In the last 10 years the blockchain technology has become mainstream research topic because of its features that offers, as: decentralized system, peer to peer (P2P) transaction, distributed consensus, and anonymity properties. Also, the blockchain technology overshadows regulatory problem and technical challenges and one of the opportunities that offers the blockchain technology is the 'smart contract'. A smart contract is a set of programs that can be much better from the traditional contracts for some features which are self-verifying, self-executing and tamper resistant. Also, smart contract with the integration of blockchain technology without which cannot function, is capable of doing a task in real time with very low cost and provide a greater degree of high security level. The aim of this paper is to explain the concept of the smart contract and its components and function. The paper is aimed at presenting the issue of smart contract, blockchain technology. The specific focus was on the application of smart contracts in real estate.
Muhammad Naveed, Shoaib Ali, Mariya Gubareva, Anis Omri
Using an event study approach, we examine how the forex, metal, energy, and cryptocurrency markets responded to the SVB collapse. We observe that the forex and metal markets respond positively on event and post-event days. In contrast, the cryptocurrency market reacts negatively but generates positive abnormal returns, indicating that investors may seek refuge in these purported safe-havens. However, the energy market responded adversely to the event, and the trend continued in the aftermath. The study advocates the need for monitoring and minimizing financial contagion risk due to the increased interconnectedness of the financial markets. Our findings highlight the perilous consequences of the SVB collapse, as it triggered contagious effects that may spread throughout the global financial markets. Therefore, investors and financial institutions must diversify their portfolios across various asset classes, which can help mitigate the risks of such events.
Ioannis Karamitsos, Maria Papadaki, Khalil Al-Hussaeni, Andreas Kanavos
In the aviation industry, the issuance of airside passes often encounters significant delays, posing logistical challenges and hindering crucial operations. This study delves into the potential of implementing blockchain technology, particularly smart contracts, to streamline and expedite airport security processes. Our analysis of data from leading UK airports reveals notable inefficiencies in the current airside pass issuance procedures, necessitating a transformative solution. We advocate for the integration of blockchain smart contracts as a pioneering approach to substantially reduce processing times. By automating execution based on predefined conditions, smart contracts have the potential to revolutionize airport security operations. This research signifies a groundbreaking advancement in the use of smart contracts within the airline industry, underscoring the substantial efficiency improvements that can be achieved. As we conclude this study, we foresee further research and practical implementations to unlock the full transformative impact of blockchain technology on aviation security.
Decentralized Finance (DeFi) has emerged as one of the most disruptive forces in the financial domain, reshaping the landscape of economic interactions in the digital age. As the boundaries of traditional finance blur, DeFi platforms have promised unprecedented levels of transparency, accessibility, and disintermediation. This research presents a comprehensive analysis of the overarching principles governing DeFi and delves deep into evaluating eight prominent platforms in the arena, from eToro's beginner-friendly features to Coinbase's security emphasis. Employing a meticulous comparative methodology, each platform is assessed on predefined criteria, illuminating their unique offerings and potential challenges. The resultant data provides a holistic perspective on the current state of DeFi, highlighting both its transformative potential and the hurdles it must overcome. As DeFi continues to evolve at a blistering pace, this study serves as a crucial anchor, offering academicians, industry professionals, and enthusiasts a structured insight into the complex world of decentralized finance.
