Blockchain Papers

Luis Ibáñez, Elena Simperl

No abstract is available for this record.

Thomas F Heston

Blockchain technology is a system of creating an immutable, secure, distributed database of transactions. Blockchains were initially created to provide a distributed ledger of financial transactions that did not rely upon a central bank, credit company, or other financial institution. The technological breakthrough, however, has been extended to transactions involving legal matters, medical records, insurance billing, and smart contracts. One primary way that blockchain technology is important to healthcare professionals in that it can revolutionize medical database interoperability. This greater interoperability can help improve access to medical records, imaging archives, prescription databases. Given that a patient’s medical history is a primary cornerstone of good medicine, blockchain technology has the potential to dramatically improve medical care.

Stephan Meyer, Benedikt Schuppli

Die Blockchain-Technologie ist zurzeit in aller Munde. Der vorliegende Aufsatz widmet sich Smart Contracts und deren Einordnung in das schweizerische Vertragsrecht. Der Fokus liegt dabei auf der Qualifikation möglicher Rechtsverhältnisse zwischen Nutzern, Minern und Blockchain-Entwicklern sowie auf den Rechtsfolgen bei Diskrepanzen zwischen Smart Contracts und Verträgen im rechtlichen Sinne. Im Rahmen eines Ausblicks wird schliesslich die Frage erörtert, welche Bedeutung Verträgen in einer Zukunft mit sicheren, autonomen und pseudonymen Systemen zukommen wird.

Folake Alabi

No abstract is available for this record.

Vinay Reddy Mallidi, V. Madhu Viswanatham, P. Ashok Kumar

For the past few years, the market has changed a lot and it has become dynamic and demanding which has put the market into a competitive environment. The supply chain plays a crucial role to adapt the business to the dynamic environment as it is very reliant on collaboration integration as well as flexibility. The applications related to the supply chain have gotten the attention of many business owners and to improve the flow control of the supply chain many specialized applications are implemented. One of the most important new technological applications in the supply chain is blockchain technology which has garnered the attention of many business owners as it can be quickly adapted to dynamic market conditions and in the business environment. One upon reading this will get to know about the effect of blockchain technology utilization on this field. The results of the research paper recommend that companies invest in blockchain technology so that the supply chain becomes more transparent, flexible, and secure. There is no doubt in the fact that blockchain technology plays an important role in developing trust with the stakeholder of the supply chain. In the end, the research paper has also given some considerations on the implications that are positive as well as the potential of the blockchain in the field of collaboration and integration.

Rupsha Bagchi

The Internet of Things is a proliferating industry, which is transforming many homes and businesses, making them smart. However, the rapid growth of these devices and the interactions between these devices, introduces many challenges including that of a secure management system for the identities and interactions of the devices. While the centralized model has worked well for many years, there is a risk of the servers becoming bottlenecks and a single point of failure, thereby making them vulnerable to Denial-of-Service attacks. As a backbone of these interactions, Blockchain is capable of creating a highly secure, independent and distributed platform. Blockchain is a peer to peer, distributed ledger system that stores all the transactions taking place within the network. The main purpose of the servers that form a part of the distributed system is to provide a consensus, using various consensus algorithms, on the state of the blockchain at any given time and to store a copy of all the transactions taking place. This thesis explores the Blockchain technology in general and investigates its potential with regard to access management of constrained devices. A proof of concept system has been designed and implemented that demonstrates a simplified access management system using Ethereum Blockchain. This was done to check whether the concept can be applied at a global level. Although the latency of the network depends on the computing power of the resources participating in the Blockchain, an evaluation of the proof of concept system has been made, keeping in mind the smallest device that can be involved in the consensus process. Docker containers have been used to simulate a cluster of the nodes participating in the Blockchain, in order to examine the implemented system. An outline of the various advantages and the limitations of Blockchains in general, as well as the developed proof of concept system, has also been provided.

Marina Echebarría Sáenz

espanolLa aparicion de contratos en formato electronico y autoejecutables es el resultado logico del progresivo proceso de automatizacion en la distribucion y en el internet de las cosas. Nuestro regimen legal integra sin dificultad este formato de contratacion, pero conseguir un proceso totalmente automatizado implica recurrir a mecanismos de pago en red que no siempre se adaptan al tipo contractual. El uso del dinero electronico y las monedas virtuales como el bitcoin cubren esta funcion pero la escasa o nula regulacion de las monedas virtuales y su doble caracter de unidad de valor y unidad de cuenta dificultan la funcionalidad y seguridad juridica del uso de las tecnologias Blockchain en formatos estandarizados y automatizados de contratacion. EnglishThe appearance of smart contract in electronic and self-executable format, is the logical result of the progressive process of automation in the distribution and on called “Internet of things”. Law integrates this contracting format without difficulty, but achieving a fully automated process involves using online payment mechanisms that are not always adapted to the contractual type. The use of electronic money and virtual currencies, such as bitcoin, cover this function, but the scarce or null regulation of virtual currencies and their double character, as a unit of value and a unit of account, make the functionality and legal security of the use of Blockchain technologies difficult in standardized and automated contracting formats

