Letters of Credit (LCs) are pivotal in global trade finance, yet traditional processes are plagued by inefficiencies, fraud, and a lack of transparency, particularly in developing economies such as Bangladesh. This study investigates how three technological innovations Blockchain Database Integration (BDI), Collaborative Platforms (COP), and Compliance Automation (CAU) drive the evolution of a Sustainable Letters of Credit Supply Chain (SLCSC), mediated through the development of a Technology-based LC Supply Chain (LCSC). Drawing on a sample of 400 LC stakeholders in Bangladesh, the research employed a quantitative methodology using a reflective measurement model. Data were analyzed using Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) in IBM SPSS and Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) in IBM AMOS to assess reliability, validity, and the hypothesized relationships. The results indicate that Compliance Automation exerts a strong, significant positive effect on the LCSC (? = 0.661, p < 0.001) and Collaborative Platforms a weaker but significant effect (? = 0.087, p = 0.04), whereas Blockchain Database Integration has no significant effect (? = 0.016, p = 0.687). The LCSC, in turn, exerts a strong positive impact on the SLCSC (? = 0.938, p < 0.001). The findings demonstrate that compliance automation is the primary enabler of a technology-based LC supply chain, while the influence of blockchain remains constrained by prevailing infrastructural and regulatory conditions. The study’s principal contribution is to disaggregate the technological drivers of trade-finance digitalization into three empirically distinct constructs and to demonstrate that their influence on sustainability is fully mediated by the technology-based LC supply chain, providing structural- model evidence of this mechanism from Bangladesh’s banking sector. The study offers critical insights for banks, businesses, and policymakers seeking to modernize LC operations for enhanced efficiency, security, and eco- efficiency.
The rapid growth of Real World Asset (RWA) tokenization faces a critical vulnerability: the "Physical Oracle Problem." While blockchain ensures digital immutability, it remains blind to the physical state of the underlying asset (e.g., structural degradation in real estate or hidden damage in naval vessels). This document introduces the Prop Trust Verified Standard (PTVS), a comprehensive forensic methodology designed to bridge this gap. Developed by Aurema Group, PTVS establishes a rigorous protocol for physical asset auditing, combining certified judicial expertise (Perito Judicial) with cryptographic anchoring. The methodology ensures that physical inspections, material verifications, and compliance checks are immutably recorded and linked to smart contracts (e.g., ERC-3643), providing institutional-grade trust for Family Offices, tokenization platforms, and regulatory bodies under frameworks like eIDAS (EU 910/2014). This report outlines the core principles, verification workflows, and case study applications of PTVS in real estate and maritime sectors. Español: El rápido crecimiento de la tokenización de Activos del Mundo Real (RWA) enfrenta una vulnerabilidad crítica: el "Problema del Oráculo Físico". Mientras que la blockchain garantiza la inmutabilidad digital, permanece ciega al estado físico del activo subyacente (ej. degradación estructural en inmuebles o daños ocultos en embarcaciones). Este documento presenta el Estándar Prop Trust Verified (PTVS), una metodología forense integral diseñada para resolver esta brecha. Desarrollado por Aurema Group, PTVS establece un protocolo riguroso de auditoría física de activos, combinando la pericia judicial certificada con el anclaje criptográfico. La metodología garantiza que las inspecciones físicas, verificaciones de materiales y controles de cumplimiento se registren de forma inmutable y se vinculen a contratos inteligentes (ej. ERC-3643), proporcionando confianza de grado institucional para Family Offices, plataformas de tokenización y organismos reguladores bajo marcos como eIDAS (UE 910/2014). Este informe detalla los principios fundamentales, flujos de trabajo de verificación y aplicaciones prácticas de PTVS en los sectores inmobiliario y naval.
The global trade finance ecosystem, long characterised by manual documentation, multi-layered intermediation, and protracted settlement cycles, is undergoing a profound structural transformation through the adoption of blockchain-based smart contracts. This article examines two principal objectives: (1) the extent to which smart contracts automate traditional trade finance processes, and (2) the degree to which they reduce systemic dependency on financial and documentary intermediaries. Drawing upon peer-reviewed scholarship, institutional reports, and empirical findings published between 2022 and 2025, the study undertakes a critical analysis of the operational, economic, legal, and societal dimensions of this technological shift. Findings indicate that while smart contracts demonstrably compress settlement cycles, reduce transaction costs, and enhance transparency, significant challenges persist concerning legal enforceability, regulatory fragmentation, and cybersecurity vulnerability. The article concludes with implications for policymakers, financial institutions, SMEs, and society at large.
