This study aims to provide a comprehensive science mapping and bibliometric analysis of the FinTech landscape within Islamic banking and finance. It deciphers the intellectual structure and thematic evolution of the field during the transformative window from 2017 to early 2026. Methodology: Utilizing the Scopus database, a dataset of 725 scholarly documents was extracted and analyzed. The research employs a multi-tool approach, integrating R-Bibliometrix (Biblioshiny) for longitudinal performance analysis and VOSviewer for visualizing keyword co-occurrence and institutional collaboration networks. The PRISMA 2020 protocol was followed to ensure methodological transparency. Findings. The results reveal an exponential surge in scientific production, characterized by an impressive annual growth rate of 28.42%. Malaysia and Indonesia emerge as the primary global knowledge hubs, with the International Islamic University Malaysia leading institutional contributions. The analysis identifies three core intellectual clusters: (1) Blockchain and Cryptocurrencies, (2) AI and Regulatory Compliance, and (3) Financial Inclusion and Institutional Stability. Thematic evolution indicates a strategic shift from basic FinTech adoption toward advanced applications in Artificial Intelligence, Ethical Technology, and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Originality,
Digital technologies are transforming supply chain management by enabling greater connectivity, transparency, and coordination among supply chain partners. In forestry supply chains, characterized by dispersed resources, multiple stakeholders, and complex operational processes, collaborative governance has become increasingly important for improving coordination and sustainable resource management. However, existing studies mainly focus on operational optimization and digital applications, while the governance implications of digital technologies remain insufficiently explored. This conceptual article explores how digital technologies may enable collaborative governance capability in forestry supply chains through four governance mechanisms: information sharing, resource integration, collaborative decision-making, and adaptive governance. Based on collaborative governance and digital transformation literature, a conceptual framework is proposed to illustrate how digital technologies may support governance processes through the Internet of Things, big data analytics, cloud computing, blockchain, and artificial intelligence. The article provides theoretical insights into digital-enabled collaborative governance and practical implications for sustainable forestry supply chains.
We study auctions where two positions are sold to unit-demand bidders with private heterogeneous order preferences: some are specialists who value only the first position, while others are generalists who are indifferent between the two. First, we consider a standard first-price rule which allocates the first and second items to the highest and second-highest bidders, respectively. We show that no strategy profile ex-post implements the efficient allocation at every type profile, irrespective of payments, and provide a distribution-free equilibrium welfare guarantee of $\frac{1}{2}$. To augment this result, we prove that for deterministic one-round auctions and discrete bids, the efficient allocation requires each bidder to communicate at least one bit more than its bid's binary representation. We next ask what the same bit accomplishes in winner-pays-bid formats where bidders can also specify specific item preferences. In particular, we show that this strengthens our distribution-free equilibrium welfare guarantee to $1-\frac{1}{e}$. Finally, we discuss our results' applicability to priority service auctions and blockchain transaction sequencing.
Solidity has undergone 116 version iterations between August 2015 and February 2026, during which compiler updates have introduced behavioral changes, including issues later fixed in subsequent releases. Contracts compiled under specific versions may exhibit version-dependent execution behaviors, particularly in low-level code. These differences are often difficult for developers and users to recognize, creating opportunities for adversaries to exploit legacy compiler behaviors and deploy contracts with potentially deceptive outcomes. We define this issue as the Compiler Version Discrepancy (CVD) risk , where attackers leverage compiler-version-dependent behaviors to produce misleading or unfair outcomes while contracts appear functionally benign. We summarize five representative CVD risk patterns from real compiler inconsistencies. To mitigate this risk, we develop the CompileGuard detection tool. It combines Abstract Syntax Tree (AST) analysis, taint analysis, and symbolic execution with Control Flow Graph (CFG) analysis to identify version-sensitive code patterns. Evaluation on 227 smart contracts shows CompileGuard achieves an overall F1 score of 95.22%. A user study with 21 blockchain practitioners shows contracts exploiting CVD risks can mislead users, while detection reports enable all participants to correctly identify risk-inducing behaviors. These results highlight the practical exploitability of CVD risks and the effectiveness of automated detection in preventing such deception.
