Crowdfunding has become a popular form of collective funding, in which small donations or investments, made by groups of people, support the development of new projects in exchange of free products or different types of recognition. Social network sites, on the other hand, promote user cooperation and currently are at the basis of any individuals cyber-interactions. In this paper, we present LikeStarter, a blockchain-based decentralized platform that combines social interactions with crowdfunding mechanisms, allowing any user to raise funds while becoming popular in the social network. Being built over the Ethereum blockchain, LikeStarter is structured as a Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO), that fosters crowdfunding without the intervention of any central authority, and recognizes the active role of donors, enabling them to support artists or projects, while making profits.
Patrick Wortner, Moritz Schubotz, Corinna Breitinger, Stephan Leible · 5 authors
Open science has become a synonym for modern, digital and inclusive science. Inclusion does not stop at open access. Inclusion also requires transparency through open datasets and the right and ability to take part in the knowledge creation process. This implies new challenges for digital libraries. Citizens should be able to contribute data in a curatable form to advance science. At the same time, this data should be verifiable and attributable to its owner. Our research project focusses on securing and attributing incoming data streams from sensors. Our contribution is twofold. First, we analyze the promises of open science measurement data and point out how Blockchain technology changed the circumstances for data measurement in science projects using sensors. Second, we present an open hardware project capable of securing the integrity of data directly from the source using cryptographic methods. By using inexpensive modular components and open source software, we lower the barrier for participation in open science projects. We show how time series of measurement values using sensors, e.g., temperature, current, and vibration measurements, can be verifiably and immutably stored. The approach we propose enables time series data to be stored in a tamper-proof manner and securely timestamped on a blockchain to prevent any subsequent modification.
Cristina Elena Turcu, Cornel Turcu, Iuliana Chiuchisan
The proposed paper presents a literature review regarding the status of integrating the dynamic blockchain technology in the educational field. Blockchain is a relatively new technology and the same is its implementation in education. The emerging need in this area of research, which still is in its infancy, is justified by the possible use cases; some of these cases are in piloting phase, while others have already been adopted by educational institutions. This paper focuses on extending knowledge about blockchain and on identifying the benefits, risks and the associated challenges regarding the successful implementation of blockchain-based solutions in the field of education, fully in line with standards and guidelines for quality assurance.
Farmers need to be efficient and dedicate a lot of time in order to sustain the quality of their animals which are in their care. The most convenient and good quality - price ratio should be chosen for the feed of animals. Blockchain is used in a virtual space to store and share information over a network of users. This is done using the open source Hyperledger Fabric platform. The transactions can be viewed by all the other users in real time. These transactions are stored as JSONs inside CouchDB NoSQL database which supports queries on a large volume of data. When using this technology, the farmer can know with whom the supplier for animal feed collaborated with. The history of the transactions are not saved in just one place. In this way, it is more difficult to hack and provide implausible information. An e-learning platform was created where the farm's user can post information, respectively new blocks about the animal's birth, vaccinations, medicines, including the location of the livestock. The same e-learning platform is accessible from the mobile phone. By using the blockchain technology, anyone, including the client from the shop can know a lot about the origin of the products. Fake origins of food are much more difficult to hide. Fraud is also limited. The system monitored the traceability of dairy products inside a Romanian farm. Data about fodder provider and quality, cow productive performances and health and dairy products process were obtained and analyzed by students who will become specialists at all the levels of the food chain. Blockchain is the technology which in case of a dairy products contamination, the origin of the farm is traced in just a couple of seconds. In this way just a batch of dairy products is removed from distribution, leading to the reduction of food waste.
Shayan Eskandari, Seyedehmahsa Moosavi, Jeremy Clark
We consider front-running to be a course of action where an entity benefits from prior access to privileged market information about upcoming transactions and trades. Front-running has been an issue in financial instrument markets since the 1970s. With the advent of the blockchain technology, front-running has resurfaced in new forms we explore here, instigated by blockchains decentralized and transparent nature. In this paper, we draw from a scattered body of knowledge and instances of front-running across the top 25 most active decentral applications (DApps) deployed on Ethereum blockchain. Additionally, we carry out a detailed analysis of Status.im initial coin offering (ICO) and show evidence of abnormal miners behavior indicative of front-running token purchases. Finally, we map the proposed solutions to front-running into useful categories.
