Sidechains offer partial solutions to Ethereumâs scalability challenges; however, they introduce trade-offs related to security and implementation complexity. These limitations have been further addressed by Layer-2 solutions known as rollups, which combine off-chain computation with on-chain verification, preserving both security and decentralization on the Ethereum platform. This paper proposes a Stochastic Petri Net model to evaluate the feasibility of ZK-Rollups by analyzing their impact on throughput and latency. The results indicate that increased adoption of Layer-2 transactions can enhance system throughput by up to 20%. Conversely, latency may rise by more than 100% when larger batches are used, revealing a fundamental performance trade-off.
Emerging applications need dynamic, deterministic performance across network and cloud providers. We demonstrate a blockchain-based solution with smart contract execution to establish network and cloud services on a multi-provider, multi-layer IP-optical network and cloud infrastructure.
The rise of non-fungible tokens (NFTs) has moved beyond digital art into decentralized finance (DeFi) for loans. NFTs are now commonly used as collateral in many decentralized lending platforms in DeFi. The paper evaluates three lending protocols: NFTfi, Arcade, and BendDAO in detail. These platforms show different methods for risk mitigation, liquidation, and borrower-lender interactions. This paper suggests a detailed risk assessment framework for NFT collateral in DeFi lending platforms. It highlights NFT illiquidity, high volatility, valuation uncertainty, and protocol design problems. The use of Layer -2 blockchain based lending model results in reduced gas fees and supports scalability. It is specifically optimized for networks like Polygon that offer higher throughput and lower operational costs. Layer-2 deployment facilitates faster processing speeds and significantly reduces transaction fees for users. The framework integrates interoperable blockchain protocols that support seamless NFT collateral migration across chains. This cross-chain operability increases platform liquidity and lending flexibility for decentralized finance participants. Dynamic, risk-aware smart contracts modify lending terms in real time using asset volatility indicators. They assess borrower risk profiles with on-chain data to maintain adaptive, secure lending conditions. Monte Carlo simulation is used to estimate default risks and delays in NFT liquidation. This simulation helps understand results when the market conditions keep changing. Findings say lending platforms need dynamic risk settings and strong pricing oracles for safety. Smart, borrower behavior-based lending strategies are also needed for steady growth in NFT backed DeFi lending. This paper also provides insights into use of advance techniques beyond smart contracts to enhance the system. This research gives useful ideas to DeFi developers, investors, and regulators handling NFT collateral. It helps people understand NFT lending risks better and enable us to design stronger lending systems.
Ethereumâs transaction pool (mempool) dynamics and fee market efficiency critically affect transaction inclusion, validator workload, and overall network performance. This research empirically analyzes gas price variations, mempool clearance rates, and block finalization times in Ethereumâs proof-of-stake ecosystem using real-time data from Geth and Prysm nodes. We observe that high-fee transactions are consistently prioritized, while low-fee transactions face delays or exclusionâdespite EIP-1559âs intended improvements. Mempool congestion remains a key factor in validator efficiency and proposal latency. We provide empirical evidence of persistent fee-based disparities and show that extremely high fees do not always guarantee faster confirmation, revealing inefficiencies in the current fee market. To address these issues, we propose congestion-aware fee adjustments, reserved block slots for low-fee transactions, and improved handling of out-of-gas vulnerabilities. By mitigating prioritization bias and execution inefficiencies, our findings support more equitable transaction inclusion, enhance validator performance, and promote scalability. This work contributes to Ethereumâs long-term decentralization by reducing dependence on high transaction fees for network participation.
Michael D. Norman, Simon Brown, Mallesh M. Pai, Laurence Smith
This paper presents a novel staking coopetition design aimed at incentivizing decentralization and continuous growth of economic security within a proof-of-stake system. Staking rewards follow a nonlinear mapping relative to stake size. This affords the highest effective yields to smaller operators, fueling network growth and giving users an incentive to delegate their stake to smaller operators. This prevents the preferential accrual and centralization of stake seen in popular blockchains such as Ethereum, where popular liquid staking protocols control large fractions of the total stake thereby having outsized potential impacts on the economic security of the protocol. The proposed system addresses key challenges such as Sybil attacks and offers a comprehensive framework for future research and implementation. We introduce innovative mechanisms and gamification elements, to enhance user engagement and provide transparency in emissions.
