchain) systems, including (but not necessarily limited to) cryptocurrencies and enterprise applications to explore how they can explain the development of (or lack of development of) sustainable solutions to real business problems. There are many parallels to the governance arrangements observed historically in the origins of complex distributed telecommunications networks.

Miles B. Gietzmann, Francesco Grossetti

No abstract is available for this record.

Mohammad Dabbagh, Mehdi Sookhak, Nader Sohrabi Safa

Blockchain as emerging technology is revolutionizing several industries, and its abundant privileges have opened up a bunch of research directions in various industries; thereby, it has acquired many interests from the research community. The rapid evolution of blockchain research papers in recent years has resulted in a need to conduct research studies that investigate a detailed analysis of the current body of knowledge in this field. To address this need, a few review papers have been published to report the latest accomplishments and challenges of blockchain technology from different perspectives. Nonetheless, there has not been any bibliometric analysis of the state of the art in blockchain where Web of Science (WoS) has been taken into consideration as a literature database. Hence, a thorough analysis of the current body of knowledge in blockchain research through a bibliometric study would be needed. In this paper, we performed a bibliometric analysis of all Blockchain’s conference papers, articles, and review papers that have been indexed byWoS from 2013 to 2018. We have analyzed those collected papers against five research questions. The results revealed some valuable insights, including yearly publications and citations trends, hottest research areas, top-ten influential papers, favorite publication venues, and most supportive funding bodies. The findings of this paper offer several implications that can be used as a guideline by both fresh and experienced researchers to establish a baseline before initiating a blockchain research project in the future.

Toqeer Ali Syed, Ali Alzahrani, Salman Jan, Muhammad Shoaib Siddiqui · 6 authors

In the past few years, the implementation of blockchain technology for various applications has been widely discussed in the research community and the industry. There are sufficient number of articles that discuss the possibility of applying blockchain technology in various areas, such as, healthcare, IoT, and business. However, in this article, we present a comparative analysis of core blockchain architecture, its fundamental concepts, and its applications in three major areas: the Internet-of-Things (IoT), healthcare, business and vehicular industry. For each area, we discuss in detail, challenges and solutions that have been proposed from the research community and industry. This research studies also presented the complete ecosystem of blockchain of all the papers we reviewed and summarized. Moreover, analysis is performed of various blockchain platforms, their consensus models, and applications. Finally, we discuss key aspects that are required for the widespread future adoption of blockchain technology in these major areas.

Joe Abou Jaoude, Raafat George Saadé

Originally conceived as a mechanism to enable a trustless cryptocurrency-Bitcoin, blockchain has since unbound itself from its original purpose as an increasing number of industries and stakeholders' eye the technology as an attractive alternative to solve existing business solutions as well as disrupt mature industries. This paper presents a systematic literature review of the blockchain technology, tracking its increase in popularity in relation to similar technologies, such as cryptocurrencies and Bitcoin. The objective of this paper is to identify the current standing of the blockchain technology within the literature while also identifying the major fields of study and areas of application for which blockchain offers a valuable solution. This paper finds that unique features to the blockchain, such as privacy, security, anonymity, decentralization, and immutability, provide valuable benefits to various fields and subjects. This paper also finds that exploring the application of blockchain has only begun with some limited studies in areas, such as the Internet of Things, energy, finance, healthcare, and government, that also stand to benefit disproportionately from its implementation.

Yan Chen, Cristiano Bellavitis

No abstract is available for this record.

K. Matsuura

Financial Technology (FinTech) is considered a taxonomy that describes a wide range of ICT (information and communications technology) associated with financial transactions and related operations. Improvement of service quality is the main issue addressed in this taxonomy, and there are a large number of emerging technologies including blockchain-based cryptocurrencies and smart contracts. Due to its innovative nature in accounting, blockchain can also be used in lots of other FinTech contexts where token models play an important role for financial engineering. This paper revisits some of the key concepts accumulated behind this trend, and shows a generalized understanding of the technology using an adapted stochastic process. With a focus on financial instruments using blockchain, research directions toward stable applications are identified with the help of a newly proposed stabilizer: interpretation function of token valuation. The idea of adapted stochastic process is essential for the stabilizer, too.