Background. Expert observers and artificial intelligence (AI) progression metrics indicate AI will exceed human intelligence within a few decades. Whether general AI that exceeds human capabilities (AGI) will be the single greatest boon in history or a disaster is unknown. No proofs exist that AGI will benefit humans or that AGI will not harm or eliminate humans. Objective. I propose a set of logically distinct conceptual components that are necessary and sufficient to 1) ensure that most known AGI scenarios will not harm humanity and 2) robustly align AGI values and goals with human values. Methods. By systematically addressing each pathway category to malevolent AI we can induce the methods/axioms required to redress the category. Results and Discussion. Distributed ledger technology (DLT, blockchain) is integral to this proposal, e.g. to reduce the probability of hacking, provide an audit trail to detect and correct errors or identify components causing vulnerability or failure and replace them or shut them down remotely and/or automatically, and to separate and balance key AGI components via decentralized apps (dApps). Smart contracts based on DLT are necessary to address evolution of AI that will be too fast for human monitoring and intervention. The proposed axioms. 1) Access to technology by market license. 2) Transparent ethics embodied in DLT. 3) Morality encrypted via DLT. 4) Behavior control structure with values (ethics) at roots. 5) Individual bar-code identification of all critical components. 6) Configuration Item (from business continuity/disaster recovery planning). 7) Identity verification secured via DLT. 8) Smart automated contracts based on DLT. 9) Decentralized applications - AI software code modules encrypted via DLT. 10) Audit trail of component usage stored via DLT. 11) Social ostracism (denial of societal resources) augmented by DLT petitions.
Olivia Choudhury, Noor Fairoza, Issa Sylla, Amar K. Das
The cost of conducting multi-site clinical trials has significantly increased over time, with site monitoring, data management, and amendments being key drivers. Clinical trial data management approaches typically rely on a central database, and require manual efforts to encode and maintain data capture and reporting requirements. To reduce the administrative burden, time, and effort of ensuring data integrity and privacy in multi-site trials, we propose a novel data management framework based on permissioned blockchain technology. We demonstrate how our framework, which uses smart contracts and private channels, enables confidential data communication, protocol enforcement, and and an automated audit trail. We compare this framework with the traditional data management approach and evaluate its effectiveness in satisfying the major requirements of multi-site clinical trials. We show that our framework ensures enforcement of IRB-related regulatory requirements across multiple sites and stakeholders.
Jinliang Xu, Shangguang Wang, Bharat Bhargava, Fangchun Yang
Crowd-intelligence tries to gather, process, infer and ascertain massive useful information by utilizing the intelligence of crowds or distributed computers, which has great potential in Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT). A crowd-intelligence ecosystem involves three stakeholders, namely the platform, workers (e.g., individuals, sensors or processors), and task publisher. The stakeholders have no mutual trust but interest conflict, which means bad cooperation of them. Due to lack of trust, transferring raw data (e.g., pictures or video clips) between publisher and workers requires the remote platform center to serve as a relay node, which implies network congestion. First we use a reward-penalty model to align the incentives of stakeholders. Then the predefined rules are implemented using blockchain smart contract on many edge servers of the mobile edge computing network, which together function as a trustless hybrid human-machine crowd-intelligence platform. As edge servers are near to workers and publisher, network congestion can be effectively improved. Further, we proved the existence of the only one strong Nash equilibrium, which can maximize the interests of involved edge servers and make the ecosystem bigger. Theoretical analysis and experiments validate the proposed method respectively.
