This comprehensive technical article explores the evolution and architectural landscape of Decentralized Finance (DeFi), examining its transformation from initial implementations to the more sophisticated DeFi 2.0 ecosystem. It investigates the fundamental technical components, including smart contract infrastructure, consensus mechanisms, and cross-chain interoperability solutions that form the backbone of modern DeFi systems. Through a detailed examination of Layer-2 scaling solutions, risk management protocols, and AI-driven analytics, the article highlights how DeFi aggregators are revolutionizing user interactions with decentralized protocols. It further delves into emerging technologies such as zero-knowledge proofs and quantum-resistant cryptography, while addressing critical challenges in security, scalability, and mainstream adoption. By examining both technical innovations and integration challenges, this article provides insights into how DeFi is reshaping traditional financial systems through decentralized protocols and smart contracts while emphasizing the importance of balancing innovation with security and regulatory compliance in the evolving blockchain landscape.
This study presents a blockchain-based voting system aimed at enhancing election security, transparency, and integrity. Traditional voting methods face growing risks of tampering, making it crucial to explore innovative solutions. Our proposed system combines blockchain's immutable, decentralized ledger with advanced voter identity verification techniques, including digital identity validation through Aadhaar and Driving Licenses (secured via BLAKE2b-512 hashing), biometric fingerprint authentication, and a picture rotation pattern for added security. Votes are recorded transparently and securely on a blockchain, with a consensus mechanism ensuring data integrity and reducing the risk of unauthorized alterations. Security analysis indicates that this multi-layered approach significantly reduces impersonation risks, while blockchain ensures accurate, private, and tamper-resistant vote recording. The findings support that a blockchain-based voting system with robust identity checks offers a trustworthy alternative to traditional methods, with potential for even greater refinement in secure and transparent elections.
Blockchain is an emerging technology that enables new forms of decentralized software architectures, where distributed components can reach agreements on shared system states without trusting a central integration point. Blockchain provides a shared infrastructure to execute programs, called smart contracts, and to store data. Since blockchain technologies are at an early stage, there is a lack of a systematically organized knowledge providing a holistic view on designing software systems that use blockchain. We view blockchain as a component of a bigger software system, which requires patterns for using blockchain in the design of the software architecture. In this paper, we collect a list of patterns for blockchain-based applications. The pattern collection is categorized into five categories, including interaction with external world patterns, data management patterns, security patterns, structural patterns of contracts, and user interaction patterns. Some patterns are designed considering the nature of blockchain and how blockchains can be specifically introduced within real-world applications. Others are variants of existing design patterns applied in the context of blockchain-based applications and smart contracts.
The evolution of supply chain analytics has been accelerated by digital transformation, with Digital Twins, the Internet of Things (IoT), and Blockchain emerging as pivotal technologies for creating resilient, data-driven business operations. Traditional supply chains face challenges such as demand fluctuations, logistical inefficiencies, supply disruptions, and lack of real-time visibility. Advanced supply chain analytics, powered by Artificial Intelligence (AI) and big data, enables organizations to transition from reactive to predictive and prescriptive decision-making, optimizing efficiency and mitigating risks. Digital Twins facilitate real-time simulations of physical supply chain processes, allowing businesses to model disruptions, optimize inventory, and improve logistics planning before implementing changes in the physical world. IoT-enabled devices, such as smart sensors and RFID trackers, provide continuous monitoring of goods in transit, ensuring visibility into factors like temperature, location, and shipment integrity. Meanwhile, Blockchain technology enhances supply chain transparency, traceability, and security, enabling secure data sharing and fraud prevention in multi-stakeholder ecosystems. These technologies collectively enable organizations to achieve real-time supply chain optimization, proactive risk management, and sustainable operations. However, challenges such as data standardization, integration complexity, and cybersecurity risks must be addressed for seamless implementation. This paper examines the methodologies, industry applications, and future potential of advanced supply chain analytics, providing strategic insights into how businesses can leverage Digital Twins, IoT, and Blockchain to enhance agility, reduce operational costs, and build resilient global supply networks.
Mohammad Yaser Mofatteh, Ujjwal Khadka, Omid Fatahi Valilai
Energy management can be designed from different perspectives including production, distribution, and consumption. Focusing on consumption perspective, manufacturing systems can be enhanced by enabling smart machines as agents which operate with their own knowledge representation models in a shopfloor. These agents can benefit from industry 4.0 enablers like IoT including sensors, controllers, and actuators. This paper focuses on how these agents can interoperate with each other and exchange knowledge to optimize energy consumption. Since different knowledge models may not be capable of interacting with other ones based on their different provider semantics. This paper explores the application of blockchain technology for secure, decentralized storage and sharing knowledge models in smart energy systems. The research introduces EnerChain as a blockchain-integrated and a decentralized application (DApp) system prototype that employs smart contracts for access management and conflict resolution. It also incorporates the InterPlanetary File System (IPFS) for efficient off-chain storage, addressing scalability concerns. The feasibility and practicality of this approach are demonstrated through the development of EnerChain. The findings highlight the significant potential of blockchain technology in facilitating efficient knowledge model management for smart shopfloors. Additionally, an operational scenario has been evaluated as a case study for the proposed conceptual model to illustrate how it can solve energy conflicts in a smart environment. An impact analysis at the end of this research shows that EnerChain can make annual 27.5 TWh reduction in residential energy consumption which yields to annual 7.8 million tonnes reduction in CO 2 emissions and annual âŹ8.25 billion financial benefits.