Adewale Amoo

Blockchain is a network-based technical solution for a set of distributed ledgers that are collectively maintained through decentralization and trustlessness. A smart contract is the most representative application of the blockchain from the 1.0 stage to the 2.0 stage, and it plays an important role in the construction of decentralized applications. According to the characteristics of blockchain without center and trustlessness, this article designs a commodity transaction smart contract based on blockchain technology. The release and execution of the smart contract in this article is implemented on the Ethereum private chain, and the transfer and payment functions of Ethereum are executed through the lightweight wallet plug-in Metamask of the Chrome browser. The execution of the smart contract is tested in the test network, and the operation of the smart contract is completed in the form of gas payment. Gas is the calculation work measurement for executing transactions in Ethereum, and there is a conversion relationship with Ether. The more Gas is paid when each contract is executed, the higher the chance of being packaged and stored first. The transaction model proposed in this paper realizes the decentralization of the system, the transaction and contact information is open, transparent, and non-tamperable, and the contract is automatically stored and executed. This design can greatly increase the transaction speed and gradually reach the performance of a centralized network. And providing an enterprise-level blockchain operating system makes application development and deployment easier.

Irina Y. Glazkova, Dorota Kozioł-Kaczorek, Sergey Shmatko

Digital technologies have a number of advantages that contribute to the development of the economy and make it more transparent. Some of the main features of modern digital technologies are speeding up business processes, reducing costs, eliminating the possibility of fraud, ensuring the transparency of the system and the ability to check and analyze the system. Regardless of whether a commercial or government organization uses the technology, in any case, there is a wide range of possibilities of its application. One of these technologies is blockchain. A blockchain is a distributed database in which storage devices are not connected to a shared server. This database stores an ever-growing list of ordered records called blocks. Each block contains a timestamp and a link to the previous block. The article defines a smart contract, describes the main areas of its application and provides processes similar to smart contracts, but working outside the blockchain. We also consider some of the risks that arise when working with smart contracts.

Moonsoo Kim, Jee Yong Chung

Cryptocurrency blockchain technology is attracting worldwide attention, and the number of initial coin offerings (ICOs) is increasing rapidly. This new economic trend, called cryptoeconomics, can program human behavior through incentive design. A cryptocurrency-based incentive system is not only transparent, but also allows businesses to substitute initial investment costs with cryptocurrency tokens until they are on a sustainable growth trajectory in terms of network effects. This study aims to propose a process for building a desirable model of a token economy, based on the case of Steemit—a blogging and social networking website that is creating high values due to its efficient token economy model. We suggest the following design process of a token economy model: (1) Determine token-business fit, (2) determine the chance of success, (3) determine the properties of token, (4) give tokens intrinsic value, (5) establish strategies to raise token value, (6) establish operational strategies of token economy system, (7) establish strategies for token liquidation, and (8) continue modifying the operational base. Considering cryptoeconomics is still at an early stage, it is expected that the guidelines on the token economy model suggested in this paper will lay a significant foundation for the development of cryptoeconomics research.

Belmiro do Nascimento João

Blockchain ou Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) apresenta uma onda de disrupção causada pela tecnologia havendo enormes oportunidades de desenvolvimento futuro. É uma das invenções fundamentais na história da ciência da computação. Apresenta um elemento faltante na Internet que é um protocolo de confiança. Analisando as principais fontes de referências em pesquisas sobre blockchain e de 81 artigos sobre o tópico na base web of science no período entre 2016 e 2018. Foram analisados aspectos das principais fontes da literatura, autores, métodos de pesquisa, países, redes de pesquisas, entre outros. Foi utilizado método bibliométrico e de text analytics para o seu desenvolvimento. Diversos pacotes do software R foram utilizados em codificação própria. Analisou-se progresso atual da tecnologia blockchain, suas limitações e tendências futuras. A pesquisa mostra que a pesquisa doméstica sobre o blockchain está em sua infância. Muitas das pesquisas internacionais ainda usam como case a análise qualitativa. Tópicos como moeda digital, Fintechs e o risco da tecnologia blockchain serão o foco de pesquisas futuras.

Byeowool Kim, Yong-Ik Yoon

The challenge that journalism is facing these days in the Internet mobile environment is greater than ever before. Journalism is losing its revenue structure to platform operators favoring a certain markets, and also the trust of its readers in light of fake news and infected news. To alleviate this situation, we propose a blockchain technology that is applicable to journalism in order to achieve decentralization as a reasonable alternative. The journalism model based on hybrid blockchain aims to achieve the following: the delivery of articles with sharing value, what we call proof of sharing; the distribution of roles of personalized agenda settings; and finally, the use of agora to collect public opinions. With all these, we attempt to resolve the issues with current journalism with our proposed model based on blockchain.

Varun Mathur

This review presents and evaluates various formalisms for the purpose of modelling the semantics of financial derivatives contracts. The formalism proposed by Lee is selected as the best candidate among those initially reviewed. Further examination and evaluation of this formalism is done.