ABSTRACT The emergence of wireless technology brought about enhanced communication across various devices, resulting in the demand for efficient and reliable wireless networks, like wireless mesh networks (WMNs) and mobile Adâhoc Networks (MANETs). MANETs are known for their decentralized nature, rapid deployment, infrastructureâless operation, adaptability, and ease of use in several applications and outdoor events. Despite their flexibility, they often face challenges relating to security vulnerabilities, together with blackhole and grayhole attacks, and tradeâoffs in terms of performance relating to reliability and integrity. This paper proposes an improved, innovative routing protocol for Adâhoc OnâDemand Distance Vector (AODV) by infusion of blockchain's proof of stake (PoS) consensus mechanism named PoSAODV, whose objective is to enhance security, energyâefficiency, and adaptability while reducing packet loss rate, routing overheads, and increasing throughput. Smart contractâbased validator selection was utilized to ensure fairness and reduce blackhole and grayhole attacks. The result obtained through simulation demonstrates that PoSAODV outperforms the original AODV by reduced latency of 0.79 ms , average throughput of 45 Mbps , and packet delivery ratio of 80%â100% in both unsafe and safe environments. This makes PoSAODV suitable for resourceâconstrained adâhoc networks with dynamic topologies.
Ethereum has adopted a rollup-centric roadmap to scale by making rollups (layer 2 scaling solutions) the primary method for handling transactions. The first significant step towards this goal was EIP-4844, which introduced blob transactions that are designed to meet the data availability needs of layer 2 protocols. This work constitutes the first rigorous and comprehensive empirical analysis of transaction- and mempool-level data since the institution of blobs on Ethereum on March 13, 2024. We perform a longitudinal study of the early days of the blob fee market analyzing the landscape and the behaviors of its participants. We identify and measure the inefficiencies arising out of suboptimal block packing, showing that at times it has resulted in up to 70% relative fee loss. We hone in and give further insight into two (congested) peak demand periods for blobs. Finally, we document a market design issue relating to subset bidding due to the inflexibility of the transaction structure on packing data as blobs and suggest possible ways to fix it. The latter market structure issue also applies more generally for any discrete objects included within transactions.
Decentralized physical infrastructure networks (DePINs) are an emerging vertical within "Web3" replacing the traditional method that physical infrastructures are constructed. Yet, the boundaries between DePIN and traditional method of building crowd-sourced infrastructures such as citizen science initiatives or other Web3 verticals are not always so clear cut. In this work, we systematically analyze the differences between DePIN and other Web2 and Web3 verticals. For this, the study proposes a novel decision tree for classifying systems as DePIN. This tree is informed by prior studies and differentiates DePIN from related concepts using criteria such as the presence of a three-sided market, token-based incentives for supply, and the requirement for physical asset placement in those systems. The paper demonstrates the application of the decision tree to various blockchain systems, including Helium and Bitcoin, showcasing its practical utility in differentiating DePIN systems. This research offers significant contributions towards establishing a more objective and systematic approach to identifying and categorizing DePIN systems. It lays the groundwork for creating a comprehensive and unbiased database of DePIN systems, which will inform future research and development within this emerging sector.
Ethereumâs rollup-centric roadmap assumes that adoption of layer-2 (L2) rollups will relieve congestion on the layer-1 (L1) mainnet, but there is little causal evidence on how large that relief is across major protocol changes. We construct a daily panel for Ethereum from August 2021 to December 2024 and estimate the total effect of L2 adoption on L1 congestion using a regime-aware interrupted time-series design that spans the London, Merge, and Dencun upgrades and adjusts for macro demand. In the pre-Dencun regime, a 10 percentage point increase in L2 adoption reduces median L1 base fees by about 11%âroughly 4â5 Gwei per 21k-gas transferâand yields similar declines in a harmonized congestion index, with only modest changes in block utilization. Combining these elasticities with a Merge-era counterfactual path for L2 adoption, we estimate that observed adoption avoided about $80â$90 million in base and priority fees over 137 days, or roughly $0.6â$0.7 million per day. These effects are precise while L2 adoption is still ramping up but become statistically local once adoption exceeds 85% after Dencun, implying that congestion relief is economically meaningful yet regime-specific. Our findings support continued investment in L2 infrastructure alongside L1 mechanism design and illustrate how to benchmark congestion relief in other multi-layer digital platforms.
