The article presents scenarios for the transition to smart contract technology, compiled as a result of a study of the functioning of transport and logistics chains formed by the largest Russian railway company, JSC "Russian Railways", and also specifies a set of conditions for the introduction and effective use of this technology. It is determined that a necessary condition for the introduction of smart contract technology for the largest transport and logistics companies, which mainly occupy a monopoly position in their segment of the logistics services market, is to focus on an expanded transport and logistics chain and the presence of Mature processes. Special attention is paid to methodological tools for assessing the maturity of internal processes of a focus company in the transport and logistics chain. The presented approach is recommended for use by large operators that own infrastructure facilities and act as focus companies in transport and logistics chains.
Economic and Technological Systems Analysis
Advanced Research in Systems and Signal Processing
Oleg Schwarzman, Maksim Diuldin, Julia Zinkina, Roman Davydov
Blockchain is one of the fastest-growing digital technologies, its scientific and technological support is on the research frontier; its widespread use in the functioning of financial, economic, and government institutions, although it faces difficulties in implementation, is expected from about the middle of the next decade. Digitalization of documents, procedures, and communications within the framework of public procurement in Russia and the world makes a certain, significant, although not decisive, contribution to overcoming these difficulties. It is largely aimed at formalizing, increasing openness, and speeding up procedures at this stage. The improvement of the regulatory regulation of processes makes a more significant contribution to their solution. However, with the development of the standardization of goods and services, the improvement of the electronic language of their description, the increase in the competence of civil services and, most importantly, of suppliers (performers), the expansion of the expert community, the development of labeling of supply chains, the formation of electronic reputation, the use of blockchain will become a natural continuation of the development of digitalization of public procurement. The task of the research is to seek a combined solution in thoughtful digitalization of the public procurement process using blockchain method, in general, and the introduction of distributed ledger technology, in particular.
Hanna Kucherova, Dmytro Ocheretin, Vita Los, Natalia Venherska
Research goals and objectives: to study the series of dynamics of the frequency of requests and the price of bitcoin under the conditions of taking into account the risks of using various forecasting methods. Subject of research: proof of importance of the role, statistical dependence and interdependence of the series of dynamics of the price of bitcoin and the frequency of its online requests. Research methods used: analytical methods, econometric models, nonlinear dynamics methods. Results of the research: The research grounded the approach and the forecasting procedure for the series of dynamics of the price of bitcoin and the frequency of its online requests, which in essence correspond to the basic principles of the implementation of the forecasting methodology, take into account the specifics of the formation of the frequency of online requests for bitcoin prices and the socio-economic meaning of its functioning. The practical value consists in determining that the minimum risks for the study of a time series dynamics of bitcoin price and frequency of requests for bitcoin price were demonstrated by the neural network methodology in comparison with the use of the ARIMA model and other methods of economic and mathematical modeling that proves the proposed methodology for determining the direction of the trend outside the study period.
The authors of the article consider consensus-building algorithms that are central to the life cycle of transactional exchange between nodes of a DDPS (Distributed Data Processing System) based on blockchain technology. The term under consideration is formally defined. It is proved that when developing these algorithms, it is necessary to choose the main indicators and methods for calculating them, which can be used to evaluate their effectiveness. The process of false forking is described in detail, and the probability of its occurrence is calculated in order to assess the security of data stored in the distributed ledger. When analyzing existing consensus-building algorithms based on statistical data, it is shown that the Byzantine Fault Tolerance Delegated Proof-of-Stake (BFT-DPoS) algorithm has a higher level of efficiency not only in terms of security, but also in terms of performance compared to other algorithms. There is a lack of comprehensive evaluation of candidates for winning Registrar nodes that generate (mining) blocks and distribute them to verifier nodes. It is concluded that the elimination of the above-mentioned drawback would provide a more correct construction of the distributed ledger, since most of the existing algorithms are focused on applicability only in cryptocurrency systems and are not universal. To solve this problem, we propose the need to synthesize the BFT-DPoS and Proof-of-Importance algorithms in order to make it applicable to any type of DDPS using distributed ledger technology (blockchain).