Given the substantial economic repercussions resulting from smart contract security vulnerabilities, the detection and prevention of such vulnerabilities have emerged as critical issues warranting robust solutions. Recently, many researchers try to apply deep learning methods to the vulnerability detection task of smart contracts. However, deep learning-based approaches often focus on a singular feature of the smart contract source code, inhibiting a more comprehensive extraction of semantic and structural information embedded within the smart contract. The datasets employed for smart contract vulnerability detection are limited in size, which also restricts the learning capacity of the model, leading to suboptimal performance in identifying vulnerabilities related to smart contracts. To overcome these challenges, this paper introduces a novel vulnerability detection model centered on the fusion of semantic and structural features. These features, extracted from abstract syntax trees and contract graphs by Text Convolutional Neural Networks (TextCNN) and Temporal Message Propagation Network (TMP) respectively, are integrated to construct a classification prediction model. In addition, we added the pre-trained vector of SmartEmbed (smart contract similarity measurement model) to the training, and used the rich knowledge captured by the smart contract pre-trained word vector as the prior knowledge of our model, which can enhance the characterization of security features, and improve the performance of the vulnerability detection model, especially identifying hidden vulnerability rules when using limited labeled datasets. We conduct extensive experiments on approximately 5,000 smart contracts deployed on real-world Ethereum. Experiments prove that our method improves the detection accuracy and recall rate on the detection tasks of reentrancy vulnerability and timestamp dependence vulnerability, the accuracy rate reaches 78% and 89%, and the recall rate reaches 77% and 91% respectively, which is better than state-of-the-art methods.
The construction industry, characterized by its intricate processes and extensive stakeholder networks, stands at the cusp of a digital revolution. The adoption of blockchain-smart contract (BCSC) technology is at the heart of this transformation. This research delves deep into the BCSC within the construction arena to provide comprehensive insight into its probable applications, inherent challenges, and potential future trajectories. Leveraging the PRISMA analysis technique, a curated collection of relevant academic research articles was assembled, shedding light on the existing body of knowledge regarding the application of BCSC technology in construction. The authors developed an innovative user interface tool customized to automatically analyze Excel files exported from Scopus and Science Direct databases to ensure a rigorous approach. Preliminary findings highlight the existing gaps between the theoretical potential of blockchain and its tangible implementation in the construction domain. This study consolidates existing literature and emphasizes the critical domains and key parameters that future studies should address. The paper paves the way for innovative breakthroughs by pinpointing these gaps, pushing the boundaries of how blockchain and smart contracts might reshape the construction industry's future landscape.
Blockchain technology has revolutionized the way in which financial transactions are conducted. It has made possible secure financial management and digital transaction systems that are faster, more secure, and more reliable than traditional payment methods. Blockchain technology offers increased efficiency, trustworthiness and transparency to its users. The Blockchain works by creating a shared, distributed ledger of transactions. Each transaction is cryptographically secure and immutable, and all participating nodes have identical copies of the ledger. This ensures that transactions are traceable and secure, eliminating traditional problems such as double spending or fraudulent activities. Through the integration of Blockchain, the system provides transparency, prevents fraud, and ensures accountability. The research focuses on optimizing performance by reducing processing times and transaction costs, while maintaining scalability and flexibility. Additionally, the system facilitates auditing and compliance processes, while promoting financial inclusion by providing access to unbanked individuals. The proposed systemโs contributions lie in its novel approach to secure financial management, utilizing Blockchainโs features to address the challenges of modern digital transactions.
Decentralised Finance or DeFi has emerged as a transformative and disruptive force within the financial industry, offering innovative financial services powered by blockchain technology and smart contracts. This paper provides in-depth knowledge of DeFi, its evolution, applications, and their adoption. It identifies the opportunities brought about by DeFi, comparing it with the traditional CeFi (Centralized Financial) system, including financial inclusion, transparency, and programmable money. It highlights the potential of applications of DeFi for decentralized lending, decentralized exchanges, and yield farming as innovative and promising avenues within the DeFi space. A SWOT analysis comparing DeFi and CeFi was performed to delve into the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats associated with DeFi. This study explored the intricate challenges and inherent risks involved in the adoption of DeFi applications, offering insights into the hype, fear, and apprehensions among governments and the masses regarding its adoption. The findings offer a nuanced understanding of the current state of DeFi, providing valuable insights for researchers, policymakers, and industry practitioners.