N. Hafidi, Zakaria Khoudi, Mourad Nachaoui, Soufiane Lyaqini
Accurate cryptocurrency price forecasting is crucial for investors and researchers in the dynamic and unpredictable cryptocurrency market. Existing models face challenges in incorporating various cryptocurrencies and determining the most effective hyperparameters, leading to reduced forecast accuracy. This study introduces an innovative approach that automates hyperparameter selection, improving accuracy by uncovering complex interconnections among cryptocurrencies. Our methodology leverages deep learning techniques, particularly Recurrent Neural Networks (RNNs) and Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) networks, in conjunction with the Genetic Algorithm (GA) to optimize hyperparameters. We propose and compare two architectures, LAO and LOEE, utilizing these methods to enhance forecast accuracy and address the challenges of the cryptocurrency market. This cutting-edge approach not only improves forecasting capabilities but also provides valuable insights for managing cryptocurrency investments and conducting research. By automating hyperparameter selection and considering interconnections between cryptocurrencies, our approach offers a practical solution for accurate cryptocurrency price prediction in a dynamic market environment, benefiting both investors and academics.
The rapid growth of the blockchain ecosystem and the increasing value locked in smart contracts necessitate robust security measures. While languages like Solidity and Move aim to improve smart contract security, vulnerabilities persist. This paper presents Smartify, a novel multi-agent framework leveraging Large Language Models (LLMs) to automatically detect and repair vulnerabilities in Solidity and Move smart contracts. Unlike traditional methods that rely solely on vast pretraining datasets, Smartify employs a team of specialized agents working on different specially fine-tuned LLMs to analyze code based on the underlying programming concepts and language-specific security principles. We evaluated Smartify on a dataset for Solidity and a curated dataset for Move, demonstrating its effectiveness in fixing a wide range of vulnerabilities. Our experimental results show that Smartify (Gemma2+Codegemma) achieves state-of-the-art performance, surpassing existing LLMs and even enhancing the capabilities of general-purpose models, such as Llama 3.1. Notably, Smartify can incorporate language-specific knowledge, such as the nuances of Move, without requiring massive language-specific pretraining datasets. This work offers a detailed analysis of the performance of various LLMs on smart contract repair, highlighting the strengths of our multi-agent approach and providing a blueprint for developing more secure and reliable decentralized applications in the growing blockchain landscape. We also provide a detailed description to extend the proposed technology to other similar use cases.
H.C. Zhang, Shike Li, Shike Li, Hang Bao ¡ 6 authors
The rapid development of blockchain technology has driven the widespread application of decentralized applications (DApps) across various fields. However, DApps cannot directly access external data and rely on oracles to interact with off-chain data. As a bridge between blockchain and external data sources, oracles pose potential risks of malicious behavior, which may inject incorrect or harmful data, leading to trust and security issues. Additionally, with the surge in data requests, the disparity in oracle trustworthiness and costs has increased, making the dynamic selection of the most suitable oracle for each request a critical challenge. To address these issues, this paper proposes a Trust-Aware and Cost-Optimized Blockchain Oracle Selection Model with Deep Reinforcement Learning (TCO-DRL). The model incorporates a comprehensive trust management mechanism to evaluate oracle reputation from multiple dimensions and employs an improved sliding time window to monitor reputation changes in real time, enhancing resistance to malicious attacks. Moreover, TCO-DRL uses deep reinforcement learning algorithms to dynamically adapt to fluctuations in oracle reputation, ensuring the selection of high-reputation oracles while optimizing node selection, thereby reducing costs without compromising data quality. We implemented and validated TCO- DRL on Ethereum. Experimental results show that, compared to existing methods, TCO-DRL reduces the allocation rate to malicious oracles by more than 39.10% and saves over 12.00% in costs. Furthermore, simulated experiments on various malicious attacks further validate the robustness and effectiveness of TCO-DRL
Cellular networking is advancing as a wireless technology to support diverse applications in vehicular communication, enabling vehicles to interact with various applications to enhance the driving experience, even when managed by different authorities. Security Credential Management System (SCMS) is the Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) for vehicular networking and the state-of-the-art distributed PKI to protect the privacy-preserving vehicular networking against an honest-but-curious authority using multiple authorities and to decentralize the trust management. We build a Blockchain-Based Trust Management (BBTM) to provide even greater decentralization and security. Specifically, BBTM uses the blockchain to 1) replace the existing Policy Generator (PG), 2) manage the policy of each authority in SCMS, 3) aggregate the Global Certificate Chain File (GCCF), and 4) provide greater accountability and transparency on the aforementioned functionalities. We implement BBTM on Hyperledger Fabric using a smart contract for experimentation and analyses. Our experiments show that BBTM is lightweight in processing, efficient management in the certificate chain and ledger size, supports a bandwidth of multiple transactions per second, and provides validated end-entities.