Umar Aptievich Bachaev, Eliza Aptievna Abdulazizova
This article reveals the economic content of the cryptocurrency, which has recently become widely known and spread. The system of direct payments was a response to the global financial crisis, the consequences of which have shaken the financial system of many countries. The authors analyze the scientific achievements of foreign and domestic scientists, which allows to identify a number of advantages and disadvantages of the new currency based on information. Along with the technological superiority in this direction, there are still questions concerning methodological, methodological and legal components of the cryptocurrency. Bitcoin is characterized by decentralization: a special program code regulates the work of the network members, as well as the schedule of emission, which is limited in itself, because the generation of coins is closed and the number of PTSs is constant. The introduction of cryptocurrency has a number of other positive effects: irreversible transactions, low transfer fees, complete isolation of the currency from inflation, etc. At the same time, the cryptocurrency has negative consequences. For example, the inability to track remittances and the vulnerability of the system create the preconditions for illegal operations: money laundering, capital flight, terrorism, etc. Another negative feature of the cryptocurrency is its dependence on supply and demand. Thus, the legal status of the cryptocurrency in many countries, including Russia, is not fully defined due to its ambiguous attitude. However, it should be admitted that its appearance on the world market is a phenomenon that in theory can fundamentally change the existing financial system.
The study is devoted to the research of design concepts for the development of decentralized payment systems with its own cryptocurrency based on the blockchain platform Ethereum. The study examines the problems associated with traditional models of decentralized payment systems, analyzes the shortcomings in the industry, and proposes approaches to their solution. During the research, the method of creating digital assets was improved by designing a comprehensive solution consisting of a smart contracts part and a web-client part. Also, the expediency of designing its own exchange platform along with the integration of external cryptocurrency exchanges for the possibility of buying developed cryptocurrency for other popular digital currencies was substantiated and visual schemes of the traditional payment system structure with the method of exchange platform integration were presented. The paper substantiates the use of dynamic block size as a method of optimizing system efficiency, which can increase or decrease the maximum block size at the algorithm level, depending on the number of pending transactions, thus providing the required level of bandwidth. Also, the need for one-to-many transfers is justified, which involves the development of new methods of smart contracts for the cryptocurrency transfer from one user to a large number of addresses within a single transaction in order to reduce the load on the network. The problem of high energy consumption required for the functioning of the consensus system in the traditional model was solved by developing a model based on protocols that do not use the computational power of participants as a parameter to maintain consensus. Thus, the results of this study present improved methods for designing decentralized payment systems. The obtained results and generated recommendations can be used in the design of decentralized payment systems.
Current research has led to a rejection of the hypothesis of a normal distribution of financial assets returns. Under these conditions, portfolio variance cannot serve as a good risk measure. In this paper analyzed the daily returns of the most common cryptocurrencies: Bitcoin, Ethereum, XRP, USDT, Bitcoin Cash, Litecoin. It is shown that the asset returns are not normally distributed, but with good precision follow the Cauchy distribution and Laplace distribution. The analytical expressions for risk measure were obtained using the distribution function and the VaR technique. However, the risk assessment of the return obtained on the basis of the Cauchy distribution is twice as high as the risk assessment obtained on the basis of the Laplace distribution. Therefore, the question arises: what distribution law to use to measurement the cryptocurrency risk? The paper shows that the Laplace distribution is the most adequate basis for measuring of cryptocurrencies risk.
The aim of the article is to clarify the basics of the digitalization strategy of the competitive businesses and identify features of the institutional environment that ensure the development of cryptocurrency as a new asset (IT product) of the modern economy, analyze the methods of implementing the cryptocurrency business models. The relevance of the research paper is determined by the need to develop a competitive Russian cryptocurrency (including the cryptoruble) with the growing private, state and cross-national cryptocurrencies. The scientific novelty of the study implies clarifying the informal and formal rules of the institutional environment and related methods ensuring the development of a competitive cryptocurrency. The authors consider the following methods to implement the institutional features of the cryptocurrencies business model development: logic and blockchain algorithm that establish trust and collaboration between cryptocurrency developers; logic and blockchain consensus algorithm ensuring that all the parties of the blockchain network come to a common agreement (consensus); logic and blockchain algorithms that form cryptocurrency transactions and control its turnover by generating blocks of cryptocurrencies, by forming the structure of blocks and transactions of cryptocurrencies, by storing cryptocurrencies’ keys and providing security, by mining (forging) cryptocurrency, etс.The results of the study provide a basis for identifying the institutional features and the corresponding methods providing a competitive cryptocurrency development with a detailed analysis of the blockchain consensus algorithms that ensure the competitiveness of the cryptocurrency. The conclusions show that the most promising are the hybrid consensus algorithms which may include both the logic of two or more known algorithms and the original logic of a new algorithm. The authors recommend defining the logic of the blockchain consensus algorithm as a priority when developing a cryptocurrency to ensure reliability of the transactions in the blockchain network, thus increasing the competitiveness of the cryptocurrency.
