Sahri Ramadan, Sawali Wahyu, Budi Tjahjono, Riya Widayanti
The increasing adoption of electronic certificates in academic and professional environments raises critical challenges related to authenticity, data integrity, and verification reliability. Conventional certificate management systems commonly rely on centralized architectures and manual validation procedures, which are vulnerable to manipulation, duplication, and single points of failure (SPoF). This study proposes a blockchain-based electronic certificate verification system implemented on a private Hyperledger Fabric network using smart contracts. The system records certificate verification metadata on a distributed ledger to ensure integrity and traceability while maintaining storage efficiency. Smart contracts automate the issuance and validation lifecycle, enabling transparent and tamper-resistant certificate management. The verification process is conducted by comparing document authentication data with records stored on the blockchain. Experimental evaluation demonstrates that the proposed system can accurately identify document alterations and consistently distinguish between valid and invalid certificates. The results indicate that the integration of blockchain and smart contracts as an active validation mechanism enhances transparency, reduces dependence on centralized authorities, and improves trust in mobile-based digital credential systems. Therefore, the proposed approach provides a secure and reliable framework for electronic certificate verification in academic environments.
Internet of Vehicles (IoV) and IoT environment require decentralized platforms that can support a high number of transactions and provide high security and privacy assurance. This study suggests a reputation-aware, zero-knowledge proof (ZKP) based, dynamically sharded smart contract system that is able to process scalable and privacy-preserving transactions. The suggested architecture highly incorporates dynamic sharding, ZKP-based verification, decentralized smart contracts and reputation-based selection of leaders to jump over the scalability, trusting and performance limitations of traditional blockchain systems. There are also extensive experimental assessments that occur within 100-1000 transactions per second (tps) and batch sizes of 10, 30, 50, and 100. Findings indicate that the given framework demonstrates the ability to scale throughput linearly to about 1000 tps, and Enhanced Fabric and Ethereum reach throughput saturation at 140-150 and 15-20 tps, respectively. The proposed system has an average latency of less than 500 ms at an arrival rate of 1000 tps whereas at the same rate, baseline approaches have a latency of over 8000 ms with larger batch sizes. The success rate of the transaction is always above 97, which is due to the isolation of reputation and adaptive scheduling of shards. Moreover, the framework decreases 40-50% and 45-50% the computation overhead and the cost of communication respectively, over heavyweight baseline schemes. These results show that the synergistic implementation of ZKP, dynamic sharding, decentralized smart contracts, and reputation-aware control are a scalable solution with high throughput IoT and IoV applications that is efficient and secure.
Progressive Web Applications (PWAs) have emerged as a transformative paradigm in modern software engineering, combining the reach of the web with the capabilities of native applications. Simulta- neously, decentralized systemsâanchored by blockchain technology, distributed ledger frameworks, and peer-to-peer networking protocolsâare reshaping trust architectures across industries ranging from finance and healthcare to supply chain and digital identity. Despite the clear synergies between these two technological pillars, the intersection of PWAs and decentralized systems remains relatively underexplored in the academic literature. This survey addresses that gap by systematically reviewing and analyzing the convergence of PWA design principles with decentralized infrastructure paradigms. We examine how service workers, Web App Manifests, push notifications, and IndexedDB offline storage can be effectively integrated with blockchain nodes, smart contracts, IPFS-based content stor- age, and decentralized identity (DID) frameworks to produce resilient, censorship-resistant, and user- centric applications. We survey thirteen seminal works spanning cross-platform application devel- opment, blockchain architecture, decentralized identity management, IoT integration, and distributed application (DApp) design. Our analysis reveals recurring challenges including transaction latency, key management complexity, offline consistency under Byzantine fault conditions, and the tension between decentralization purity and user experience expectations. We further synthesize findings through a structured comparative analysis across six dimensions: focus area, PWA feature utilization, blockchain integration depth, reported performance metrics, and identified limitations. Based on this synthesis, we identify open research directions and propose guidelines for practitioners seeking to build production-grade PWA-based DApp frontends. This survey contributes a consolidated reference for researchers and engineers working at the intersection of web engineering and decentralized computing.