Runar Alvseike, Geir Arne Gjersvoll Iversen

Bitcoins original idea proposed a trustless monetary system, without the need of
\nintermediaries. In recent years, these very intermediaries it originally tried to circumvent, have
\ngained an increased interest in Bitcoin’s underlying technology, the Blockchain. It presents a
\ndecentralized database technology, suitable for exchanging value in an untrusted environment.
\nConsequently, it introduces an innovation in both economics and information technology.
\nIn this explorative study, we aim to investigate how Bitcoin and Blockchain technology may
\nimpact the monetary and financial system. By conducting 20 in-depth interviews from a broad
\nrange of stakeholders and a literature review in this new topic of interest, we have identified
\ntwo main themes introduced with this new technology. First, we seek to understand how the
\nfuture of money could unfold with Cryptocurrencies and Central Bank issued Digital Currency
\n(CBDC). The former is recognized to have a series of specialized architectures, spanning from
\nsimple monetary transactions to complex platforms enabling a decentralized economy to
\nevolve. CBDC is not necessarily reliant on blockchain technology, but the of digitally issued
\ncurrencies and blockchains introduces new fiscal and monetary policy toolkits. There are
\nhowever a series of intricate questions that needs to be addressed before CBDC could act as a
\ncomplement or replacement for physical currency. Lastly, we explore how the future of
\nfinance will be affected by blockchain technology and the cryptoeconomy. Banks may be
\nfacing increased competition from new entrants, where blockchain technology may facilitate
\nreduced costs in terms of regulatory compliance, efficiency in transactions and settlement, and
\nreconciliation. Moreover, new financial services are introduced by financial technology
\ninnovation. This might change the business model of banks and other financial institutions
\ndrastically. Furthermore, cryptocurrencies introduce new funding possibilities and enables
\norganizations to evolve with no governing body. This might facilitate a new economic system,
\ncalled the cryptoeconomy.
\nDevelopment in blockchain technology is mentioned to be at the same maturity stage as the
\nInternet by the early 1990s. There are several uncertainties regarding its future applications.
\nHowever, smart contracts seems to be an interesting application, facilitating automation in a
\nrange of applications.

Lin Chen, Lei Xu, Zhimin Gao, Nolan Shah · 6 authors

Transaction system build on top of blockchain, especially smart contract, is becoming an important part of world economy. However, there is a lack of formal study on the behavior of users in these systems, which leaves the correctness and security of such system without a solid foundation. Unlike mining, in which the reward for mining a block is fixed, different execution results of a smart contract may lead to significantly different payoffs of users, which gives more incentives for some user to follow a branch that contains a wrong result, even if the branch is shorter. It is thus important to understand the exact probability that a branch is being selected by the system. We formulate this problem as the (+-)-Biased Ballot Problem as follows: there are n voters one by one voting for either of the two candidates A and B. The probability of a user voting for A or B depends on whether the difference between the current votes of A and B is positive or negative. Our model takes into account the behavior of three different kinds of users when a branch occurs in the system -- users having preference over a certain branch based on the history of their transactions, and users being indifferent and simply follow the longest chain. We study two important probabilities that are closely related with a blockchain based system - the probability that A wins at last, and the probability that A receives d votes first. We show how to recursively calculate the two probabilities for any fixed n and d, and also discuss their asymptotic values when n and d are sufficiently large.

Syeda Sumbul Hossain, Samen Anjum Arani, Md. Tanvir Rahman, Touhid Bhuiyan · 6 authors

In every nation, democratic elections are a momentous and weighty occurrence, and the voting system that is now in place requires the use of ballots or electronic voting machines (EVM). Transparency, poor turnout, vote manipulation, distrust of electoral organizations, fabrication of unique IDs (voting party IDs), and delays in posting results are some of the issues that arise as a result of these procedures. The matter of safety is of the utmost importance. When considering the installation of a computerized voting system, voter confidentiality has always been one of the most important concerns. There is no question regarding the system's capability to secure itself in contrast to prospective assaults and safeguard data in the face of such big choices. Utilization of blockchain technology is one approach that might be taken to resolve security concerns. The blockchain technology has an endless number of different uses that might be implemented. The technology known as blockchain is a distributed ledger that makes it possible for peer-to-peer networks all over the world to handle digital assets. In this context, distributed ledger technology represents an intriguing development. A grouping of all transactions is referred to as a block. Immutability, decentralisation, security, transparency, and anonymity are some of the outstanding properties offered by blockchain technology. The combination of blockchain technology with smart contracts has shown promise as a viable option for the development of trustworthy and open-source electronic voting systems. In this article, we demonstrate how to use blockchain technology with the help of a wallet and the Solidity programming language to build an electronic voting application. The programme was designed as a smart contract for the Ethereum network. In order to avoid having the same person vote twice, the user's wallet will only hold a certain number of tokens (gas), which will be depleted each time the user casts a vote. This article talks about the pros and cons of using blockchain technology. It also shows a practical solution in the form of a web app for voting and analyses its limits.