Francesco Bacchiocchi, Jiarui Gan, Matteo Castiglioni, Alberto Marchesi ¡ 5 authors
Principal-agent problems model scenarios where a principal incentivizes an agent to take costly, unobservable actions through the provision of payments. Such problems are ubiquitous in several real-world applications, ranging from blockchain to the delegation of machine learning tasks. In this paper, we initiate the study of hidden-action principal-agent problems under approximate best responses, in which the agent may select any action that is not too much suboptimal given the principal's payment scheme (a.k.a. contract). Our main result is a polynomial-time algorithm to compute an optimal contract under approximate best responses. This positive result is perhaps surprising, since, in Stackelberg games, computing an optimal commitment under approximate best responses is computationally intractable. We also investigate the learnability of contracts under approximate best responses, by providing a no-regret learning algorithm for a natural application scenario where the principal has no prior knowledge about the environment.
We develop a dynamic model of the Bitcoin market where users set fees themselves and miners decide whether to operate and whom to validate based on those fees. Our analysis reveals how, in equilibrium, users adjust their bids in response to short-term congestion (i.e., the amount of pending transactions), how miners decide when to start operating based on the level of congestion, and how the interplay between these two factors shapes the overall market dynamics. The miners hold off operating when the congestion is mild, which harms social welfare. However, we show that a block reward (a fixed reward paid to miners upon a block production) can mitigate these inefficiencies. We characterize the socially optimal block reward and demonstrate that it is always positive, suggesting that Bitcoin's halving schedule may be suboptimal.
Hanish Gogada, Christian Berger, Leander Jehl, Hans P. Reiser ¡ 5 authors
Byzantine Fault-Tolerant (BFT) protocols play an important role in blockchains. As the deployment of such systems extends to wide-area networks, the scalability of BFT protocols becomes a critical concern. Optimizations that assign specific roles to individual replicas can significantly improve the performance of BFT systems. However, such role assignment is highly sensitive to faults, potentially undermining the optimizations' effectiveness. To address these challenges, we present OptiLog, a logging framework for collecting and analyzing measurements that help to assign roles in globally distributed systems, despite the presence of faults. OptiLog presents local measurements in global data structures, to enable consistent decisions and hold replicas accountable if they do not perform according to their reported measurements. We demonstrate OptiLog's flexibility by applying it to two BFT protocols: (1) Aware, a highly optimized PBFT-like protocol, and (2) Kauri, a tree-based protocol designed for large-scale deployments. OptiLog detects and excludes replicas that misbehave during consensus and thus enables the system to operate in an optimized, low-latency configuration, even under adverse conditions. Experiments show that for tree overlays deployed across 73 worldwide cities, trees found by OptiLog display 39% lower latency than Kauri.
In the context of blockchain, MEV refers to the maximum value that can be extracted from block production through the inclusion, exclusion, or reordering of transactions. Searchers often participate in order flow auctions (OFAs) to obtain exclusive rights to private transactions, available through entities called matchmakers, also known as order flow providers (OFPs). Most often, redistributing the revenue generated through such auctions among transaction creators is desirable. In this work, we formally introduce the matchmaking problem in MEV, its desirable properties, and associated challenges. Using cooperative game theory, we formalize the notion of fair revenue redistribution in matchmaking and present its potential possibilities and impossibilities. Precisely, we define a characteristic form game, referred to as RST-Game, for the transaction creators. We propose to redistribute the revenue using the Shapley value of RST-Game. We show that the corresponding problem could be SUBEXP (i.e. $2^{o(n)}$, where $n$ is the number of transactions); therefore, approximating the Shapley value is necessary. Further, we propose a randomized algorithm for computing the Shapley value in RST-Game and empirically verify its efficacy.
Abstract Blockchain technology is increasingly used to ensure the authenticity of product information in supply chains. As digital transparency becomes a key factor in modern commerce, the evaluation of blockchainâs value becomes important. In this paper, we model a supply chain with a manufacturer and an online retailer to study the role of blockchain in the marketplace and wholesale price models. Particularly, we take consumer quality preference into account and examine its impact on blockchain adoption. We discuss how blockchain ensures the authenticity of quality information shared between the manufacturer and retailer while improving consumersâ perceived product value. Our findings indicate that blockchain enhances information transparency and reduces the impact of commissions on pricing in the wholesale price model, which is beneficial to both the manufacturer and the retailer. This is significantly advantageous when quality-conscious consumers dominate the marketplace model. We recommend that the manufacturer and retailer should assess consumer preferences for product quality and carefully weigh the cost of implementing blockchain. Blockchain reduces constraints from commission-driven pricing, offering greater flexibility in business model selection. Additionally, transparency improvements are crucial when implementing blockchain in the marketplace model.