Blockchain technology has emerged as a foundational digital infrastructure capable of redefining global trade and financial ecosystems through its decentralized, immutable, and trust‐enhancing architecture. By eliminating conventional intermediaries and reducing informational asymmetries, blockchain strengthens transactional transparency, accelerates cross-border settlements, and enhances the authenticity of trade documentation. Its applications including distributed ledgers for supply chain traceability, smart contracts for automated trade finance, and digital identities for customs and compliance are enabling unprecedented operational efficiencies across international logistics and regulatory environments. In the financial domain, blockchain facilitates secure and near-instantaneous value transfers, supports innovative instruments such as asset tokenization, and expands financial accessibility through decentralized finance (DeFi). Central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) further signal a structural transformation in global monetary governance by promoting interoperability and reducing systemic frictions. Despite such transformative potential, significant challenges remain: fragmented regulatory frameworks, scalability constraints, cybersecurity concerns, and the need for harmonized global standards. This study critically evaluates blockchain’s multi-dimensional impact on international trade and financial systems, examining its strategic advantages, evolving use cases, and institutional implications. The analysis underscores that long-term global adoption will require coordinated policy reforms, cross-border regulatory convergence, and robust technological infrastructure. The findings aim to contribute to international scholarly discourse by mapping blockchain’s trajectory as a catalyst for a more transparent, resilient, and integrated global economic order.
Decentralized Finance (DeFi) enables financial services to operate without centralized intermediaries, using smart contracts and blockchain consensus to ensure transparency and trust minimization. While DeFi protocols like Aave and MakerDAO use overcollateralization to mitigate credit risk, this approach creates capital inefficiencies and limits access to borrowers lacking on-chain assets. This paper introduces Inverum, a novel DeFi lending protocol designed to support undercollateralized loans for Web3 businesses and Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs). Inverum integrates on-chain credit scoring via soulbound tokens, decentralized liquidity pools, and governance-driven incentives to enable trustless, reputation-based lending. The protocol offers a fully composable framework for exploring undercollateralized lending without relying on traditional identity or off-chain reputation systems, contributing a research-ready model for future experimentation and protocol design.
Investors may tend to turn to safe-haven assets to avoid high volatility in financial markets and protect themselves from risks during times of uncertainty created by crisis periods. In the study, haven, hedge and diversification characteristics of traditional and digital assets such as gold, silver, US dollar, euro, US 10-year bond, Brent oil, Bitcoin and Ethereum against BIST100, S&P500 and DAX indices were examined using EGARCH (1,1) and DCC-GARCH (1,1) models in seven different crisis periods that have a high impact on global markets, including geopolitical, financial and health crises, using 20-year daily data covering the period 01.01.2005–01.01.2025. The findings indicate that the US dollar has consistently demonstrated strong safe-haven characteristics against the BIST100, S&P 500, and DAX in various crises. The assets that exhibited significant haven characteristics only in one crisis period were gold against the S&P 500, Brent oil, and the Euro against the DAX. The 10-year US bond exhibited safe-haven properties relative to the S&P 500 and DAX during various crisis periods. While no significant results were achieved regarding silver’s haven or hedge characteristics, it was observed that the assets generally played a diversifying role in periods other than those yielding these results. According to EGARCH (1,1) results, Ethereum was identified as a haven candidate against DAX; however, DCC-GARCH (1,1) estimates did not confirm this result.
Widespread reuse of open-source code in smart contract development boosts programming efficiency but significantly amplifies bug propagation across contracts, while dedicated methods for detecting similar smart contract functions remain very limited. Conventional abstract-syntax-tree (AST) based methods for smart contract similarity detection face challenges in handling intricate tree structures, which impedes detailed semantic comparison of code. Recent deep-learning based approaches tend to overlook code syntax and detection interpretability, resulting in suboptimal performance. To fill this research gap, we introduce SmartDetector, a novel approach for computing similarity between smart contract functions, explainable at the fine-grained statement level. Technically, SmartDetector decomposes the AST of a smart contract function into a series of smaller statement trees, each reflecting a structural element of the source code. Then, SmartDetector uses a classifier to compute the similarity score of two functions by comparing each pair of their statement trees. To address the infinite hyperparameter space of the classifier, we mathematically derive a cosine-wise diffusion process to efficiently search optimal hyperparameters. Extensive experiments conducted on three large real-world datasets demonstrate that SmartDetector outperforms current state-of-the-art methods by an average improvement of 14.01% in F1-score, achieving an overall average F1-score of 95.88%.