Michèle Ruta, Floriano Scioscia, Saverio Ieva, Giovanna Capurso · 5 authors

Generally scarce computational and memory resource availability is a well known problem for the IoT, whose intrinsic volatility makes complex applications unfeasible. Noteworthy efforts in overcoming unpredictability (particularly in case of large dimensions) are the ones integrating Knowledge Representation technologies to build the so-called Semantic Web of Things (SWoT). In spite of allowed advanced discovery features, transactions in the SWoT still suffer from not viable trust management strategies. Given its intrinsic characteristics, blockchain technology appears as interesting from this perspective: a semantic resource/service discovery layer built upon a basic blockchain infrastructure gains a consensus validation. This paper proposes a novel Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) based on a semantic blockchain for registration, discovery, selection and payment. Such operations are implemented as smart contracts, allowing distributed execution and trust. Reported experiments early assess the sustainability of the proposal.

Maria Letizia Perugini

Italian Abstract: Questo studio si propone di analizzare il complesso delle novità introdotte al sistema dei pagamenti e al trasferimento di diritti da Distributed Ledger e Blockchain, in una prospettiva che tenga conto delle applicazioni di mercato di queste innovazioni tecnologiche e della tutela giuridica degli interessi economici e delle posizioni soggettive che ne derivano. In particolar modo, l’opera vuole stimolare la discussione volta alla definizione di un quadro normativo socialmente adeguato che sostenga l’efficienza di questi strumenti in un’ottica di scambio economico globalizzato. English Abstract: This essay aims at analyzing the ensemble of innovation introduced by Distributed Ledger and Blockchain to the payment system and the transfer of rights, in a perspective considering the market applications of these new technologies and the legal protection of deriving economics interests and individual rights. Purposely, our dissertation aspires to encourage the discussion for the definition of a socially adequate legal framework sustaining the efficiency of these instruments in a global exchange perspective.

Dominik Harz

Blockchains address trust through cryptography and consensus. Bitcoin is the first digital currency without trusted agents. Ethereum extends this technology by enabling agents on a blockchain, via smart contracts. However, a systemic trust model for smart contracts in blockchains is missing. This thesis describes the ecosystem of smart contracts as an open multi-agent system. A trust model introduces social control through deposits and review agents. Trust-related attributes are quantified in 2,561 smart contracts from GitHub. Smart contracts employ a mean of three variables and functions and one in ten has a security-related issue. Moreover, blockchains restrict computation tasks. Resolving these restrictions while maintaining trust requires verifiable computation. An algorithm for verifiable computation is developed and implemented in Solidity. It uses an arbiter enforcing the algorithm, computation services providing and verifying solutions, and a judge assessing solutions. Experiments are performed with 1000 iterations for one to six verifiers with a cheater prior probability of 30%, 50%, and 70%. The algorithm shows linear complexity for integer multiplication. The verification depends on cheater prior probability and amount of verifiers. In the experiments, six verifiers are sufficient to detect all cheaters for the three prior probabilities.

Robert Leonhard

No abstract is available for this record.

Anastasia Olegovna Barinova, Sergey Zapechnikov

Currently, business processes become more and more complicated. Data used in these processes circulates mainly through the digital communications. Due to these conditions some kind of electronic contracts for business deals becomes necessary. Smart contracts should describe a set of conditions, implemented through some events in the real world and digital systems. The most important requirement for this technology is privacy ensuring. In this work we have explored existing projects of privacy-preserving smart contracts, defined comparison criteria, compared projects and made a conclusion about options required for smart contract frameworks.

Nicolas Herbaut, Nicolas Negru

The constant rise of over-the-top video consumption nowadays challenges the current Internet architecture. In this article, we propose a user-centric approach that helps the necessary reshaping of the content delivery ecosystem. We study how blockchain-powered smart contracts and network service chaining can be exploited to support such novel collaboration schemes. Finally, our findings suggest that the proposed solution can complement existing technologies by supporting a wide range of business cases while at the same time significantly reducing costs.