Blockchain is a decentralized digital ledger that records transactions across a distributed network of computers, enabling secure and transparent operations without requiring trust in a central authority. While initially developed for Bitcoin, blockchain technology now underpins many cryptocurrencies and other applications. It serves as an open trust layer without central reliance and is widely used in cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin and Ethereum. However, this public and permanent open storage has raised concerns about its potential misuse for illegal trades or the distribution of unwanted content. In EuroS&P 2017, Ateniese et al. introduced the concept of the redactable blockchain, which utilizes the trapdoor collision function provided by chameleon hash to rewrite block contents without causing hashing inconsistencies. Recent research has continued to propose solutions for redactable blockchains, leveraging cryptographic algorithms such as chameleon hash and attribute-based encryption (ABE). Current solutions often employ sophisticated cryptographic schemes, such as ABE, but lack sufficient focus on developing secure and scalable solution for practical use. In this work, we propose the time-verifiable policy-based chameleon hash (TPCH) as a candidate solution for practical redaction to rewrite blockchain contents. Our solution for redactable blockchains enables the verification of whether a redaction was executed at a specific time, thereby offering time-based traceability for dominant algorithms in TPCH. Additionally, it restricts misbehavior or abuse of redaction powers by introducing a new trapdoor finding algorithm, Update, in addition to the adapt algorithm Adapt. We formally introduce TPCH with both black-box and white-box constructions. Our experimental and theoretical analysis demonstrates the feasibility and practicality of the proposed solution.
Blockchain technology, with its decentralization as well as tamper-proof characteristics, has achieved wide application in major fields in recent years. However, because of the potential of privacy leakage that comes with its transparency, privacy protection technology has emerged as a key area of current blockchain research. The first step involves reviewing the blockchain's architecture and selecting a summary of the privacy threats posed by the four layers of the blockchain: data, network, transaction, and application. Next, it concentrates on describing the two more significant types of blockchain privacy protection technology: zero-knowledge proof and homomorphic encryption. The former is developed from its fundamental ideas, application scenarios in the blockchain, and performance and security analysis. Conversely, zero-knowledge proof is derived from three from three aspects of its basic concept, application in blockchain, and technical challenges; finally, the privacy protection technology in blockchain is summarized and a prediction of its future research direction development is made.
Currently, PAKE (Password Authenticated Key Exchange) protocols on lattice using a single-server architecture are widely applied. However, such protocols are vulnerable to server leakage attacks, dictionary attacks, and other threats. To address these issues, researchers have proposed multi-server and two-server architecture-based PAKE protocols. However, PAKE protocols in a multi-server architecture require the use of complex cryptographic primitives such as signatures, and zero-knowledge proofs to ensure security, which reduces the execution efficiency of the protocol. To tackle these challenges, we propose two new multi-server password authentication key exchange protocols based on the MLWE (Module learning with errors) problem. Both protocols rely on MLWE instances, using Peikert's error coordination technique to enable two parties with similar values to compute the same result. Furthermore, we introduce the error pairing assumption and proves its security within random oracle model. The proposed protocol divides the password information into different shares and stores them on separate servers. In protocol 1, all servers and user collaboratively generate session keys, making it suitable for high-security application scenarios. In protocol 2, both user and servers generate session keys individually, which is ideal for high-efficiency application scenarios. Compared to similar protocols, both protocols lower computation and communication costs, better addressing practical application needs while providing protection against quantum computing attacks and server leakage threats.
With the continuous development of blockchain technology, an increasing number of scholars have begun to consider the harm of data leakage during on-chain transactions and the requirement for privacy data protection. Zero-knowledge range proof, as a cryptographic technology, can perform legitimacy verification of data while hiding private data, effectively realizing the protection of private data on the blockchain, so it is increasingly used to protect blockchain privacy. The mainstream construction methods for range proofs can be mainly divided into two categories: n-ary decomposition and square decomposition. This paper introduces and analyzes the advantages and disadvantages of these construction methods in detail. Then, based on these two methods, a zero-knowledge range proof scheme based on multibit split square decomposition (ZKRPMSSD) is proposed, which requires no trusted third-party setting and can achieve range proofs for arbitrary ranges. The proposed ZKRPMSSD scheme processes the original data based on the multibit split idea, and the acquisition method of secret value components is optimized so that the acquisition of components does not depend on the scale of the original problem. Additionally, the algorithms for proof generation and verification in the ZKRPMSSD scheme are redesigned based on the \(\Sigma\) protocol and Pedersen commitments, effectively reducing the computational cost of the proof generation and verification process. Finally, typical n-ary decomposition and square decomposition zero-knowledge range proof construction schemes are taken for comparative analysis. Under 256-bit security and the same problem scale, experimental results indicate that ZKRPMSSD has advantages in proof and verification time costs.
Open access
Cryptography and Data Security
Digital Filter Design and Implementation
Advanced Steganography and Watermarking Techniques
Our research investigates the predictive performance and robustness of machine learning classification models and technical indicators for algorithmic trading in the volatile cryptocurrency market. The main aim is to identify reliable approaches for informed decision-making and profitable strategy development. With the increasing global adoption of cryptocurrency, robust trading models are essential for navigating its unique challenges and seizing investment opportunities. This study contributes to the field by offering a novel comparison of models, including logistic regression, random forest, and gradient boosting, under different data configurations and resampling techniques to address class imbalance. Historical data from cryptocurrency exchanges and data aggregators is collected, preprocessed, and used to train and evaluate these models. The impact of class imbalance, resampling techniques, and hyperparameter tuning on model performance is investigated. By analyzing historical cryptocurrency data, the methodology emphasizes hyperparameter tuning and backtesting, ensuring realistic model assessment. Results highlight the importance of addressing class imbalance and identify consistently outperforming models such as random forest, XGBoost, and gradient boosting. Our findings demonstrate that these models outperform others, indicating promising avenues for future research, particularly in sentiment analysis, reinforcement learning, and deep learning. This study provides valuable guidance for navigating the complex landscape of algorithmic trading in cryptocurrencies. By leveraging the findings and recommendations presented, practitioners can develop more robust and profitable trading strategies tailored to the unique characteristics of this emerging market.