Pu Yuan, Xiong Xiong, Lei Lei, Kan Zheng

Emission trading policy provides a new approach using economic incentives to control the environmental pollution efficiently. Legal polluters can trade emission permits with each other through a trusted trading system that lacks security and credibility due to its centralization nowadays. Permissioned blockchain utilize a decentralized way to store private data immutably, providing new approaches to solve those defects of the existing centralized systems. In this paper, we propose a Hyperledger-based Emission Trading System (HyperETS) on the permissioned blockchain. Using Hyperledger Fabric as the implementation platform, HyperETS integrates the fine-grained access control, distributed ledger, and consensus protocol, aiming to provide credible trading service for polluters. We achieve the business logic by designing the particular ledger structures and smart contract in blockchain. HyperETS stores all transactions immutably in a chain and makes it easy to share the data between organizations. Finally, several experiments are conducted to evaluate the performances of the proposed demonstration system.

Trevor Clohessy, Thomas Acton, Nichola Rogers

No abstract is available for this record.

Rafael Ziolkowski, Gianluca Miscione, Gerhard Schwabe

The blockchain technology challenges the view on established modes of governance by offering distributed authentication without the need for a central authority, which is well-exemplified by Bitcoin. While the governance of and through Bitcoin is well- accentuated in research, we spotlight impacts on governance which blockchain-based systems bring to inter-organizational settings as well as their purpose. To build our arguments, we explore those impacts on two contrasting cases from the domains of automotive and public administration and relate them to cryptocurrencies. Relying on interviews with experts from said organizations utilizing blockchain technology, and a content analysis of related grey literature, we discuss established forms of governance as well as platforms and infrastructures against the impacts which blockchain-based systems cause. After referring those to the concepts of markets, hierarchies, networks, and tribes, we critically reflect on their purpose by utilizing the notions of infrastructures and platforms, and conclude blockchain-based systems to possibly alter the way established modes of governance are enacted.

Zhao Cai, Fei Liu, Eric T.K. Lim, Chee‐Wee Tan · 5 authors

Although cryptocurrencies have garnered enormous public attention in recent times, extensive fluctuations in their prices have deterred prospective investors. Due to the
\n absence of a centralized valuation authority, the credibility of cryptocurrencies as a viable investment vehicle remains elusive. Building on attention theory, this study posits that prospective investors of cryptocurrencies are likely to search online for information before deciding whether to make a commitment. We hence investigate the effects of Google search on the return and risk of 268 cryptocurrencies over 181 trading days.
\n Results indicate that the Google Search Volume Index (SVI) of a given cryptocurrency
\n exerts significant and positive impact on its price and turnover.

Muhammad Tahrizul Amin

ENGLISH:
\n
\nBitcoin is one of digital currencies by cryptography as the basic system with the highest price in digital marketplace until 2018, so it becomes one of digital asset used to invest and becomes one of the most popular investment tools in society. But this phenomenon still become polemic because it has no explicit regulations yet. So, this research objectives are to know the mechanism of Bitcoin investment in society and the legal expert opinion towards it.
\n
\nThis research used empirical juridical method with sociological juridical approach. The analytical method is descriptive and concluded in inductive way that explained the result from specific to general.
\n
\nThis research results are the Bitcoin investment mechanism in society divided into mining and trading activity. In Islamic views, the legal expert opines that mining activity is allowed to do because there are two kinds of akad did in it and has no element of maysîr at all. Whereas, if does not be incompatible with sharia principal, Bitcoin trading is allowed to do. In positive law views, these two types of investment activity still had no explicit regulation yet. Although it can to be associated with some regulations such as Civil Code, The Currency Law, Electronic Information and Transaction Law, and Bank of Indonesia Regulation, it still need to regulate explicitly and written in specific role, either in regulation or fatwa forms, so it gives the legal certainty to society. Hopefully, this research provides the suggestion to government to law the vacuum of norm of Bitcoin.
\n
\nINDONESIA:
\n
\nBitcoin merupakan salah satu mata uang digital yang berbasis program kriptografi dengan harga tertinggi hingga tahun 2018 sehingga menjadi salah satu aset digital untuk berinvestasi dan menjadi salah satu sarana investasi paling popular di masyarakat. Namun, fenomena tersebut masih menjadi polemik karena tidak dinaungi oleh payung hukum yang jelas. Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk mengetahui mekanisme investasi Bitcoin yang dilakukan serta pandangan pakar hukum terhadap fenomena tersebut. 
\n
\nPenelitian ini menggunakan metode yuridis empiris, dengan pendekatan yuridis sosiologis. Analisis yang digunakan bersifat deskriptif dan disimpulkan secara induktif yaitu dengan menguraikan kasus yang bersifat khusus dan disimpulkan secara umum. 
\n
\n
\nHasil penelitian yang diperoleh adalah mekanisme investasi Bitcoin yang dilakukan dapat berupa mining, dan trading. Dalam perspektif Islam, pakar hukum berpendapat bahwa aktivitas mining boleh untuk dilakukan karena terdapat dua akad yang berbeda selama melakukan prosesnya, dan tidak mengandung unsur maysîr. Sedangkan, trading Bitcoin boleh untuk dilakukan selama tidak bertentangan dengan prinsip syariah. Secara hukum positif, kedua aktivitas tersebut belum memiliki payung hukum yang jelas. Meskipun dapat dikaitkan dengan beberapa peraturan, seperti KUH Perdata, Undang-Undang Mata Uang, Undang-Undang ITE, serta Peraturan Bank Indonesia, investasi Bitcoin perlu untuk diatur secara tertulis dalam peraturan khusus yang berbeda, baik dalam bentuk peraturan perundang-undangan ataupun fatwa. Sehingga akan memberikan kepastian hukum terhadap masyarakat. Dengan adanya penelitian ini diharapkan dapat memberikan masukan pada pemerintah untuk menyikapi kekosongan hukum Bitcoin.