Marc Sel, Henning Diedrich, Sander Demeester, Harald Stieber

This paper explains the main features of and motivation for the “report once” demonstrator1 shown at the 2017 Data For Policy conference. It shows how Ethereum2 smart contracts, based on the semantics and algorithmic representations defined in ACTUS3 can implement “digital doppelgängers” of financial contracts. <br> <br> The implementation makes use of a private4 Ethereum blockchain, with smart contracts written in Solidity.5 The limitations of using ACTUS in a semi real-time scenario are explored, as well as how to overcome these limitations. <br> <br> The major innovation, visualized by the demonstrator, is that compliance reports can be generated in semi realtime, using the information present in the “digital doppelgängers”, residing in the blockchain. <br> <br> The demonstrator supports various use cases, illustrated through the narration of stories. In these stories, Alice, Bob and Eve are contracting parties, Romeo acts as regulator, and the narrator tells the stories. The stories cover trading a Bond, trading an Interest Rate Swap (IRS), the defaulting of a party (i.e. a payment stop), and various types of regulatory reports. <br>

Antonio T. F. Lou, Eldon Y. Li

Financial technology (FinTech) is the new business model and technology which aims to compete with traditional financial services and blockchain is one of most famous technology use of FinTech. Blockchain is a type of distributed, electronic database (ledger) which can hold any information (e.g. records, events, transactions) and can set rules on how this information is updated. The most well-known application of blockchain is bitcoin, which is a kind of cryptocurrencies. But it can also be used in many other financial and commercial applications. A prominent example is smart contracts, for instance as offered in Ethereum. A contract can execute a transfer when certain events happen, such as payment of a security deposit, while the correct execution is enforced by the consensus protocol. The purpose of this paper is to explore the research and application landscape of blockchain technology acceptance by following a more comprehensive approach to address blockchain technology adoption. This research is to propose a unified model integrating Innovation Diffusion Theory (IDT) model and Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) to investigate continuance intention to adopt blockchain technology.

Kristoffer Nærland, Christoph Müller-Bloch, Roman Beck, Søren Palmund

Many decentralized, inter-organizational environments such as supply chains are characterized by high transactional uncertainty and risk. At the same time, blockchain technology promises to mitigate these issues by introducing certainty into economic transactions. This paper discusses the findings of a Design Science Research project involving the construction and evaluation of an information technology artifact in collaboration with Maersk, a leading international shipping company, where central documents in shipping, such as the Bill of Lading, are turned into a smart contract on blockchain. Based on our insights from the project, we provide first evidence for preliminary design principles for applications that aim to mitigate the transactional risk and uncertainty in decentralized environments using blockchain. Both the artifact and the first evidence for emerging design principles are novel, contributing to the discourse on the implications that the advent of blockchain technology poses for governing economic activity.

John O. McGinnis, Kyle Roche

Modern law makes currency a creature of the state and ultimately the value of its currency depends on the public’s trust in that state. While some nations are more capable than others at instilling public trust in the stability of their monetary institutions, it is nonetheless impossible for any legal system to make the pre-commitments necessary to completely isolate the governance of its money supply from political pressure. This proposition is true not only today, where nearly all government institutions manage their money supply in the form of central banking, but also true of past private banking regimes circulating their notes under the shadow of public law. However, bitcoin represents a potential third currency regime far more resistant to state control because it mints currency units that exist in no physical place, places a numerical ceiling on the number of units that can be created, and relies on scientific principles from cryptography to guarantee that ceiling and verify any person-to-person transfer. The trust required is not in any government but in the decentralized order of those who verify bitcoin transactions and those who create the software these verifiers choose to run on their connected computers.\nThis Article explores the fundamental structure of bitcoin, first by demystifying it as a technology, and second by showing how its decentralized order contrasts with other currency regimes. Unlike governments that use the power of law to compel action, bitcoin relies on a system of built-in incentives to encourage behavior that benefits not only those seeking to use bitcoin, but also bitcoin miners—those who voluntarily undertake the task of maintaining the payment network. While currently bitcoin is too volatile to compete with all but the worst government-issued currencies, the qualities of this system may give bitcoin a long-term advantage over many currencies. As the bitcoin ecosystem continues to grow, its nonlegal order can help it climb the rungs of stability created by distrust in government.\nThe technology underpinning bitcoin is the next point of innovation in the digital age—the same era that has already seen software create institutional disruption from Amazon, Facebook, and Uber, among many others. As bitcoin gains in popularity, it offers a platform for other kinds of technological alternatives to traditional legal regimes, like smart contracts. Bitcoin’s order without currency law will facilitate other forms of order with less law.\nThis is a propitious time for fundamental examination of bitcoin. Despite experiencing significant speculation and volatility throughout late 2017 and early 2018, its ten-year history demonstrates a downward trend in volatility and an upward trend in market capitalization.

Alexander Savelyev

No abstract is available for this record.

Marcella Atzori

No abstract is available for this record.

Lene Østergaard Jepsen

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Helen Eenmaa, María José Schmidt-Kessen

No abstract is available for this record.