In competition law, where economic analysis and pragmatism reign, methods of interpretation generally seem to have distinctly marginal relevance. Quite rarely do antitrust or merger decisions depend on whether the applicable provisions are interpreted âtextuallyâ or âpurposivelyâ.1 Yet the Court of Justice of the European Unionâs (EU) appellate judgment in Illumina/Grail,2 overturning the General Court of the EU,3 almost reads like a manual on methods of legal interpretation. Based on a literal, historical, contextual, and teleological (purposive) reading of Article 22 of the EU Merger Regulation (EUMR),4 the Court of Justice held that a national competition authority may not request the European Commission to examine a merger that does not meet the relevant national merger thresholds. The judgment is a setback to the Commissionâs attempts to work around the limits of turnover-based thresholds for the assessment of so-called âkiller acquisitionsâ. This contribution makes three main claims. First, while the Court of Justice goes to great lengths to demonstrate that its own historical, contextual, and teleological interpretation of Article 22 is better than that of the General Court, from a strictly legal perspective, its judgment is no more or less convincing than that of the General Court. At important points, the reasoning of the Court of Justice ties itself in knots, and the judgment is equally flawed in its attempt to establish the âoriginal meaningâ of Article 22 EUMR. Secondly, the Illumina/Grail judgmentâs reliance on the various policy objectives of the EU Merger Regulation, particularly its effectiveness, predictability, and legal certainty, in my view fails to persuasively show that its own decision better ensures predictability and legal certainty than the General Courtâs judgment. Although the Court of Justiceâs judgment is based on inconclusive and partly contradictory arguments, its conclusion is not obviously wrong either. So, what to make of Illumina/Grail? My third claim is that the judgment seems primarily shaped by a judicial intuition, or âhunchâ, that there is something fishy about the Commissionâs interpretation of Article 22. It seems, more specifically, that the Commission was unable to explain and justify its new understanding of the alleged original meaning of Article 22: before the Illumina/Grail merger, for several years, the Commission had instead âdeveloped a practice of discouraging Member States from requesting under Article 22 the referral of transactions for which they did not have jurisdictionâ.5 Though the General Court showed that the literal meaning of Article 22 essentially endorses the Commissionâs novel viewpoint, there is something uncanny about how the Commission exercised administrative discretion to take back control over killer acquisitions and other potentially problematic mergers that nonetheless do not meet European and national notification thresholds. The hunch is that this cannot be within the scope of the Commissionâs administrative discretion. And although all of the Court of Justiceâs arguments are either inconclusive or can be turned on their head (or both), the outcome of the case is entirely attuned to this hunch. Originalism is the predominant method of constitutional interpretation in American law. In Europe, most jurisdictions eschew a myopic focus on one particular method of interpretation, rather recognizing the utility of various methods such as literal, contextual, historical and teleological interpretation. Even in Europe, however, interpreting statutes is often aimed at finding the original intention of the legislature, though it is usually believed that this intention may be identified not only through preparatory documents, but also through scrutiny of the text, context, and purpose of the provision. In this sense, statutory interpretation in many jurisdictions including EU law is frequently a search for the âoriginal meaningâ of the provision. This search for original meaning may include the question of how the legislature may have intended the provision to apply to changing, possibly even unforeseen, circumstances. Thus, the core question is the following: how did the EU legislature intend Article 22 to apply to below-threshold mergers? Through a literal, historical, contextual, and teleological investigation of Article 22, both the General Court and the Court of Justice were trying to answer this question. In this methodological sense, they were on the same originalist page. One of the starting points of this inquiry is whether we should look at the original meaning of the initial adoption of the Article 22 referral mechanism in Regulation 4064/89, or whether, instead, the analysis should focus on the original meaning of Article 22 of the succeeding Regulation 139/2004. The General Court in particular held that the meaning of Article 22 had changed since the adoption of Regulation 4064/89.6 As the number of national merger control systems increased after 1989, according to the General Court, Article 22 no longer applied only to referrals by Member States without any merger control; it also became a means to strengthen merger control of below-threshold concentrations with cross-border effects and to ensure the âone-stop-shopâ principle in EU merger control.7 At the hearing before the Court of Justice, however, the Commission was asked precisely whether the meaning of Article 22 had changed since 1989, which the Commission answered in the negative.8 The Court of Justice was not convinced either.9 More generally, in the eyes of the Court of Justice, the General Courtâs originalism was flawed. Arguably, the Court of Justice did not dismiss outright the historical, contextual, and teleological arguments on which the General Court had relied upon. Rather, the Court of Justice considered them inconclusive. In turn, the Court relied on other contextual and teleological arguments that, in its view, were dispositive to reach another outcome. For example, the General Court had relied on several Commission documents from the 1990s and early 2000s to cast light on the alleged intention of the legislature in regard to the proper interpretation of Article 22.10 It had also referred to several contextual factors, including, but not limited to the fact that the notification thresholds in Article 1 of the EU Merger Regulation are âwithout prejudice to [âŚ] Article 22â,11 the fact that Article 22(1) does not expressly require the national competition authority requesting a referral to the Commission to be itself competent to assess the merger,12 and the fact that the Commission may inform any Member State