In this paper, we presented an e-Registry prototype that builds on the decentralized and tamper-evident nature of Ethereum to authenticate digital documents. The system is a gas-efficient Smart Contract on the Ethereum blockchain that stores SHA-256 hashes of documents, so your sensitive files are secure with us, but we don't know what they are! Accessible through a web-based user interface using MetaMask for transaction signing and the Web Crypto API for client-side hashing of documents offers an intuitive privacy-preserving process. Finally, system diagnostics and security reports can be generated using Python-based tools and hashed to store on the blockchain for validation. Running on the Ethereum Sepolia testnet, the system provides practical efficiency, with transaction fees of 0.0005-0.001 SepoliaETH and verification delay less than 3 seconds. This provides an alternative to traditional centralized verification systems that suffer from single points of failure, lack of transparency, and reliance on third-party services by offering a secure and tamper-resistant decentralized proof of existence for digital files.
Blockchain Technology Applications and Security
Advanced Steganography and Watermarking Techniques
The growth of digital music streaming platforms has changed the way music is distributed and accessed across the world. These platforms make music easily available to listeners the royalty distribution process still faces several challenges. Limited transparency, delayed payments, and the involvement of multiple intermediaries often reduce efficiency and affect the earnings received by artists. This work shows a blockchain-based framework for music royalty distribution. The given system combines Ethereum smart contracts, Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs), and the Inter Planetary File System (IPFS) to support secure ownership management and automated royalty payments. Smart contracts execute royalty transactions based on predefined conditions, while NFTs represent ownership of digital music files. IPFS is used for decentralized storage to maintain secure and tamper resistant media files. By reducing dependency on central authorities, the framework makes royalty transactions easier to track and supports fair revenue distribution for artists. The obtained results show fast royalty processing and improved revenue sharing compared with old royalty management systems [18].
Tourism transactions face persistent challenges related to transparency, security, and dependence on online travel agents (OTAs), which reduce local providers' margins and limit direct customer engagement. Existing blockchain-based tourism solutions remain fragmented and often lack modularity and platform-agnostic integration. This study proposes SmartTourismChain (STC), a modular smart contract architecture deployed on the Ethereum Sepolia test network. STC is designed as a plug-in framework supporting cross-platform adoption through interoperable APIs and SDKs, with backend services for reservation, verification, and nonce management, and frontend integration via wallet connection or Sign-In with Ethereum (SIWE). The architecture supports dual transaction modes, enabling fast off-chain operations while maintaining auditable on-chain records. Functional validation demonstrates a 100% success rate for booking execution, token transfer, and QR-based verification. On-chain deployment records a gas consumption of 175,550 gas ($\approx 0.00026$ETH), indicating technical and economic feasibility. Security analysis confirms resistance to common smart contract vulnerabilities, including reentrancy and unauthorized state manipulation. Overall, STC reduces OTA dependency and supports the development of decentralized, IoT-ready digital tourism ecosystems.
The task of access control in distributed information systems utilizing smart contracts is considered. A concise review of the main access control approaches â mandatory, role-based, and discretionary â is presented, along with their key features and limitations. Particular attention is paid to the access control approach based on mandatory access control (MAC). Known access control approaches applied in both traditional non-distributed and distributed information systems utilizing smart contracts are analyzed. The peculiarities of these distributed information systems that influence access control decisions are identified. Based on these peculiarities, the drawbacks of the discretionary and role-based approaches are determined, and the mandatory approach is proposed. To formalize the approach, a mathematical description of MAC for smart contracts is provided. To demonstrate the concept, several examples of implementing this mathematical description are presented in the form of Solidity code fragments: a direct naive implementation, an implementation using modifiers, and an implementation based on a dedicated access manager contract. The code is described, its main idea is explained, and possible directions for further scaling of these code fragments are outlined. Based on the analysis of the proposed applications, the modifier-based implementation of MAC is identified as the most efficient in terms of computational resources, while the access manager approach is considered the most scalable. The latter approach is proposed for complex distributed systems involving multiple smart contracts. The results of the experimental study are presented to compare the performance indicators of the proposed access control implementations with known implementations. Prospects for further research aimed at improving access control in distributed information systems utilizing smart contracts are identified.