Smart contracts play a pivotal role in blockchain ecosystems, and fuzzing remains a critical approach to securing them. However, existing smart contract fuzzers often optimize either seed generation or mutation scheduling in isolation and rely on narrow, fragmented feedback signals, leaving multi-transaction reasoning and stagnation recovery under-explored. In this work, we propose aLarge Language Models(LLMs)-based Multi-feedback Smart Contract Fuzzing framework (LLAMA). Key components of the proposed LLAMA include: (i) a hierarchical prompting strategy that guides LLMs to generate structurally valid, context-aware multi-transaction initial seeds, together with a lightweight pre-fuzzing phase that validates and prioritizes high-potential LLM-generated candidates; (ii) a multi-feedback-guided evolutionary optimization module that jointly optimizes seed selection and mutation scheduling by a group of constraints for driving an LLM-bootstrapped bandit scheduler. (iii) an LLM-guided hybrid fuzzing module that integrates evolutionary fuzzing with a dual-channel recovery mechanism, which concurrently employs asynchronous coverage-stagnation- based LLM reseeding and selective symbolic execution to resolve complex path constraints. Our extensive experiments demonstrate that LLAMA outperforms state-of-the-art fuzzers in both coverage and vulnerability detection. Specifically, it achieves 92% instruction coverage on small contracts and 81% on large contracts, while detecting 132 out of 148 known vulnerabilities across diverse categories. Ablation studies further evidence that the proposed multi-feedback and hybrid recovery strategies have strong impact on LLAMA’s performance. The results explain LLAMA’s effectiveness, adaptability, and practicality in complex smart contract scenarios.
Oleh Harmash, Наталія Трушкіна, Kyryl Yevtushenko, Yu. Shkrygun
Currently, smart contracts are recognized as an effective mechanism for managing logistics activities and an innovative technology for managing relationships between a company and consumers based on blockchain. This technology is widely used in various sectors of the economy, including logistics and transport. Many transport companies in different countries of the world are turning to the use of smart contracts in their logistics activities. This is due to the fact that smart contracts simplify the management and processing of documents, contribute to improving the quality and level of service to customers and various groups of stakeholders, transforming the customer relationship management system, and also provide reliable data protection and help transport companies save time on routine operations, which ultimately reduces operating costs. In view of the above, the purpose of the article is to substantiate the need to use smart contacts as a tool to improve the efficiency of logistics management of transport companies in the era of digitalization. As part of the study, a bibliometric analysis of the database of scientific publications was conducted to identify the most cited works and authors. The results of the study will provide a holistic view of the current state and prospects for the development of research on reengineering logistics processes in the activities of transport companies when implementing smart contract technology. The article studies and summarizes scientific approaches to defining the essence and content of the concept of “smart contract”. The features of the use of smart contract technology in the USA, the European Union and Singapore are studied. The main indicators of the development of the smart contract system in the world are analyzed. The sequence of development of the smart contract system in the transport services sector is determined. A matrix of interests and goals of participants in the transport services market, which are provided using smart contract technology, is proposed. C The factors and conditions for the successful implementation of smart contract technology in the logistics activities of a transport company are determined. Alternative scenarios for the transition to smart contract technology as a mechanism for managing the logistics activities of transport companies are proposed.
Semantic code search technology allows searching for existing code snippets through natural language, which can greatly improve programming efficiency. Smart contracts, programs that run on the blockchain, have a code reuse rate of more than 79%, which means developers have a great demand for semantic code search tools. However, the existing code search models still have a semantic gap between code and query and perform poorly on specialized queries of smart contracts. In this paper, we propose a Multi-Modal Smart contract Code Search (MM-SCS) model. Specifically, we construct a Contract Elements Dependency Graph (CEDG) for MM-SCS as an additional modality to capture the data flow and control flow information of the code. To make the model more focused on the key contextual information, we use a multi-head attention network to generate embeddings for code features. In addition, we use a fine-tuned pretrained model to ensure the model's effectiveness when the training data is small. We compared MM-SCS with four state-of-the-art models on a dataset with 470K (code, docstring) pairs collected from Github and Etherscan. Experimental results show that MM-SCS achieves an MRR (Mean Reciprocal Rank) of 0.572, outperforming four state-of-the-art models UNIF, DeepCS, CARLCS-CNN, and TAB-CS by 34.2%, 59.3%, 36.8%, and 14.1%, respectively. Additionally, the search speed of MM-SCS is second only to UNIF, reaching 0.34s/query.