that a concentration, in the Commissionâs view, fulfils the criteria of Article 22(1).13 According to the Court of Justice, these factors may be relevant but do not conclusively establish the conclusions of the Commission and the General Court.14 The reason is that the General Court had failed to also take into account other contextual factors. These other contextual factors include, notably, that Article 22 differs from Article 4(5) EUMR, which provides for another referral mechanism for concentrations that do not have a European dimension on the basis of the EUMRâs notification thresholds, but which are capable of acquiring such a dimension under specific conditions.15 In contrast, mergers referred to the Commission under Article 22 do not have, nor do they acquire, a European dimension; the Commission rather replaces the national referring authority or authorities, which according to the Court of Justice implies that the referring authority or authorities must be competent in the first place.16 Like the contextual factors taken into account by the General Court, however, this argumentâalthough indeed it supports Illumina and Grailâs positionâdoes not conclusively establish the right interpretation of Article 22. It is not clear why the argument based on Article 4(5) EUMR carries more weight than the contextual factors relied upon by the General Court. The same applies to the Court of Justiceâs argument that Article 22 should be interpreted in light of Article 1(4) and (5) EUMR, which enable the Council to revise the EUMRâs notification thresholds.17 The fact that the Council is competent to revise the jurisdictional scope of the EUMR in general surely does not irrefutably establish that an exception, which has already been deliberately included in the same instrument by the same legislature, should be interpreted more narrowly than its express formulation suggests. A similar critique applies to the Court of Justiceâs teleological interpretation. The Court rejects the General Courtâs reliance on recital 11 of the EUMR, which describes the various referral mechanism in the EUMR as a âcorrective mechanismâ. The General Court inferred from this recital that Article 22 intends to remedy deficiencies in the merger control system.18 The Court of Justice counters that recital 11 was only inserted in Regulation 139/2004 and was not included in its predecessor, Regulation 4064/89.19 In other words, that recital cannot support a finding of the âoriginal intentâ of the EU legislature regarding the Article 22 referral mechanism. But that does not prove the contrary proposition either. The Court of Justice moves on and observes recital 15 of the EUMR, which states, among others, that when a national authority refers a merger under Article 22, â[o]ther Member States which are also competent to review the concentration should be able to join the requestâ (emphasis added).20 It follows, says the Court, that the initial Member State to request the referral of a merger to the Commission must be competent.21 However, the core case to which Article 22 undisputably applies is a situation where a Member State does not have any national merger control rules and wishes the Commission to assess a particular concentration.22 In such a situation, the Member State requesting the referral obviously is not competent to scrutinize the concentration simply because it has no merger control system at all. On this point, the reasoning of the Court of Justice is apparently contradictory. Interestingly, while the Court of Justice rejects on originalist grounds the teleological arguments made by the General Court, the Courtâs claim that it has not been established that Article 22 is âintended to remedy deficiencies in the control system inherent in a scheme based principally on turnover thresholdsâ23 is unsupported by any reference to legislative history. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence: this truism poses a major challenge for any attempt to find the original meaning of Article 22 (and, arguably, to originalism as a method of interpretation in general). Even more remarkably, the Court of Justice glances over the apparent contradiction between, on the one hand, the claim that Article 22, read in light of recital 11, only intends to correct the allocation of competences between the Commission and the national authorities,24 and, on the other hand, the undisputed fact that Article 22 intends to apply to a situation where the referring Member State does not have any national merger control rules.25 How can Article 22 correct the allocation of competences between the Commission and a national authority which lacks any competence to assess a concentration because its Member State does not have a system of merger control? In other words, up to paragraph 201, none of the Courtâs arguments proverbially knock down the General Courtâs judgment. Let us consider a simple thought experiment that reverses the respective positions of the EU courts: suppose the General Court had invoked all of the contextual and teleological reasons that the Court of Justice relies on, to conclude that Article 22 should be interpreted as precluding a referral below the national notification thresholds. The Court of Justice could have dismissed any of these as inconclusive in exactly the same way that it dismissed the General Courtâs actual reasoning, and could have relied on exactly those arguments provided by the (actual) General Courtâs judgment to conclude that a referral below national notification thresholds is possible. The core of the Court of Justiceâs reasoning, in fact, seems to be in paragraphs 202 to 218, where it relies on âa number of objectives which [the EUMR], taken as a whole, seeks to pursueâ,26 namely the âone-stop-shopâ principle, a clear allocation of tasks between the Commission and the Member States, and more generally the âeffectiveness, predictability and legal certainty that must be guaranteed to the parties to a concentrationâ.27 These objectives were quite clearly salient for the adoption of the EUMR, but as such they are inconclusive in regard to the proper interpretation of Article 22. This is why the Court of Justice criticizes the General Court, not for neglecting these objectives, but for âupset[ting] the balanceâ among them.28 While predictability and legal certainty are legal principles, they are vague ones that are always balanced against other objectives. The exact balance among them often remains unsettled by legislation itself, which makes this primarily a policy question. Indeed, in paragraphs 202 to 218, we mostly find arguments of policy, not originalism. And even