Ramakrishnan Raman, Arul Mary Rexy, C. Viswanathan, Ankit Shrirvastava ยท 5 authors
Decentralized Finance (DeFi) is a blockchain-based financial system that offers open and transparent financial services. This paradigm will enhance traditional banking security, transparency, inclusivity, and efficiency. Decentralized financial systems employ blockchain decentralized exchanges (DEX)'s without intermediaries and their transactions are protected by cryptography. Public ledger users may verify blockchain transactions. Without ID or address, traditional banks decline customers. Anyone with internet may trade finance on DEXsโ. This inclusion may aid unbanked and underbanked individuals, enhancing global prosperity. Future banks will employ DEX for efficiency and intermediaries and complex processes of conventional banking are removed. DEX speeds up transactions by eliminating intermediaries. Scalability issues must be addressed as platforms grow. Future banking on DEX-based blockchain requires study into the ecosystem's multiple applications and advancements.
With cryptocurrencies, blockchain technology has revolutionized the financial industry, but its potential for decentralization extends far beyond finance. Blockchain is now being integrated with a wide range of emerging internet technologies, including the Internet of Things (IoIโ), artificial intelligence (AI), and cloud computing. When combined with these technologies, Blockchain has the potential to overcome known flaws like scalability and energy consumption, making it more streamlined, efficient, and suitable for internet decentralization. Blockchain, for example, can provide secure data storage and sharing for IoT devices, preventing data breaches and unauthorized access. Furthermore, the transparency and immutability of Blockchain make it ideal for use in supply chain management, where it can enable transparency and accountability throughout the entire supply chain. Blockchain can also be used in conjunction with artificial intelligence to create decentralized, secure marketplaces for data sharing and storage, thereby preventing data monopolies and promoting fair competition.
In the evolving landscape of the insurance industry, the integration of advanced technologies offers transformative potential. This research explores the amalgamation of Blockchain technology, specifically through the Hyperledger platform, with AI-enhanced smart contracts to address prevailing challenges in the insurance sector. Utilizing a mixed-methods approach, the efficacy of Hyperledger-based systems in streamlining insurance operations and the augmentation of smart contracts with AI algorithms for improved automation and decision-making were examined. Preliminary findings indicate that the combined application of Hyperledger and AI-driven smart contracts can significantly enhance transparency, reduce fraudulent claims, and optimize risk assessment processes. However, the implementation of these technologies also presents certain technical and regulatory challenges. This study provides a foundational understanding for stakeholders in the insurance domain, emphasizing the strategic advantages and potential pitfalls of embracing this technological convergence.
While blockchain technology brings a trusted execution environment to smart contracts, it also brings new challenges to smart contracts. Once a smart contract is deployed on the blockchain, it is meant to be permanently executed and immutable. If a smart contract is vulnerable, this can cause significant financial losses to users. In this paper, we propose a model for detecting the abnormal behavior using opcode sequences. It can detect the potential abnormal behavior in smart contracts by detecting whether the control flow paths of smart contracts triggered by vulnerability transactions are inside a normal set of control flow paths. In order to obtain the control flow path information of smart contracts, we use the method of Geth instrumentation to obtain the opcode sequences during the execution of smart contract transactions as the control flow paths, and then detect the abnormal behavior of smart contracts. Due to the abnormal detection, it will add some detection time overhead. The experimental results show that this model has high detection accuracy in abnormal behavior for four common vulnerabilities while the increased time overhead is very small inside the limited set of normal control flow paths.
The study investigates the relationship between the returns of Non-Fungible Tokens (NFT) and its categories; and fear indices during times of crisis. The fear indices considered are Global Fear Index (GFI), Global Economic Policy Uncertainty Index (GEPU), Twitter based Economic Uncertainty Index (TEU), Global Consumer Confidence Index (CCI), Infectious Diseases Equity Market Volatility Index (IDEMV) and Crypto Volatility Index (CVI). Employing Granger Causality Test, Autoregressive Distributed Lag technique and ARDL Bounds test on data for the period starting 1st February 2020 and ending 28th February 2022, it is found that short run association exists between TEU, CVI and NFT returns. Further, GFI leads NFT Art returns while TEU leads NFT Metaverse returns by lag 5 and lag 2 respectively. No association between fear metrics and NFT Collectible, NFT Game and NFT utility is observed. No long run association in found between NFT returns and fear indices except TEU which influences NFT returns. It is concluded that NFT, NFT Art and NFT Metaverse returns have positive association to at least one fear index during times of turmoil, especially for the short run.