Smart contracts, primarily written in Solidity, are Turing-complete programs on platforms like Ethereum, requiring gas fees for deployment and execution. Gas quantifies computational costs, and inefficient contracts result in unnecessary expenses for developers and users. Gas optimization at the source code level has been studied in various related works; however, existing methods for summarizing gas-inefficient patterns primarily rely on author-defined rules or heuristic approaches, and their evaluations lack a labeled dataset.In this paper, we conduct a comprehensive empirical study on the issue of gas optimization in smart contracts. We begin by gathering audit reports from Code4rena, a well-known smart contract audit platform. These reports include both expert evaluations, conducted by professionals known as Wardens, and automated analyses generated by the platformâs static analysis tool, 4naly3er. After filtering out false-positive gas optimization instances from the automated reports, we identify 2,095 instances of gas-inefficient patterns across 54 projects. We categorize these inefficiencies into 24 types using thematic analysis and find that static analysis tools often produce false positives and negatives. To address this, we propose a hybrid method combining static analysis and large language models (LLMs) to detect and repair gas inefficiencies. The static analysis tool identifies potential optimization opportunities, while the LLM refines these findings and suggests effective repairs. Our evaluation shows that our approach achieves a precision rate of 82.28% and a recall rate of 88.46%, and can save 919 units of gas per function on average during execution.
NFTs, kurz fĂŒr Non-Fungible Tokens, sind digitale Zertifikate auf einer Blockchain, einer unverĂ€nderlichen Datenbank. Sie zeigen, wem ein digitales Objekt gehört, beispielsweise eine Grafik, Audio-Dateien, In-Game-Items oder Tweets. Anders als klassische Dateien, die beliebig kopiert werden können, dienen NFTs als Eigentumsnachweis. Die eigentliche Datei liegt meist auf externen Servern. NFTs sind Teil der Vision des Web3, eines dezentralen Internets, in dem Nutzer*innen ĂŒber Inhalte, Besitz und digitale IdentitĂ€ten selbst bestimmen sollen. Das Konzept eröffnet neue Möglichkeiten in virtuellen Welten, Spielen und Community-Projekten, stöĂt aber an Grenzen, weil Plattformen, Wallets und Anbieter letztlich entscheiden, wer teilnehmen darf. Bekannt wurden NFTs ab 2020 im Kunst- und Sammlermarkt, beispielsweise Beeples EveryÂdays oder Sammlungen wie CryptoPunks. In Games und virtuellen Welten wie Axie Infinity oder Decentraland lassen sich Besitzrechte, Handelsmechanismen und Community-Dynamiken praktisch nachvollziehen. Nach dem anfĂ€nglichen Boom sank ab 2023 der Wert vieler NFTs, Plattformen verschwanden und technische wie rechtliche Fragen blieben offen. FĂŒr die MedienpĂ€dagogik bieten NFTs zahlreiche Ansatzpunkte: FachkrĂ€fte können mit Lernenden ĂŒber digitale Besitzformen, Wertzuschreibung, Marktmechanismen und soziale Dynamiken diskutieren. Eigene Experimente â Tokens erstellen, Sammlungen aufbauen, Spielobjekte gestalten â machen Logik, FOMO-Effekte und Machtstrukturen erfahrbar. Gleichzeitig lassen sich Nachhaltigkeit, langfristige VerfĂŒgbarkeit von Daten und ZugangshĂŒrden kritisch reflektieren. NFTs bieten so einen Einstieg, um digitale Wertlogiken, Teilhabe und Verantwortung im Web3 zu hinterfragen.