Because Bitcoin typically exhibits higher volatility than traditional assets, evaluating and managing its risk is essential. We estimate Bitcoinâs potential maximum drawdowns (MDDs) using Monte Carlo simulations based on a stochastic jump process and assess the likelihood of substantial declines in the coming years. Based on our results, the simulation results suggest that an MDD of at least 60% is highly probable within three to four years, while an MDD of at least 70% appears plausible within five years. Moreover, our sensitivity analysis indicates that the MDD of Bitcoin is most strongly influenced by jump intensity. These results offer critical insights for market participants seeking to analyze Bitcoinâs downside risk and formulate strategies to navigate potential market downturns.
Abstract The rapid digitization of healthcare has brought Electronic Health Records (EHRs) to the forefront of clinical data management; however, persistent challenges of centralized control, privacy breaches, absence of patient data ownership, and the inability to support decentralized scientific collaboration continue to impede scalable healthcare research ecosystems. Recent advances in Decentralized Science (DeSci) introduce a paradigm shift by leveraging blockchain, cryptographic primitives, and decentralized governance to enable transparent, trust-minimized, and collaborative biomedical research. This paper proposes a DeSci-driven lightweight hybrid blockchain framework designed to support privacy-preserving and incentive-aware decentralized healthcare research infrastructure. The framework integrates a permissioned blockchain with a lightweight hybrid PBFTâPoA consensus protocol, off-chain storage, and Zero-Knowledge Proof (ZKP)-based authentication to enable secure, privacy preserving data access without disclosing user identity. A tokenomics-based DAO governance layer is incorporated to support decentralized engagement, transparent policy enforcement, and incentive-driven research participation. The proposed system is evaluated through simulation under varying network conditions, with key performance metrics â latency, throughput, and computational cost â assessed across network sizes from 10 to 50 nodes. Simulation-based projections suggest that the proposed framework may achieve lower latency, higher throughput, and improved computational efficiency relative to literature-reported values for MedRec, FHIRChain, and HealthChain under the stated modeling assumptions; these comparisons are model-based and illustrative rather than measurements obtained from a controlled, identical-environment deployment. Beyond data management, the framework enables a DeSci-oriented research lifecycle encompassing decentralized data contribution, validation, and provenance tracking. The simulation-only nature of the current evaluation is explicitly acknowledged as a limitation, with a clear roadmap toward prototype-level implementation on Hyperledger Fabric or Ethereum as immediate future work.
This paper investigates whether prediction market settlements create incentives for temporary price pressure in Bitcoin spot markets. Using high-frequency data from February 2025 to January 2026 and actual contract-level data from Polymarket and Kalshi to identify economically relevant contract strikes, we document basis divergence between settlement oracle exchanges (Coinbase) and non-constituent exchanges (Binance) during expiry windows. Employing a difference-in-differences framework with month fixed effects, we find that a one standard deviation increase in strike proximity is associated with a 6.7 basis point constituent exchange price deviation during settlement windows. The estimate is precise under the baseline minute-level HAC specification, while exact paired-month permutation inference based on 12 settlement events yields p=0.0256; equal-weight event aggregation produces a larger negative estimate, indicating event heterogeneity. Monthly directional patterns are suggestive, though stricter event-level and above-versus-below-strike tests provide mixed evidence on directional asymmetry. Taken together, these findings provide reduced-form evidence consistent with settlement-related incentives and may raise broader settlement-design considerations for decentralized financial systems. However, the analysis does not directly observe trader intent or the underlying mechanism.