This paper presents a multi-contract blockchain framework for inter-provider agreements in 6G networks, emphasizing performance analysis under a realistic Proof-of-Stake (PoS) setting on Ethereum's Sepolia testnet. We begin by quantifying Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM)-based gas usage for critical operations such as provider registration, service addition, and SLA penalty enforcement, observing that cold writes and deep data structures can each inflate gas consumption by up to 20\%. We then examine block-level dynamics when multiple transactions execute concurrently, revealing that moderate concurrency (e.g., 30--50 simultaneous transactions) can fill blocks to 80--90\% of their gas limit and nearly double finalization times from around 15~seconds to over 30~seconds. Finally, we synthesize these insights into a practical design guide, demonstrating that flattening nested mappings, consolidating storage writes, and selectively timing high-impact transactions can markedly reduce costs and latency spikes. Collectively, our findings underscore the importance of EVM-specific optimizations and transaction scheduling for large-scale decentralized applications in 6G telecom scenarios. The implementation is available online.
Open access
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Blockchain Technology Applications and Security
IoT and Edge/Fog Computing
Innovative Microfluidic and Catalytic Techniques Innovation
Complex-valued double-sideband direct detection (DD) can reconstruct the optical field and achieve a high electrical spectral efficiency (ESE) comparable to that of a coherent homodyne receiver, and DD does not require a costly local oscillator laser. However, a fundamental question remains if there is an optimal DD receiver structure with the simplest design to approach the performance of the coherent homodyne detection. This study derives the optimal DD receiver structure with an optimal transfer function to recover a quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM) signal with a near-zero guard band at the central frequency of the signal. We derive the theoretical ESE limit for various detection schemes by invoking Shannonâs formula. Our proposed scheme is closest to coherent homodyne detection in terms of the theoretical ESE limit. By leveraging a WaveShaper to construct the optimal transfer function, we conduct a proof-of-concept experiment to transmit a net 228.85-Gb/s 64-QAM signal over an 80-km single-mode fiber with a net ESE of 8.76 b/s/Hz. To the best of our knowledge, this study reports the highest net ESE per polarization per wavelength for DD transmission beyond 40-km single-mode fiber. For a comprehensive metric, denoted as 2<sup>ESE</sup>ĂReach, we achieve the highest 2<sup>ESE</sup>ĂReach per polarization per wavelength for DD transmission.
Dynamic Spectrum Sharing (DSS) is a pivotal technology for optimizing spectrum utilization and fostering efficient sharing among diverse users. However, existing DSS approaches face significant challenges related to security and privacy vulnerabilities, leading to fraudulent practices within spectrum marketplaces. In this paper, we introduce Spect-NFT, a novel framework leveraging Non Fungible Tokens (NFTs) to address these limitations and enhance the spectrum-sharing ecosystemâs efficiency and revenue. Spect-NFT employs NFTs to authenticate ownership of spectrum bands, mitigating fraudulent activities and improving trust among participants. Additionally, Spect-NFT introduces digital Permission Tokens (PTs) to facilitate seamless spectrum sharing between primary users (PUs) and secondary users (SUs) enabling the sharing of a single NFT among multiple owners. We present a methodology for converting spectrum licenses into NFTs and demonstrate the feasibility of our approach using the Ethereum Blockchain. Our proof of concept solution showcases Spect-NFTâs tamperresistant characteristics and its potential to revolutionize DSS paradigms.
Decentralized physical infrastructure network (DePIN) is currently one of the hottest narratives in Web3. In this paper, we present a new thesis of DePIN, namely the modular DePIN infrastructure. By retrospecting the evolution of software development platforms for building physical infrastructure networks, we describe the new technology trend of building DePIN applications on top of a community-owned modular DePIN infrastructure and highlight the characteristics of this new DePIN thesis from both technical and economic perspectives. In particular, the emerging modular DePIN infrastructure brings a number of research challenges that need to be further addressed through collaboration between academia and industry.
En el ecosistema de las aplicaciones descentralizadas (DApps), la dependencia de un Ășnico nodo de blockchain para realizar todas las transacciones presenta varios desafĂos crĂticos, entre ellos la falta de redundancia y la potencial inestabilidad en caso de fallos en dicho nodo. Este problema subraya la necesidad de un sistema que permita la configuraciĂłn y monitoreo de mĂșltiples nodos, asegurando una alta disponibilidad y un equilibrio de carga eficiente. El presente Trabajo de Final de Grado, titulado "HIGH AVAILABILITY ETHEREUM-LIKE NODE PROXY", aborda esta problemĂĄtica proponiendo una soluciĂłn basada en una aplicaciĂłn desarrollada en Python para monitorear y equilibrar el trĂĄfico entre varios nodos Ethereum JSON-RPC.