In an era of the widespread introduction of information technology, the broadest possibilities are opening up for the implementation of additional services for prosumers in the electricity market. The traditional electric power system of Russia allows customers to receive electricity only from large power plants, which leads to centralization and monopoly. Currently, the concept of distributed generation is gaining popularity. The idea is that small electric power generators are distributed throughout the local power network. The introduction of such an electrical network will improve the reliability of the system. However, such a network needs effective management and an electricity metering system. This paper proposes the use of distributed network blockchain technology as a solution to these problems. The proposed double-chain blockchain model will provide for the electric energy trading within the local electricity market, without third-party intermediaries, with a sufficient level of security and automation for all participants.
Objective: to consider the evolution of types and forms of money, to classify the varieties of cryptocurrency and its functions, to explain the mechanisms for issuing and circulation of cryptocurrencies, as well as to identify problems in the field of legal regulation of digital virtual currencies in the Russian Federation.Methods: the work used a dialectical combination of the principles of a systematic approach and various ontological knowledge through a range of methods of historical, empirical, comparative, logical, statistical and predictive cognition.Results: it is shown that the modern global monetary system is evolving towards decentralization; it is based on cryptocurrencies issued as part of a functional combination of public and private blockchains; cryptocurrencies require full legalization, not prohibition at the legislative level; cryptocurrencies are types of digital virtual assets accounted for on accounts (crypto wallets) identified within.Scientific novelty: for the first time, the article shows that it is erroneous to consider cryptocurrency to be just a property and to limit its operations just to cross obligations for transferred goods and rendered works (services). Cryptocurrencies are decentralized virtual money based on mathematical algorithms using open-source asymmetric cryptography techniques and consensus-based platforms. Users need both external (cryptocurrency) and internal (tokens) currencies to increase the efficiency of using traditional assets (property, goods and services) in the economy.Practical significance: the main provisions and conclusions of the article can be used to develop a glossary, terms and definitions of cryptocurrency, mechanisms for regulating its issue and circulation in Russia, as well as making amendments to the draft law “On digital currency and amendments to certain legislative acts of the Russian Federation” that are adequate to the economic nature of cryptocurrency.
Aleksandr Erokhin, Konstantin Koshechkin, Ilya Ryabkov
BACKGROUND: In the modern world, millions of people suffer from fake and poor-quality medical products entering the market. Violation of the rules of transportation of drugs makes them ineffective and even dangerous. The relationship between the various parts of the supply chain, production and regulation of drugs is too hard and has many problems. Distributed ledger technology is a distributed database, the properties of which allow us to track the entire path of medical products from the manufacturer to consumer, to improve the current model of the supply chain, to transform the pharmaceutical industry and prevent falsified drugs reach the market. OBJECTIVE: The aim of the article is to analyze the distributed ledger technology as an innovative means of poor-quality pharmaceuticals prevention to reach the market as well as their forehanded detection. METHODS: Content analysis of web sites of companies developing distributed ledger technology solutions had been performed. Five examples found with a google search engine by keywords "distributed ledger technology", "blockchain", "pharmaceuticals" and "supply chain" were examined. Analysis of relative scientific publications had been made. With the help of generalization and systematization methods, services provided by these companies were analyzed. The visual model of the supply chain was created with Microsoft Visio software. RESULTS: The analysis results contain a principle scheme of distributed ledger technology implementation to achieve the objectives. The analysis of present-day pharmaceuticals supply chain structure and the distributed ledger technology capacities to improve pharmaceutical companies has been carried out and presented. Furthermore, the article allows getting acquainted with today's projects released to the market as well as the prognosis of the distributed ledger technology in pharmaceutical industry enhancement in the future.