This study examines whether connectedness among green bond returns, Bitcoin returns, market uncertainty, and geopolitical risk differs systematically across market states. Using a Quantile Vector Autoregression (QVAR) framework, we estimate connectedness across lower-tail, median, and upper-tail market conditions. To assess statistical reliability, we report bootstrap confidence intervals and difference-based tests and benchmark the quantile estimates against a conventional mean-based VAR. The mean-based benchmark closely matches connectedness around the median quantile. By contrast, system-wide connectedness is significantly stronger in both tails than around the median, as confirmed by difference-bootstrap tests. The direct green bond â Bitcoin linkage is stronger in the lower tail than under normal market conditions, although its net direction is not robustly identified across quantiles. Directional spillovers suggest a more prominent transmitting role for market uncertainty around the median and for geopolitical risk in the upper tail, although these differences should be interpreted cautiously. Overall, the findings indicate that conventional mean-based analysis adequately characterizes connectedness under normal market conditions but cannot capture the pronounced intensification of connectedness observed in the tails.
Paying online often means sharing card details with merchants, advertising platforms, software providers, and payment processors. For freelancers, agencies, online sellers, and small teams, that can create unnecessary exposure: a compromised merchant account, an unexpected renewal, or a card number reused across several services may turn into a difficult cleanup project. A virtual card funded through a USDT top up offers another way to separate online spending from a primary bank account while keeping budgets easier to manage. This approach is not a promise of anonymity, approval, or freedom from verification. A responsible provider may still require identity checks, transaction monitoring, and information about the source of funds. The practical benefit is financial separation and control. Instead of giving every website direct access to a bank-linked card, you can use a dedicated card for approved online purchases, review the conversion terms, and keep records for accounting and compliance. Why use USDT to fund a virtual card USDT is a dollar-pegged digital asset commonly used to move value between supported wallets and platforms. When a card provider accepts USDT, it may convert the deposited amount into the card's spending balance, subject to its network, supported blockchain, confirmation requirements, fees, and compliance procedures. This can be useful for users who already hold USDT and want to pay merchants that accept ordinary card payments rather than cryptocurrency directly. The main operational advantage is separation. A dedicated virtual card can be assigned to advertising, SaaS subscriptions, supplier purchases, or a single project. If the card must be frozen or replaced, the issue may be contained to that spending channel instead of requiring changes across a personal bank account and every recurring payment connected to it. How the funding process usually works A typical flow has three stages: you create or select a card, send USDT to a deposit addre Full article attached as Markdown. Published for vccbusiness.com.
A decentralized system faces a fundamental governance tension: its governancerules are themselves amendable, which means that the metaârules stipulating howrules are modified are also at risk of being revised. Starting from the paradox ofselfâamendment uncovered by legal philosopher Peter Suber, this paper argues thatthis logical dilemma is not a purely philosophical speculation but a structural difficulty that repeatedly arises in the practice of blockchain constitutionalism. Underthe tenet thatâcode is law,âcodeâbased rules bear the metaâgovernance functionsthat in a constitutional structure ought to be carried by constitutional provisions,yet code logically cannot set an insurmountable boundary for its own amendmentauthority. In response, this paper proposes a layered metaâconstraint security architecture: metaâconstraints are divided into an unmodifiable layer of logical constants, a layer of cognitive virtues formulated through community constitutionalprocedures, and a layer of value homeostasis adjusted through public deliberationand evolution; the trustworthiness of metaâconstraints is anchored in the logicalphysical isolation provided by trusted hardware roots. Through the institutionalization of procedures for identifying and attributing metaâconstraints, this paperdemonstrates how forkâexitâbased social verification, cognitionâtesting through independent auditing, and physical anchoring through multiâkey witness mechanismstogether constitute a mutually independent multiâlayered defense system. By examining the 21âmillionâcoin supply cap of Bitcoin, the Ethereum EIP governanceprocess, and the constitutional crisis of The DAO incident as case studies, thispaper reveals the partial instantiation patterns of the threeâtier metaâconstraintarchitecture in existing systems and their failure boundaries. The paper concludesthat the longâterm security of a decentralized system ultimately depends not on theByzantineâfaultâtolerance strength of its consensus algorithm, but on the completeness of its metaâconstraint architectureâthat is, the existence of a set of boundariesthat are hierarchically protected in procedure, isolated and verified in hardware,and socially anchored in consensus, such that the combined cost of breaching themis raised to a level that no actor can afford within the expected life cycle of thesystem.