This research explores the impact of Non-Fungible Token (NFT) authentication on purchase intention in new and pre-loved luxury markets, grounded in warranting theory and institution-based trust theory. Using a two-study online experimental design (Study 1: new luxury market, Study 2: pre-loved luxury market), both studies used a one-factor (NFT authentication) and two-level (yes or no) design and PROCESS macro Model 6 for serial mediation analysis. The results from Study 1 indicate that NFT authentication enhances purchase intention through increased warranting value and structural assurance. Study 2 confirmed these serial mediating effects and revealed a direct significant impact of NFT authentication in the pre-loved luxury market, which was not significant in the new luxury market. This study highlights the importance of NFT authentication in enhancing consumer trust and purchase intention in both new and pre-loved luxury markets.
Jan 1, 2025·SOCRATES Rīgas Stradiņa universitātes Juridiskās fakultātes elektroniskais juridisko zinātnisko rakstu žurnāls / SOCRATES Rīga Stradiņš University Faculty of Law Electronic Scientific Journal of Law
Head of Administrative Division of the Constitutional Court of the Republic of Latvia, VSIA “Latvijas Vēstnesis” Journal “Jurista Vārds”, Riga, Latvia, Paula Lipe
This article examines the application of the Rome I Regulation to contracts for the cross-border sale of non-fungible tokens (NFTs), a novel category of digital assets. While NFT transfers are increasingly common in digital commerce, the legal framework for determining applicable law in such transactions remains unsettled. The research adopts a doctrinal legal analytical research method grounded in the systematic interpretation of European Union (EU) legislation, case law, academic commentary and comparative soft law instruments. It focuses on how Articles 3 and 4 of Rome I operate in decentralised, pseudonymous environments where conventional connecting factors such as habitual residence and contract typologies are difficult to apply. The findings demonstrate that although Rome I remains formally applicable, its conceptual foundations—especially the reliance on territorial connecting factors and analogue contract classifications—are tested by emerging realities in NFT sales. The article concludes by identifying areas where interpretative guidance or targeted legislative reform may be necessary to ensure legal certainty and coherence in NFTrelated transactions. Keywords: applicable law; NFT sales; Rome I.
Infrastructure maintenance is inherently complex, especially for widely dispersed transport systems like roads and railroads. Maintaining this infrastructure involves multiple partners working together to ensure safe, efficient upkeep that meets technical and safety standards, with timely materials and budget adherence. Traditionally, these requirements are managed on paper, with each contract step checked manually. Smart contracts, based on blockchain distributed ledger technology, offer a new approach. Distributed ledgers facilitate secure, transparent transactions, enabling decentralized agreements where contract terms automatically execute when conditions are met. Beyond financial transactions, blockchains can track complex agreements, recording each stage of contract fulfillment between multiple parties. A smart contract is a set of coded rules stored on the blockchain that automatically executes each term upon meeting specified conditions. In infrastructure maintenance, this enables end-to-end automation-from contractor assignment to maintenance completion. Using an immutable, decentralized record, contract terms and statuses are transparent to all parties, enhancing trust and efficiency. Creating smart contracts for infrastructure requires a comprehensive understanding of procedural workflows to foresee all requirements and liabilities. This workflow includes continuous infrastructure monitoring through a dynamic, data-driven maintenance model that triggers necessary actions. Modern process mining can develop a resilient Maintenance Process Model, helping Operations Management to define contract terms, including asset allocation, logistics, materials, and skill requirements. Automation and reliable data quality across the procedural chain are essential, supported by IoT sensors, big data analytics, predictive maintenance, intelligent logistics, and asset management.
Sustav za kupnju karata i njihovo spremanje u blockchain koristeći pametne ugovore je projekt koji prikazuje kupovanje i rezerviranje karte za kino pomoću pametnih ugovora, blockchaina i kriptovaluta. Uz pisani dio diplomskog rada, napravljena je i web aplikacija koja pruža korisnicima rezerviranje sjedala za odabranu projekciju, spremanje na blockchain u pametni ugovor na Sepolia Testnet mreži, te pregled svih korisnikovih kupljenih karata. U pisanom dijelu diplomskog rada objašnjene su korištene tehnologije, izrada svakog dijela aplikacije i korištena logika za ostvarivanje funkcionalnosti, popraćeno slikama i dodatnim objašnjenjima na mjestima gdje je to potrebno. Priložen je i cijeli kod aplikacije kako bi se mogao vidjeti način izrade web aplikacije.