Naseem Naqvi, Mureed Hussain

The traditional Medical Education ecosystems are largely centralised and confined to the boundaries of academic institutions. Rather than promoting efficiency and global forward thinking, a number of medical institutions have become inwardly focused, confining themselves to their own institutional rules and frameworks. In the past two years, the utility of blockchain in the higher education setting has been extensively studied. A blockchain is essentially a distributed, immutable, trustworthy, decentralised database that keeps an irreversible, time-stamped record of transfer of value between users for every operation that has ever been carried out on its network. This has traditionally been used in cryptocurrency transactions, however, with the rise of blockchain based Decentralised Applications (DApps), the potential benefits of this ground-breaking technology in higher education are now being explored. Although still in the early developmental stages, blockchain holds promising potential for use in medical education. Some of these are budding hypothesis while in other areas, we have witnessed real, tangible progress. This article analyses the potential use cases for blockchain deployment in medical education ecosystems, to improve the efficiency, security, functionality and effectiveness of existing infrastructures. We conclude the essay by proposing how blockchain can eliminate the growing problem of fraudulent academic accreditations

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

We live in a world that has historically been dominated by centralized, hierarchical organizations. Such organizations are characterized by (i) a centralized source of authority; (ii) a formal hierarchy with clearly defined “roles”; and, (iii) standardized operational systems and procedures dictated by that centralized authority/hierarchy. This type of organization has exerted an enormous influence on modern political, economic and social life, particularly in a business context. Regulatory models have been designed to support and sustain businesses organized in this way. Today, however, new digital technologies are disrupting this “old world” and introducing a shift in the practices and mindset of our society. New technologies are driving the emergence of “flatter”, more decentralized forms of organization. In this paper, we offer an analysis of how blockchain and related distributed ledger technologies are disrupting corporate organizations as an illustration of this broader “digital transformation.” The paper briefly introduces the digital transformation and main argument (Section 1); then considers how the digital transformation has led to the emergence of “platform” companies (Section 2). Since blockchain technology can be viewed as a next step in the “digital development” of a corporate organization, the paper then discusses the main features of blockchain technologies and smart contracts (Sections 3 & 4) and examines the often-made claim that these technologies are all just hype / a fad (Section 5). Section 6 explores why these technologies are so potentially disruptive in a business context and then introduces several examples of such blockchain-based business organizations, as well as possible future developments (Sections 7 and 8). Section 9 concludes.

Wai Wai Wong, Chin Lay Gan

In this era of increasing cyber dependency in business dealings there is huge potential in the adoption of Distributed Ledger Technologies (DLT) particularly in the context of smart contract in the commercial world. The phenomenon of smart contract operates independently without the cumbersome need to engage any intermediary and is capable of executing specific task.(Thake, 2018) People relates it more to a piece of code (known as a software agent) that is designed to execute certain tasks if pre-defined conditions are met. Such tasks are often embedded within, and performed on a distributed ledger.”(Stark, 2016) However, if one accepts the contention that smart contract is not merely as a set of computer code but a smart legal contract which contains obligations and legal terms that are enforceable, hence, in programming or writing smart contract, one must ensure that the software developers who design smart contract take note of the legal rules and principles behind the specific type of contract in question. It has been argued that there is too much dependency on the programming aspect in the creation of smart contracts by programmers and computer scientists. (Khalil et al., 2017)