Financial settlement systems rely heavily on institutional trust: intermediaries maintain ledgers, certifycompliance, and prevent unauthorized creation or movement of value. Zero-knowledge (ZK) techniques make itpossible to replace part of that trust with verifiable properties. This paper presents a minimal ZK settlementlayer designed around a simple principle: prove what must be true, disclose only what must be seen, anddeclare remaining trust explicitly.We describe an architecture in which transfers preserve value, spending authority is proven without sharingspending keys with the operator, double-spending is prevented, and supervisors can verify balance bands orthresholds without receiving the full ledger. We also map the residual trust surface: the operator of a singlenode can still see balances, order transactions, and censor. The contribution is not a claim of full sovereignty ordecentralization. It is a precise shift from opaque institutional faith toward a smaller, named set of trustassumptions, with cryptographic checks covering the rest.We compare this model conceptually with core banking systems and permissioned blockchains, and argue thatthe main institutional value of ZK settlement is not âtrustlessness,â but trust minimization with honestresidual boundaries.This revision subjects that claim to its own standard. An audit pass against the reference implementation foundresidual dependencies the first version of this paper had not named: a confidentiality leak toward thecounterparty rather than the operator, three quantified capacity bounds, and a privilege that is counted butnever expires. We report them in §4.4 and §4.5, because a paper whose contribution is naming residual trust isfalsified by the trust it failed to name.
Digital image steganography has evolved from traditional rule-based techniques to advanced data-driven frameworks enabled by deep learning. However, existing surveys remain fragmented, often focusing on limited aspects while overlooking emerging paradigms such as blockchain-integrated and quantum-based approaches. This paper presents a comprehensive and systematic review of digital image steganography following the PRISMA 2020 guidelines, covering studies published between January 2015 and April 2026 across six major scientific databases. From an initial pool of 26,539 records, 83 relevant studies were selected through a rigorous two-stage screening process. The review provides a unified analysis of steganographic techniques by examining five dimensions: structural evolution and taxonomy, algorithmic modifications and hybridisation, application domain mapping, integration of emerging technologies, and future research trends. Comparative evaluation indicates that deep learning-based methods achieve 18â23% higher steganalysis resistance than classical approaches, whereas classical methods retain a 5â8 dB PSNR advantage. The quantitative synthesis further confirms the inherent capacityâimperceptibilityâsecurity trilemma, wherein no reviewed technique simultaneously achieves $$\text {PSNR} > 42$$ dB, embedding capacity $$> 4$$ bpp, and detection error rate $$> 0.48$$ . Six open challenges and seven future research directions are identified and grounded in evidence from the included studies, with explainable steganography, quantum-resistant frameworks, and latent diffusion model integration emerging as the most critical priorities for advancing the field toward practical and secure deployment.
Open access
Advanced Steganography and Watermarking Techniques
The Technology-Organization-Environment (TOE) framework is widely applied in organizational technology adoption research, yet its measurement practices remain fragmented. Across studies of EDI, cloud computing, blockchain, AI, and other contexts, researchers routinely rename, adapt, or recombine constructs without documenting how their operationalizations relate to prior work, producing a literature that is empirically rich but difficult to accumulate. This study addresses that problem by developing a measurement catalog of 14 reusable TOE constructs drawn from 45 empirical anchor studies. Using a targeted construct-selection approach, the study retained constructs that were peer-reviewed, tested at the firm level, statistically validated, and generalizable across technology domains. Related aliases were consolidated under canonical names through three documented rules based on shared theoretical mechanisms, item-level overlap, and functional equivalence. The catalog organizes constructs across the technological, organizational, and environmental contexts, provides core definitions with recommended measurement facets, and includes representative survey items with reported reliability coefficients. Beyond consolidation, this study identifies persistent gaps, including limited post-adoption measurement, weak readiness-capability differentiation, and underdeveloped governance constructs for emerging technologies. The catalog serves as a practical starting point for researchers designing TOE-based survey instruments and conceptual models, strengthening construct consistency while preserving the frameworkâs flexibility.