This scientific overview explores the application of blockchain technology and smart contracts in the insurance industry. It discusses their impact on various aspects such as claims management, underwriting, policy management, fraud prevention, and emerging trends. The benefits of automation, transparency, and efficiency in claims management are highlighted, along with examples of successful implementation. The potential of blockchain in enhancing underwriting processes and risk assessment through access to trusted data is explained. The advantages of transparent and auditable policy records, policy issuance, and enforcement through smart contracts are discussed. The role of blockchain in combating insurance fraud and its potential to improve trust and transparency are examined. The challenges of scalability, regulation, interoperability, and privacy are addressed, along with strategies for successful adoption. Lastly, the emerging trends of tokenization, parametric insurance, and peer-to-peer insurance are explored, envisioning a transformed insurance landscape driven by blockchain and smart contracts.
Angus S. McDonald, Kirsty Paynter, Ernie Van der Vyver
Emerging technologies are facilitating partnerships between insurers and non-insurance brands to create value and opportunity. Embedded insurance, where insurance is offered within or in conjunction with the purchase of a non-insurance product or service from a third party, displaces the current paradigm where insurance is taken as a โsecond stepโ after the underlying asset or event is confirmed. It is a term many are familiar with, but with technologies such as big data, artificial intelligence (AI) and distributed ledger technology, embedded insurance is rapidly evolving and presents significant opportunities. This evolution must be cautiously navigated over the next decade to balance consumer protection dynamics with the growth of, and innovation within, the insurance industry. Embedded insurance options can help reduce the insurance gap but need to be relevant to customers and provide real value to reduce financial uncertainty and make accidental loss manageable. Globally, many jurisdictions are approaching embedded insurance with caution as regulators and industries seek to better understand and appreciate the opportunities and assess the corresponding risks it brings to consumers and the economy. This chapter will describe the ways in which technology is supporting embedded insurance and will discuss the evolution of embedded insurance and the legal frameworks in which it operates. Two case studies from Cover Genius, โthe insurtech for embedded protection,โ are included to provide insights into the end-to-end journey of embedded insurance from policy creation to claims management in an online world.
When migrating smart contracts from one blockchain platform to another, there are potential security risks. This is because different blockchain platforms have different environments and characteristics for executing smart contracts. The focus of this paper is to study the security risks associated with the migration of smart contracts from Ethereum to Arbitrum. We collected relevant data and analyzed smart contract migration cases to explore the differences between Ethereum and Arbitrum in areas such as Arbitrum cross-chain messaging, block properties, contract address alias, and gas fees. From the 36 types of smart contract migration cases we identified, we selected four typical types of cases and summarized their security risks. The research shows that smart contracts deployed on Ethereum may face certain potential security risks during migration to Arbitrum, mainly due to issues inherent in public blockchain characteristics, such as outdated off-chain data obtained by the inactive sequencer, logic errors based on time, failed permission checks, and denial of service (DOS) attacks. To mitigate these security risks, we proposed avoidance methods and provided considerations for users and developers to ensure a secure migration process. It is worth noting that this study is the first to conduct an in-depth analysis of the secure migration of smart contracts from Ethereum to Arbitrum.
Fernando Richter Vidal, Naghmeh Ivaki, Nuno Laranjeiro
Supplementary Material refers to the paper "Vulnerability Detection for Smart Contracts: A Systematic Literature Review" and contains the following information: a) DataAnalysis.xls - An Excel file created for analysis (i.e., tables and graphics).