Letter of Credit has been used in international transfer of money by exporters and importers for a long time. Thus, it is a very niche and important area in the international trade and banking. Within the scope of this study, 220 publications in the Web of Science database has been reached by using “letter of credit” keywords. There is only one bibliometric analysis on Islamic L/C in the literature but a wider overview is required to gain general perspective about L/C. This is where the originality of this research lies. Bibliometric analysis with VOSviewer and Tableau for these publications covering 1980-2024 has been conducted about citations, organizations, keywords, publication years, sources, fields and countries. As a result; almost half of the publications produced in USA, “Byrne James e” is the most productive author, “Journal of International Economics” is the most cited journal, USA is also leading country in terms of citation, and “Natl. Chung Hsing Univ.” is the leading organization in terms of citation. Moreover, co-occurrence analysis on keywords show that digitalization has huge effect on L/C literature. Keywords like “blockchain”, “smart contracts”, “ethereum”, “BPO” etc. emerged as new trend in the last decade.
Gilda Cecilia Herrera Herrera, Marcia Alexandra Requelme Lojan, Samuel Morales Castro
El presente estudio se centra en la relevancia de la seguridad jurídica y la protección de datos en el contexto específico de los Smart Contract en Ecuador. El objetivo de la investigación es Analizar la validez legal de los Smart Contract tomando como referente la regulación de la seguridad jurídica y la protección de datos personales, como una garantía de los derechos de las partes negociadoras y de terceros interesados. El método utilizado es el exegético, asi como una revisión documental y normativa con los datos obtenidos. Los resultados reflejan que, aun existiendo normas legales en seguridad jurídica y protección de datos, los Smart Contract no tienen una base sólida en el marco legal del Ecuador. Se concluye que los Smart Contract son una evolución en base a tecnología de los contratos tradicionales, existiendo la necesidad de implementar una legislación de rigor al respecto
The smart shipping and maritime technology encompass blockchain and smart contracts technology, information perception technology, intelligent decision-making technology, intelligent routing technology, marine communication network security technology, route planning technology, autonomous navigation technology, state monitoring and fault diagnosis technology and so on. Nevertheless, these advancements bring practical and legal challenges, as well as a new threat in the digital age: cybercrime. This paper deals with the key challenges and opportunities associated with the integration of digital technologies in shipping and transport such as smart contracts and unmanned ships, and how do cyber issues impact the safety, security, and efficiency of maritime operations. The first part examines the technological background into which smart contracts are integrated and operate, i.e. the terms blockchain and technology distributed ledger technology. The concept, the mechanism and the types of smart contracts in the maritime industry are further analysed. Also, the aspects of new technologies such as Autonomous Vessels and the challenges they raise are examined. The second part focuses on the legal potential of smart contracts examining their issues and the cyber challenges in the maritime industry. The critical remarks and conclusions drawn are listed at the end of the paper.
We provide two novel block congestion attacks onEthereum that are applicable even in the presence of the EIP-1559 base fee mechanism, which aimed to make such attacksimpossible or highly costly. Unlike traditional block congestionmethods, our approaches allow the attacker to avoid paying largetransaction fees in case the attack is unsuccessful. Moreover, oursecond attack avoids an explosion in the block base fee and canthus be used for prolonged congestion of an interval of blocks.Finally, we provide real-world examples of contracts currentlydeployed on the Ethereum blockchain which are vulnerableto such attacks. Thus, block congestion is both possible andprofitable, even after EIP-1559.
As the global economy continues to grow, more companies are outsourcing their logistics activities to third-party logistics (3PL) providers. This is because consumers have a high demand for various types of goods delivery, \nincluding for small and large packages, light and heavy items, and so on. As a result, package delivery services have become more competitive, offering a range of services to meet these diverse needs. However, this increase in competition has also made it more important for consumers to carefully consider their options and choose a delivery service that is efficient,cost-effective, and reliable. The solution is to use a logistics recommendation system and smart contracts that allow consumers to easily determine and order logistics services according to their needs. Therefore, in this study the author want to state that this paper as proposed paper.