Radhesh Krishnan Konoth, Rolf van Wegberg, Veelasha Moonsamy, Herbert Bos
In this study, we examine the behavior and profitability of modern malware that mines cryptocurrency. Unlike previous studies, we look at the cryptocurrency market as a whole, rather than just Bitcoin. We not only consider PCs, but also mobile phones, and IoT devices. In the past few years, criminals have attacked all these platforms for the purpose of cryptocurrency mining. The question is: how much money do they make? It is common knowledge that mining Bitcoin is now very difficult, so why do the criminals even target low-end devices for mining purposes? By analyzing the most important families of malicious cryptocurrency miners that were active between 2014 and 2017, we are able to report how they work, which currency they mine, and how profitable it is to do so. We will see that the evolution of the cryptocurrency market with many new cryptocurrencies that are still CPU minable and offer better privacy to criminals and have contributed to making mining malware attractive again -- with attackers generating a continuous stream of profit that in some cases may reach in the millions.
Mahmood A. Rashid, Krishneel Deo, Divnesh Prasad, K. Ranjith Singh · 6 authors
Blockchain is an emerging technology framework for creating and storing\ntransaction in distributed ledgers with a high degree of security and\nreliability. In this paper we present a blockchain-based platform to create and\nstore contracts in between students and their higher education sponsors. The\nsponsorship might be in any form, such as scholarship, donation or loan. The\nfund will be arranged and managed by a group of competitive agents\n(Fundraisers) who will hold the distributed ledgers and act as miners in the\nblockchain network.\n
István András Seres, László Gulyás, Dániel Nagy, Péter Burcsi
Bitcoin's Lightning Network (LN) is a scalability solution for Bitcoin allowing transactions to be issued with negligible fees and settled instantly at scale. In order to use LN, funds need to be locked in payment channels on the Bitcoin blockchain (Layer-1) for subsequent use in LN (Layer-2). LN is comprised of many payment channels forming a payment channel network. LN's promise is that relatively few payment channels already enable anyone to efficiently, securely and privately route payments across the whole network. In this paper, we quantify the structural properties of LN and argue that LN's current topological properties can be ameliorated in order to improve the security of LN, enabling it to reach its true potential.
Gourang Aggarwal, Vimal Patel, Gaurav Varshney, Kimberly R. Oostman
Blockchain and its application on cryptocurrency transactions have gathered a lot of attention and popularity since the birth of the pioneer Bitcoin in 2009. More than 1500 cryptocurrencies are currently circulated in the market. The technology underpinning Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies is Blockchain and is a rapidly growing decentralized distributed ledger technology which find its major involvement in cryptocurrencies. But cryptocurrencies are of extremely volatile and fragile nature which makes it difficult to be used as a stable currency for transactions and devoid this market of human trust. Cryptocurrency market is controlled by various social and government factors which keeps it fluctuating. This paper identifies and discusses the important factors that govern the cryptocurrency market and analyzes the impact of these factors. A pilot user survey has also been presented at the end of this paper to understand and demonstrate the societal view of the acceptance of cryptocurrencies.
The use of cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin and Ethereum in performing online transactions has been on the rise in the world. Africa as a continent is not left out in the adoption of blockchain and cryptocurrencies. This paper explores the prospects and challenges of developing a cryptocurrency in Rwanda which we denote Rwandacoin. In addition, the paper discusses the potentials of Rwandacoin easing intercountry trading in East Africa.
Blockchain possesses the potential of transforming global supply chain management. Gartner predicts that blockchain could be able to track $2 T of goods and services in their movement across the globe by 2023, and blockchain will be a more than $3 trillion business by 2030. Nowadays, a growing number of blockchain initiatives are disrupting traditional business models in each sector. In this paper, we provide a timely and holistic overview of the state-of-the-art, challenges, gaps and opportunities in global supply chain and trade operations for both the private sector and governmental agencies, by synthesising a wide range of resources from business leaders, global international organisations, leading supply chain consulting firms, research articles, trade magazines and conferences. We then identify collaborative schema and future research directions for industry, government, and academia to jointly work together in ensuring that the full potential of blockchain is unleashed amidst the socioeconomic, geopolitical and technological disruptions that global supply chains and trade are facing.