In today’s modern energy sector, driven more and more towards decentralization, which includes many smaller energy producers rather than huge government projects, security against cyber-attacks is becoming more crucial for the energy grid. Since many small energy plants do not have the resources to finance very expensive existing cyber-security systems, they often have no security system in place at all. Although with small energy producers, the risks of being under attack are not as devastating as in a huge power plants, they still pose a serious threat to the energy system and to the supply of electricity to whole regions. Moreover, in the era of technology, such cyber-attacks could be carried out simultaneously at many locations, thus risking the lack of electricity to larger areas. Since there was a clearly identified need for such an instrument, the SPEAR consortium, started to develop tailor made solution for different types of actors in the energy sector, to prevent such occurrences and help secure the energy system. One of the use cases, investigated in the project, is a real operating hydro power plant in the mountain area of Bulgaria called Leshnitsa, which will be one of the four sites to first test the functionality of the finished product. The plant had no previous cyber-security system in place and had already experienced one attack, where one of the computers in the plant was hacked and a ransom was demanded from the attackers to unlock it. Exactly events like this one are proof, that the energy sector has a need to protect the growing number of small independent actors in the energy system..
Vasiliy Elagin, Anastasia Spirkina, Mikhail Buinevich, Andrei Vladyko
Over the past decade, wireless communication technologies have developed significantly for intelligent applications in road transport. This paper provides an overview of telecommunications-based intelligent transport systems with a focus on ensuring system safety and resilience. In vehicle-to-everything, these problems are extremely acute due to the specifics of the operation of transport networks, which requires the use of special protection mechanisms. In this regard, it was decided to use blockchain as a system platform to support the needs of transport systems for secure information exchange. This paper describes the technological aspects of implementing blockchain technology in vehicle-to-network; the features of such technology are presented, as well as the features of their interaction. The authors considered various network characteristics and identified the parameters that have a primary impact on the operation of the vehicle-to-network (V2N) network when implementing the blockchain. In the paper, an experiment was carried out that showed the numerical characteristics for the allocation of resources on devices involved in organizing V2N communication and conclusions were drawn from the results of the study.
The article explores the correlation strength of the ten most important cryptocurrencies, emphasizing the examination of differences during the periods of rising and falling prices. The daily and weekly returns of selected cryptocurrencies are taken as the basis for calculating and determining the correlation strength using the Pearson correlation coefficient. The survey covers the period from the beginning of 2017 to Bitcoin’s last local bottom in mid-March 2020. Research findings are as follows: 1) the most important cryptocurrencies are mostly moderately positively correlated with each other over time; 2) correlation strength decreases slightly during the bull period, but mostly remain in the range of moderate correlation; 3) correlation strength increases significantly during the bear period, with most cryptocurrencies strongly correlated with each other. The results do not change significantly if the daily or weekly cryptocurrency returns are used as the basis. A strong correlation in the period of falling prices prevents the effective diversification of the cryptocurrency portfolio, which must be considered when investing funds in the cryptocurrency market.