Rudolf Kovacs, Sorin Buzura, Bogdan Iancu, Vasile DÄdĂąrlat · 6 authors
The network function virtualization (NFV) feature lies at the core of modern networking, and it allows on-demand real-time integration of new network functions, which is a great benefit for large-scale infrastructure networks. In contrast to the functional benefits, NFV introduces software complexity and computational overhead through additional abstraction layers. The current article addresses the function validation problem in large-scale infrastructure networks of Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and proposes the utilization of blockchain as a validation technology, as opposed to implementing a custom validation solution. The current work showcases a practical architecture implementation to address the service validation in service provider large-scale networks. The POX-based solution to control software-defined networks (SDN) for NFV is extended to offer additional blockchain capabilities. Thus, a blockchain node is integrated and executed in the POX SDN controller. Transaction experiments are performed between two endpoints located in remote locations on the Internet, and the detailed results are presented to validate the utilization of the blockchain technology used on SDNsâ control plane.
Ken Naganuma, Masayuki Yoshino, Noboru Kunihiro, A. Inoue · 6 authors
In recent years, the zero-knowledge succinct non-interactive argument of knowledge (zk-SNARK) have drawn significant attention as privacy-enhancing technologies in various domains. A post-quantum designated verifier type zk-SNARK for Boolean circuits was proposed by Gennaro et al. in ACM CCS '18. However, this scheme does not include arithmetic circuits and they claim that a construction of post zk-SNARKs for arithmetic circuits as open problem. In this paper we give answers to this problem. Our first proposal is based on the data structure used in Pinocchio, a previous study, and can be easily implemented using the existing Pinocchio-based systems. In our second proposal, which also employs QAPs, the zero-knowledge proof comprises three learning with errors (LWE) ciphertexts, and the size of the proof is smaller compared with that of the first proposal. Our second proposal is also more efficient than the first one or all other known post-quantum zk-SNARKs.
Centralized cloud storage, computing, and processing can not fulfill the quality of service (QoS), e.g., high bandwidth and low latency, at reduced costs to emerging applications, such as virtual reality, smart transportation, etc. This paper proposes a hybrid computing framework that can use the best of cloud, fog, and edge capabilities and can be tailored to the needs of applications. Note that fog and edge computing infrastructures, designed for proximity to users, have emerged as promising complements to traditional cloud computing. While fiber access networks can offer QoS to end users connected over fixed devices, an integrated fiber-wireless access network can fulfill mobile end-users requirements. Our framework integrates artificial intelligence techniques for resource optimization, control, and monitoring, among other tasks. Furthermore, we envision that edge devices and sensors, together with fog and cloud, can utilize a distributed ledger technology, such as Blockchain, to establish a trust-based relationship. Finally, we present a use case of hybrid computing over a distributed fiber-wireless network enabled by AI and Blockchain. We show that hybrid computing is essential in balancing a tradeoff between communication latency to generate alert signals and minimizing the power consumption of a system.
The future of communication technology is moving from 5G to 6G with new innovations. Blockchain (BC) is a such immersive technology that significantly impacts the betterment of communication technology. BC-based spectrum-sharing solutions can be used in Dynamic Spectrum Access (DSA) systems to fulfill the need for secure and efficient communication. With the invention of cognitive radio networks, DSA became a popular topic for the scientific community. Spectrum misuse/violations can occur due to the rapid growth of spectrum sharing. As the system is open to malicious attacks, licensed spectrum owners must be identified and verified. However, the existing BC-based DSA solutions are more expensive, non-optimized, and lack spectrum misuse detection. This paper proposes a novel consensus algorithm called âProof of Equationâ for spectrum misuse detection. The core of the proposed algorithm is a consensus score calculation based on a numerical equation with three parameters rather than using cryptographic calculations. The performance of the proposed algorithm is studied using Python simulations, and simulation results show that the proposed algorithm outperforms the Proof of Work (PoW) and Proof of Stake (PoS) consensus algorithms in terms of block production time.