Recently, fractional investment for real estate (hereafter โFIRโ), a new investment instrument that allows investors to buy expensive real estate with smaller capital, is gaining a lot of attention in the market. Fractional investment means owning a fraction or portion of the real property or the right of property, by more than one investor. In the Korean market, a real estate trust is mainly used as the form of transaction in relation to the FIR on the FIR investment platform, and there is also a case where a real estate fund is used. The current FIR instruments or services recognized in Korea, however, include some elements that may not be allowed by relevant laws and regulations such as the Financial Investment Services and Capital Markets Act (hereafter โFISCMAโ). Considering this respect, the FIR instruments currently available in the Korean market have been either designated as โInnovative Financial Serviceโ under the Special Act on Support for Financial Innovation or granted โSpecial Case for Demonstrationโ under the Act on Special Cases Concerning the Regulation of Regulation-free Special Zones and Special Economic Zones for Specialized Regional Development to grant regulatory exemptions, such that the FIR products can be transacted on the platforms through trust beneficiary certificates or collective investment securities, without obtaining authorization for financial investment business and permission for the exchange market of the FIR. But, the problem is that such regulatory exemptions are only temporarily granted. Therefore, all relevant laws and regulations should be rearranged before the exemptions expire for the FIR business entities to continue to engage in their businesses by obtaining approval based on the newly arranged rules. Or, they should immediately acquire the necessary license and permission for their business to comply with those regulations that have been exempted from the application so far. For reference, major global countries including the U.S., EU, and Singapore are also overhauling related regulatory systems to vitalize and internationalize the digital asset market. Due to the nature of the FIR structure based on an agreement on real estate management and disposal trust (hereafter โRTAโ), the FIR investors hold beneficiary rights to get the distribution of profits earned from the operation and/or disposal of real estate trust in proportion to their investment amount. The two main forms of the FIR currently recognized in Korea are (a) sharing beneficiary right for the issued security where only one security is issued (so-called, โquasimiteigentumโ), and (b) holding the beneficiary security where the security is equally divided into multiple securities among the investors and registered electronically pursuant to the Act on Electronic Registration Of Stocks, Bonds, Etc. (hereafter โElectronic Registration Actโ). Meanwhile, the FIR platforms are now applying blockchain-based Distributed Ledger Technology so that the digital tokens which would be equivalent to the beneficiary security of the real estate trust can be used for transactions. In relation to fractional investment, the Financial Services Commission (FSC) recently published 2 significant legislative plans that seem to reflect such environmental change: i) the Guideline for New Securities Business Including Fractional Investment on 29 April 2022, and ii) the Maintenance Plan of Regulation System for Security Token Offering(hereafter โSTO Planโ) on 6 February 2023. According to the STO Plan, the FSC has defined the Security Token as โthe digitalized security of FISCMA based on Distributed Ledger Technologyโ. By applying such definition criteria to the FIR, the digital tokens used in lieu of the beneficiary securities in the FIR market could be regarded as a kind of Security Token as defined under the STO Plan.
Gongfan Chen, Chuanni He, Simon M. Hsiang, Min Liu ยท 5 authors
Central project managers devote massive efforts to monitor, track, coordinate, and take actions to diagnose and prognose governed constraints and remove them to enable a reliable workflow.The blockchain-enabled smart contract can streamline the work process by predefining "intelligent" consensus to facilitate central managers' jobs.However, the inability of smart contracts to handle unexpected events under complicated environments posited challenges in realizing it automatically.This study aimed to develop adaptive mechanism to mediate production bottlenecks caused by constraints.First, the research identified the four main types of constraints and their levels of variability from a prefabricated project.Then, a simulation model was established to quantify the impacts of different constraints and determine the fair payment rules.Lastly, different constraint-bundled scenarios and execution policies were developed and encoded in the smart contracts for automated executions.Smart contracts can assist construction managers to motivate reliable production and minimize waste caused by bottlenecks in the system.