though the Court throws in a reference to the principle of institutional balance as part of EU constitutional law,29 such is no longer part of the ambition to conclusively establish the original meaning of Article 22. From paragraph 202 onwards, originalism is left behind. Thus, the search for the ârealâ or âoriginalâ intent of the EU legislature, for all the intellectual heavy lifting in both EU Courtsâ judgments, ends quite disappointingly. Both courts did not conclusively establish the original meaning of Article 22. Like the major debates over what the Framers of the US Constitution actually intended, the quest for the original meaning of Article 22 is probably a dead end.30 If the Court of Justiceâs originalist reasoning is equally flawed as the General Courtâs, what about the policy arguments that the Court relied on in paragraphs 202 to 218âthe âeffectiveness, predictability and legal certainty that must be guaranteed to the parties to a concentrationâ?31 The Court connects effectiveness, predictability, and legal certainty to the requirements of âsound administrationâ and âthe business worldâ.32 For the Court, it follows that any exceptions to the turnover-based thresholds for notification should be interpreted narrowly. In paragraph 209, the Court almost goes as far as to say that turnover-based thresholds are indispensable for legal certainty. It would be for the EU legislature to amend these thresholds, not for the Commission to circumvent them through Article 22.33 The gap in the reasoning of the Court is that, despite the Courtâs strong emphasis on the âcardinal importanceâ of turnover-based thresholds34 and the prerogative of the legislature to amend them,35 it is precisely the legislature that expressly provided for multiple referral mechanisms deviating from these turnover-based notification thresholds. According to the plain meaning of Article 22, there is no requirement that the concentration meets any national notification threshold, let alone a turnover-based one. It is also not obvious that the interpretation by the Court of Justice results in a greater degree of legal certainty than the General Courtâs judgment. The Court may have been anxious about a radical expansion of the Commissionâs powers, in the words of Advocate General Emiliou, to review almost any concentration, occurring anywhere in the world, regardless of undertakingsâ turnover and presence in the European Union and the of the and at any in including after the of the However, as the Advocate General the scope of Article 22 is limited by criteria that a concentration must meet in to be referred to the it must between the Member States, and it must to competition within the of the Member State or States the One may not be convinced that these criteria are to the jurisdictional scope of the EUMR. On the other hand, the of for the national competition authority and the Commission to demonstrate that the concentration competition within the Member the request cannot be dismissed as The Court of Justice these criteria in its strong support of turnover-based thresholds, in the of their in Article 22. Secondly, as other have Illumina/Grail Member States to for to scrutinize concentrations below their notification the Court of Justiceâs in fact, the Commission already to Member States to make of such A of these would Illumina/Grail and may the predictability and legal certainty at the core of the Courtâs to an expansion of national requirements and to those provided by Article the Court of Justice refers to the for national competition authorities to scrutinize concentrations below national notification thresholds under Article the However, this predictability and legal certainty to the of an Article 22 In to the and more even than the of powers, the of Article may take several years, which the outcome and are to The Court also that Member States may also their national notification the Courtâs to the legislative is particularly however, is usually in regard to the interpretation of vague or As Article 22 is A in legal has on the factors that may judicial the more of this are the of the so-called American legal including and as as pragmatism in for example, by Though these as a there are and methodological among for relies on economic analysis as one of the in In contrast, in an in US the of and in judicial describes the as or that a seems and to make decision that seems to the according to and general of view, as the that to from the is right in general is the of a of into the and of and make no attempt to answer this question. In any judicial hunch may a better of Illumina/Grail than the legal and policy arguments invoked in the judgment. is the hunch Illumina/Grail? It is essentially that a major in the law and practice of Article 22 referrals simply should not be by a of of the in to particular policy objectives. The Commissionâs on to have been particularly by three main of a Commission to scrutinize the of originalist support for the Commissionâs and the of a for the Commissionâs of about Article 22 As to the first as Advocate General that one by means of an original interpretation of Article 22 EUMR, the Commission the to review almost any concentration, occurring anywhere in the world, regardless of undertakingsâ turnover and presence in the European Union and the of the and at any in including after the of the the Commissionâs was that that not be the case as the Commission has no in that frequently and with in that This answer may be but it is the wrong More specifically, this is a wrong answer to a in search of a interpretation of Article 22. The better by the that its under Article 22 remains by the criteria of that as in the Advocate General that 15 may be to those and that this interpretation of Article 22 may scrutiny of a concentration that not to have and effects within the referring Member what this is problematic may be in light of the equally for the assessment of a concentration by the However, the Court of Justice to the provided by Article 22 and apparently them The by the Court of Justice is that and as provided by turnover-based notification thresholds, are of âcardinal for âthe business It is to with this viewpoint, even though it is an rather than an originalist or strictly legal The namely of originalist support for the Commissionâs also clear from the Advocate On the Commission was apparently on the exact historical of its interpretation of Article 22: The Commission was asked at the hearing whether the alleged scope of is the first of Article 22(1) EUMR was already there in the original in when that provision was in or when the new EUMR was in The