Andreas Kamilaris, Ian R. Cole, Francesc X. Prenafeta‐Boldú
Blockchain is an emerging digital technology allowing ubiquitous financial transactions among distributed untrusted parties, without the need of intermediaries such as banks. This chapter examines the impact of blockchain technology in agriculture and food supply chain, presents existing ongoing projects and initiatives, and discusses overall implications, challenges and potential, with a critical view over the maturity of these projects. Our findings indicate that blockchain is a promising technology towards a transparent supply chain of food, with many ongoing initiatives in various food products and food-related issues, but many barriers and challenges still exist, which hinder its wider popularity among farmers and systems. These challenges involve technical aspects, education, policies and regulatory frameworks.
The old mantra of decentralizing the Internet is coming again with fanfare, this time around the blockchain technology hype. We have already seen a technology supposed to change the nature of the Internet: peer-to-peer. The reality is that peer-to-peer naming systems failed, peer-to-peer social networks failed, and yes, peer-to-peer storage failed as well. In this paper, we will review the research on distributed systems in the last few years to identify the limits of open peer-to-peer networks. We will address issues like system complexity, security and frailty, instability and performance. We will show how many of the aforementioned problems also apply to the recent breed of permissionless blockchain networks. The applicability of such systems to mature industrial applications is undermined by the same properties that make them so interesting for a libertarian audience: namely, their openness, their pseudo-anonymity and their unregulated cryptocurrencies. As such, we argue that permissionless blockchain networks are unsuitable to be the substrate for a decentralized Internet. Yet, there is still hope for more decentralization, albeit in a form somewhat limited with respect to the libertarian view of decentralized Internet: in cooperation rather than in competition with the superpowerful datacenters that dominate the world today. This is derived from the recent surge in interest in byzantine fault tolerance and permissioned blockchains, which opens the door to a world where use of trusted third parties is not the only way to arbitrate an ensemble of entities. The ability of establish trust through permissioned blockchains enables to move the control from the datacenters to the edge, truly realizing the promises of edge-centric computing.
The first six months of 2018 saw cryptocurrency thefts of $761 million, and the technology is also the latest and greatest tool for money laundering. This increase in crime has caused both researchers and law enforcement to look for ways to trace criminal proceeds. Although tracing algorithms have improved recently, they still yield an enormous amount of data of which very few datapoints are relevant or interesting to investigators, let alone ordinary bitcoin owners interested in provenance. In this work we describe efforts to visualize relevant data on a blockchain. To accomplish this we come up with a graphical model to represent the stolen coins and then implement this using a variety of visualization techniques.
Block-chain world is very dynamic and there is need for strong governance and underlying technology architecture to be robust to face challenges. This paper considers Ethereum, a leading block chain. We deep dive into the nature of this block chain, wherein for software upgrades forks are performed. They types of forks and impact is discussed. A specific Ethereum hack led to a hard fork and focus is provided on understanding the hack and overcoming it from a novel approach. The current model has been unable to handle multiple Ethereum attacks. Thus the current approach is compared against a novel approach providing a security and scaling solution. Here the architecture draws upon combining block-chain layers into operating system level. The approach can have tremendous benefits to block chain world and improve the way decentralized application teams perform. The benefits of the novel architecture is discussed. The approach helps safe guard block chain projects, making them safer and chain agnostic.
Blockchain, Smart Contracts and Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) are being touted to revolutionise digital services - through decentralisation. Cryptocurrencies, self-sovereign identities, decentralised certificate registries, and transparent voting systems are but a few applications which promise to empower endusers and provide assurances that neither data nor the associated computational logic have been tampered with. Decentralisation, disintermediation, transparency, verifiability, auditability, openness, inclusion, tamper-proof, immutability are just some of the buzz words that continue to be swung around in the promotion of the benefits brought about by Blockchain-based systems to the users. The rhetoric used creates parallels between the features brought about through blockchains and values that many try to uphold, for example honesty, openness, transparency, teamwork and unchanging truth. In this paper a number of blockchain applications aimed at supporting initiatives for common good are highlighted. This is followed by a discussion on technology de/centralisation and a thought experiment used to raise questions regarding the use of decentralised technology in terms of social implications.