With the rapid proliferation of artificial intelligence generated content (AIGC), nonâfungible tokens (NFTs), and blockchainâbased services, creative works are increasingly born digital and managed as intellectual property (IP) digital assets. However, the assetization of content has outpaced the maturity of the supporting legal, technical, and educational infrastructures. Content creators and learners face fragmented tools for creation, registration, traceability, and infringement detection, which leads to weak evidence chains and high transaction costs in rights protection. This paper proposes an integrated framework for intelligent generation and security protection of IP digital assets that tightly couples AIGC engines with multiâmodal watermarking, blockchainâbased registration, and privacyâpreserving analytics. On this basis, a teachingâoriented implementation is designed and deployed in a university course on digital media and IP management. The system supports fullâlifecycle management of images, text, code, and multimedia works, enabling students to experience rights creation, proofâofâownership, risk diagnosis, and evidence preservation in realistic project tasks. Experimental results on a mixed benchmark of 4,200 assets show that the proposed scheme improves watermark robustness by 7.5% on average and shortens rights registration latency by 68% compared with traditional workflows, while significantly enhancing studentsâ IP literacy and compliance intention. The study demonstrates that IP digitalâasset technology can be transformed from a purely legal or technical topic into an operational teaching infrastructure, supporting both innovation and compliance in the AIGC era.
Open access
Blockchain Technology Applications and Security
Digital Rights Management and Security
Physical Unclonable Functions (PUFs) and Hardware Security
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Protocol-level validity mechanisms, such as validity rollups and STARK-based proving systems, improve blockchain scalability, but do not remove the cost of executing computation-intensive application logic inside smart contracts. At the application layer, a meaningful class of structured arithmetic workloads—including polynomial evaluations, cryptographic primitive computations, and signal-processing operations over finite fields—arises naturally in contract logic, yet remains subject to the on-chain fee model regardless of protocol-level optimizations. This paper investigates whether outsourcing such workloads and replacing direct execution with transparent on-chain verification can provide a practical cost advantage under realistic smart-contract fee models. We present a cross-platform implementation of GKR-based transparent on-chain verification for outsourced structured arithmetic circuits on the Ethereum Virtual Machine (Solidity) and Starknet (Cairo). GKR requires no trusted setup, which makes it particularly suitable for deployment in permissionless public blockchain environments where trust assumptions must be minimized. The design targets layered circuits with regular structure and incorporates implementation techniques that reduce verifier-side overhead and eliminate the linear input-handling bottleneck in naive deployments. These workloads can be represented as layered arithmetic circuits with regular wiring and logarithmic depth. Our evaluation shows that direct execution cost increases rapidly with input size, whereas GKR-based verification scales much more favorably. At size 4096, verification reduces execution cost by approximately 84% on the EVM and 91% on Starknet. These results identify outsourced execution with on-chain GKR verification as a practical design point for application-layer verifiable computation, especially in public blockchain environments where transparency and the absence of trusted setup are important.
Andreu Pere Isern-DeyĂ , M. Francisca Hinarejos, Josep LluĂs Ferrer Gomila
Online transactions are becoming increasingly popular, and the purchase and delivery of digital assets is a prominent example. In these transactions, buyers are hesitant to pay for an asset until they receive it, whereas sellers are reluctant to send the asset until they are paid. Unfortunately, actual solutions do not always meet all the requirements to conduct a secure exchange, with fairness being one of the requirements that needs more attention. Historically, solutions to this problem have relied on trusted third parties (TTPs) serving as trusted intermediaries among participants, but the advent of blockchain has enabled the reduction or elimination of TTP involvement in many cases. In this paper, we present a fair blockchain-based solution that does not require any TTP for the secure delivery of digital assets, proving its technical feasibility and cost-effectiveness through assessments on blockchains based on the Ethereum Virtual Machine.
<title>Abstract</title> Smart contracts in blockchains often implement critical functionality; consequently, their development time software fault detection, removal, and avoidance have been the target of intensive research. However, the applicability of runtime dependability mechanisms to smart contracts has not been explored systematically, mainly due to the transaction pricing models of public blockchains. In this paper, we propose a novel and practical runtime verification approach for Hyperledger Fabric, the leading cross-organizational blockchain platform, as an error detection facility for fault tolerance mechanisms; building on the proposition that, in contrast to the public setting, cross-organizational blockchains have ample computational headroom for their systematic use. We introduce a smart contract entity framework architecture with reusable domain models and encapsulated runtime verification. We describe Hypernate, our open-source implementation of the approach for Java smart contracts, which uses the Java Modelling Language for requirement specification and integrates the OpenJML verification tool. We demonstrate and evaluate the approach on a Fabric implementation of the TPC-C benchmark.