Blockchain is the emerging technology in the digital era. Blockchain is the extension of distributed concept and not a centralized storage that keeps track of blockchain data. In blockchain the data are stored over millions of computers around the world, and each node in a distributed environment is connected with the blockchain. The data stored in each node are publicly verifiable. Blockchain is defined as a “Non-corruptible digital ledger which can be programmed to record all the financial transactions”. In addition, it is also extended to keep track of the information that has value. Blockchain is considered as a list of blocks where each block contains a number of transactions. It provides a decentralized and immutable data store. Applications of blockchain can be extended to IoT, security, cloud, big data and the data analytics field. Blockchain technology acts as the backbone for Bitcoin. Bitcoin is known as a cryptocurrency, nothing but a form of electronic cash. It is also known as a decentralized digital currency. There is no centralized server or single bank that is responsible for its administration. Digital cash can be transferred from one user to another in a network without the involvement of an intermediary. These transactions are also updated to all participating entities in a network connected with blockchain. Bitcoin was invented by Satoshi Nakamoto in 2009 and released as open-source software. In Bitcoin a public ledger records the transactions of Bitcoins. A chain of blocks is implemented, and each block adds the hash value computed from the previous block up to a genesis block of the chain. Bitcoin software runs on all the communicating nodes in a network to maintain the blockchain. Every transaction is validated by the nodes of a network and a copy is added into their ledger, then broadcasted to others. Whenever the new technology emerges, the security of using it becomes doubtful, even though blockchain is designed to be immutable and tamper-proof. It achieves security through decentralization, cryptography and consensus concepts. Truth in blockchain is achieved through decentralization. If you change one block, you have to change all the subsequent blocks until any new blocks could be mined. Hashing techniques are used to hash the data cryptographically in a blockchain. It uses SHA-256 algorithm to produce a fixed-length hash value. Blockchain achieves this through cryptography primitives. Consensus helps to identify which node to add in a network. This part of the process is called proof of work (POW). It helps to ensure that each block is going through with vigorous mathematical processes before it becomes the immutable part of the blockchain. Blockchain is an emerging technology and it evolves every day. The vulnerabilities arise from the way in which how the blockchain interacts with other entities. In this chapter we will learn the importance of security concepts in blockchain. We will also explain how the CIA triad (confidentiality, integrity and authentication) is applied to blockchain in order to secure transactions and stored data.
The article analysis the methodological justification of the digital transformation of logistics processes in transport chains formed by transport and logistics companies at the national and transnational levels, which own their own infrastructure, when switching to the technology of smart contracts. The research methodology is based on the provisions of the theory of logistics and supply chain management, the theory of process management and the design and technological concept of organizational culture formation. Based on the results of the established principles of transition to smart contract technology, digital transformation of processes, a logical and time structure of the methodology of engineering/reengineering of logistics business processes in transport chains was formed during the transition to smart contract technology, which provides the most complete coverage of methodological problems solved in the process of reengineering, their logical focus, as well as correlation with the time frame. The study presents a methodological tool and results of semantic modeling of logistics processes in transport chains that form the necessary basis for further algorithmization of procedures for fulfilling the contractual conditions of a smart contract. Based on the systematization of approaches to establishing the essential characteristics of smart contracts, their models are established, as well as the necessary conditions for the successful implementation of various smart contract models and possible transition scenarios are identified. The materials of the article are largely the result of close interaction with JSC “Russian Railways” in the course of preparing a methodological justification for the transition to the technology of smart contracts in transport chains, the logical processes in which are implemented using the railway infrastructure of JSC “Russian Railways”.
Open access
Economic and Technological Systems Analysis
Advanced Research in Systems and Signal Processing
Prompt development of information technology has made an essential impact on many industries. There appeared a concept "Industry 4.0" symbolizing the fourth industrial revolution. The given concept is closely connected with such promising technologies as the Internet of Things, blockchain, fog computing, Big Data. In the present research, the sphere of the mining industry is examined. We discuss the possibility to increase the efficiency of mining enterprises at the expense of the development of common information space based on modern digital technologies. We analyze security problems at the level of data flow between the participants of the production process on a mining enterprise. We define the problem of providing the reliability of data on the production course on mining enterprise in the conditions of the possible connection loss between the control center and separate technological units. We offer a new approach to the solution of the given problems, based on the technology of blockchain and digital watermarking. The computing experiment is conducted presenting a possibility to implement the offered approaches on common models of microcontrollers.
Blockchain technology has garnered much hype since the introduction of Bitcoin, but over a decade later, the technology is still lacking mature use cases outside that of cryptocurrencies. This paper makes use of a systematic literature review to identify non-cryptocurrency use cases of blockchain to establish an overview of existing or hypothesized solutions using the technology. The identified use cases are subsequently assessed on their technology readiness level (TRL) using the guidance of established research [1] to determine the maturity of individual blockchain solutions described in peer-reviewed literature. By categorizing the individual use cases into groups, a generalized assessment of maturity for different application areas is assessed for blockchain technology. The literature review and subsequent estimation of TRL revealed that there are highly mature blockchain use cases, although they are quite limited in terms of industry-wide utility. As an example, the Everledger use case has tracked over two million diamonds and is estimated to be TRL 9 (the highest level) in the specific scope of diamond provenance tracking, but other luxury-tracking blockchain initiatives are years behind this [2].