Yuancheng Cai, Shitong Xiang, Min Zhu, Wei Luo · 12 authors
This Letter demonstrates a novel, to the best of knowledge, overlapping single-sideband (OSSB) transmission scheme for spectrally efficient multi-service fiber-wireless (FiWi) access in a low-cost direct-detection (DD) THz system. Utilizing the proposed OSSB scheme, user data from different services can share the same spectrum resource yet can be successfully demodulated via one cost-effective DD THz receiver in conjunction with the Kramers-Kronig (KK) based SSB field reconstruction and look-up table (LUT) enabled signal separation algorithms. A proof-of-principle experiment is conducted. Based on an IQ modulator and a single THz zero-bias diode (ZBD), two independent 10-GBd quadrature phase shift keying (QPSK) signals with an overlapped spectrum are successfully demodulated after 20-km fiber and up to 3-m wireless transmission at the 300-GHz band. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first demonstration of multi-service FiWi access with an OSSB format in a 300-GHz DD THz system.
One of the core technologies facilitating interaction today is the internet, and so the question of how much this technology must evolve is inevitable. Cue in the Web3 debate.
An Elastic Optical Network (EON) nowadays usually accommodates multiple Virtual Optical Networks (VON) by allocating orthogonal spectrum resources for them. A fixed resource allocation pattern may result in a low quality of service since data traffic on VONs may fluctuate with time. Spectrum trading (ST) among VONs could solve this problem by moving spectrum resources between them and blockchain-based ST has recently gained much interest since it avoids the traditional centralization concern. In this paper, we propose a smart contract based decentralized ST scheme for VONs. The system is built on a private blockchain which can be implemented with the off-shelf Ethereum platform at a low development cost. A frequency slot (FS) trading contract (FSTC) is designed to trade unoccupied spectrum resources among VONs. Compared with existing schemes, FSTC explicitly addresses the virtual link brokerage (VLB) problem by trading in the granularity of virtual links. Furthermore, FSTC ensures FS information authenticity and enables FS recyclability via mechanisms based on Ethereum smart contract features. We implement FSTC with Solidity and evaluate its costs which demonstrate the feasibility of the proposed solution.
As blockchain technology and cryptocurrency become increasingly mainstream, ever-increasing energy costs required to maintain the computational power running these decentralized platforms create a market for more energy-efficient hardware. Photonic cryptographic hash functions, which use photonic integrated circuits to accelerate computation, promise energy efficiency for verifying transactions and mining in a cryptonetwork. Like many analog computing approaches, however, current proposals for photonic cryptographic hash functions that promise similar security guarantees as Bitcoin are susceptible to systematic error, so multiple devices may not reach a consensus on computation despite high numerical precision (associated with low photodetector noise). In this paper, we theoretically and experimentally demonstrate that a more general family of robust discrete analog cryptographic hash functions, which we introduce as LightHash, leverages integer matrix-vector operations on photonic mesh networks of interferometers. The difficulty of LightHash can be adjusted to be sufficiently tolerant to systematic error (calibration error, loss error, coupling error, and phase error) and preserve inherent security guarantees present in the Bitcoin protocol. Finally, going beyond our proof-of-concept, we define a ``photonic advantage'' criterion and justify how recent developments in CMOS optoelectronics (including analog-digital conversion) provably achieve such advantage for robust and digitally-verifiable photonic computing and ultimately generate a new market for decentralized photonic technology.
Infrastructure sharing has always been a core aspect of telecommunications networks, especially in the access. The move towards resource-demanding services, which are part of the 5G evolution, further exacerbates its necessity, as the cost of ownership is often not matched by an increase in revenue. In parallel, the recent emergence of network function virtualization is creating new business opportunities and business models that challenge conventional centralized network ownership. In this work, we address the issue of optical access network sharing, addressing the challenging scenario of the untrusted broadband market. We propose, for the first time, to our knowledge, a distributed market scheme for capacity sharing that makes use of permissioned blockchain technology in multi-tenant passive optical networks. The blockchain is used as a verification mechanism that runs in parallel to shared, market-based capacity scheduling operations. To study the feasibility and performance of the proposed verification layer, we have developed a smart contract (chaincodes) using the Hyperledger Fabric permissioned blockchain platform that solves the high transaction cost and energy consumption concerns associated with permissionless blockchain solutions used in cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin and Ethereum.