Commission without that such a scope was there from the that in Article as in the of this was also a wrong Advocate General that such is the the of documents the Regulation is less the with which the Commission had that the scope of Article 22 had been from the was not expressly by any of the legislative documents from either before the adoption of Regulation or between and of express originalist support of not problematic in legal However, about an to scrutinize mergers not any of the national notification thresholds a hunch to the could be by other but this probably The Commission apparently could This to the third that to have the Commissionâs namely the of a for the Commissionâs of about Article 22. The reasons for this policy are and no but can it also be by a legal The for a legal argument would be the in the is interpretation to However, the Court of Justice is generally not to itself to a literal interpretation even where the is or seems to be in its the Commission in regard to its practice that the of national for merger control in almost all Member States, the in the discretion to it by the Merger Regulation, a practice of discouraging referral under Article 22 from Member States that did not have original over the at (emphasis The clearly aimed to demonstrate that the Commissionâs practice was not by any of law. However, this was not by originalist argument either. it that the Commission was simply unable to answer about the basis of its in Thus, it was unable to the hunch that there was something fishy about this what the Commission could in to salient but inconclusive legislative was the plain meaning of Article 22 and the of able to take control over killer These are not But on the we a expansion of administrative about whether such expansion was intended by the legislature, and a clear between this expansion and policy of the Commission This does not and it probably a judicial hunch that to Illumina/Grail is a first of all because of the methodological and of both the General Courtâs and the Court of Justiceâs The judgment is also however, because of the with which the Court of Justice rejects the General Courtâs reasoning as without a clearly of reasoning In whether this judgment better ensure predictability and legal certainty remains to be but the of and Article would make this If the outcome in Illumina/Grail is principally the of a judicial this is not to the judgment most are at partly by intuition, and it may not be a However, Illumina/Grail and the judicial hunch also to a in the between the General Court and the Court of Justice, namely the number of in which the General Court is This number seems may be many reasons for such and they would be to Illumina/Grail the question of how the Court of Justice whether the General Court has made an of and what exactly is an of in a like EU competition law, where law, and policy are The Court of Justice may have considered the General Courtâs reasoning inconclusive and but is that to of an of there is no to be simply because the answer to the originalist question of what the legislature to is are not because we are but we are only because we are reads the by US Court Justice This is for all This however, should not and from the important question of whether they with a judgment either because it is or because a judgment would have been in the law, policy, and hunch are to
Valentina Villa, Luca Gioberti, Marco Domaneschi, F. Necati ĂatbaĹ
The civil engineering sector operates within a complex ecosystem of stakeholders, requiring efficient management and maintenance of structural and infrastructural assets. In this context, there is an increasing need for robust tools to track critical events (e.g., alerts, unusual behaviors) and support decision-making processes related to maintenance and interventions. At the same time, ensuring secure and prompt payments is essential for timely and effective responses. This paper investigated the potential of smart contracts, integrated with blockchain technology, to automate and optimize asset management and maintenance processes. The proposed framework examines how these technologies can enhance operational efficiency, security, and event traceability, providing a structured approach for both routine operations and emergency interventions. Although smart contracts have been widely applied in the construction phase of infrastructure projects, their use in long-term asset management remains largely unexplored. As a conceptual study, this work does not present a quantitative analysis but instead lays the groundwork for future research and real-world applications of blockchain-based smart contracts in infrastructure management and safety procedures.
Within the framework of high-frequency volatility modeling, this study investigates the realized volatility spillover dynamics across major cryptocurrencies over an extended period of time. Using a Time-Varying Parameter Vector Autoregression (TVP-VAR) model of the realized volatility (RV), this work constructs the Total Connectedness Index (TCI) and Pairwise Connectedness Index (PCI) to measure the intensity and direction of realized volatility transmission within this digital asset network. Our findings reveal a consistently high level of spillovers among these leading cryptocurrencies, with notable peaks during periods of global market turbulence. Notably, Ethereum emerges as the most influential volatility transmitter, challenging the traditional view of Bitcoin as a primary driver of volatility spillovers. This reflects Ethereumâs pivotal role in decentralized finance (DeFi), decentralized applications (dApps), and its growing trading activity, suggesting a shifting influence in the increasingly diversified cryptocurrency ecosystem.
In 2021, El Salvador declared bitcoin legal tender. According to President Nayib Bukele, the measure was intended to expand access to financial services in a country with a high proportion of unbanked people and to cheapen and ease remittance flows for migrants and their families. In this article, we inquire about the use of bitcoin as a tool for financial inclusion and contend that this policy needs to be seen in the broader context of democratic backsliding. We show that bitcoin has not translated into financial inclusion, but instead, the bitcoin law serves as a public relations tool to capture new support from like-minded constituencies, build closer relations with them, and empower international âcrypto-bros.â On the other hand, this is a tool to benefit a close circle close to the president with the use of public funds, as part of a broader historical shift of elites in El Salvador.