The lack of interoperability among IoT platforms has led to a fragmented environment, where the users and society as a whole suffer from lock-ins, lack of privacy, and reduced functionality. This paper presents SOFIE, a solution for federating the existing IoT platforms in an open and secure manner using Distributed Ledger Technologies (DLTs) and without requiring modifications to the IoT platforms, and describes how SOFIE is used to enable two complex real life pilots: food supply chain tracking from field to fork and electricity distribution grid balancing with guided electrical vehicle (EV) charging. SOFIE's main contribution is to provide interoperability between IoT systems while also enabling new functionality and business models.
Current architectures to validate, certify, and manage identity are based on centralised, top-down approaches that rely on trusted authorities and third-party operators. We approach the problem of digital identity starting from a human rights perspective, with a primary focus on identity systems in the developed world. We assert that individual persons must be allowed to manage their personal information in a multitude of different ways in different contexts and that to do so, each individual must be able to create multiple unrelated identities. Therefore, we first define a set of fundamental constraints that digital identity systems must satisfy to preserve and promote privacy as required for individual autonomy. With these constraints in mind, we then propose a decentralised, standards-based approach, using a combination of distributed ledger technology and thoughtful regulation, to facilitate many-to-many relationships among providers of key services. Our proposal for digital identity differs from others in its approach to trust in that we do not seek to bind credentials to each other or to a mutually trusted authority to achieve strong non-transferability. Because the system does not implicitly encourage its users to maintain a single aggregated identity that can potentially be constrained or reconstructed against their interests, individuals and organisations are free to embrace the system and share in its benefits.
The Lightning Network is a so-called second-layer technology built on top of the Bitcoin blockchain to provide "off-chain" fast payment channels between users, which means that not all transactions are settled and stored on the main blockchain. In this paper, we model the emergence of the Lightning Network as a (bond) percolation process and we explore how the distributional properties of the volume and size of transactions per user may impact its feasibility. The agents are all able to reciprocally transfer Bitcoins using the main blockchain and also - if economically convenient - to open a channel on the Lightning Network and transact "off chain". We base our approach on fitness-dependent network models: as in real life, a Lightning channel is opened with a probability that depends on the "fitness" of the concurring nodes, which in turn depends on wealth and volume of transactions. The emergence of a connected component is studied numerically and analytically as a function of the parameters, and the phase transition separating regions in the phase space where the Lightning Network is sustainable or not is elucidated. We characterize the phase diagram determining the minimal volume of transactions that would make the Lightning Network sustainable for a given level of fees or, alternatively, the maximal cost the Lightning ecosystem may impose for a given average volume of transactions. The model includes parameters that could be in principle estimated from publicly available data once the evolution of the Lighting Network will have reached a stationary operable state, and is fairly robust against different choices of the distributions of parameters and fitness kernels.
Industry 4.0 is a concept devised for improving the way modern factories operate through the use of some of the latest technologies, like the ones used for creating the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT), robotics, or Big Data applications. One of such technologies is blockchain, which is able to add trust, security, and decentralization to different industrial fields. This article focuses on analyzing the benefits and challenges that arise when using blockchain and smart contracts to develop Industry 4.0 applications. In addition, this paper presents a thorough review of the most relevant blockchain-based applications for Industry 4.0 technologies. Thus, its aim is to provide a detailed guide for the future Industry 4.0 developers that allows for determining how the blockchain can enhance the next generation of cybersecure industrial applications.
Cryptocurrencies have gained tremendous popularity over the past few years. The purpose of this study is to try to understand the factors that are driving cryptocurrency-related trading activities. Focusing on the well-established cryptocurrency called Bitcoin, we find that online search popularity and the volume of trade in unrelated stock markets positively and negatively, respectively, influence Bitcoin trading volume. We also find no statistical evidence that the underlying sentiment behind relevant financial news influence Bitcoin trading volume. We believe these results might be of great value to investors interested in cryptocurrencies and might instigate further research on this topic.