Maritime supply chains (MSCs) are pivotal to the global economy yet face persistent challenges from external volatility, fragmented collaboration, and sustainability mandates. While consortium blockchain technology is heralded as a transformative solution, its adoption remains underexplored and lacks a holistic analytical framework. This study addresses this gap by conducting a systematic literature review of 81 studies to develop a comprehensive framework. The findings reveal that consortium blockchain adoption is not a binary event but a dynamic process shaped by the interplay of technological, organizational, and environmental factors. The analysis demonstrates that heterogeneous actors—governments, shipping lines, ports, and freight forwarders—assume distinct roles as drivers, pioneers, followers, or skeptics based on absorb capacity costs versus capture value within the emerging ecosystem. The successful transition from a technical platform to an operational system depends on a structured, multi-stage workflow encompassing identity authentication, smart contract collaboration, execution monitoring, and disintermediated payment settlement. Furthermore, this study identifies dual effects. While blockchain enhances efficiency, transparency, and sustainability, it simultaneously introduces power imbalances, systemic rigidity, and market concentration risks. By elucidating the strategic dynamics of adoption, operational implementation mechanisms, and paradoxical outcomes, this study provides a nuanced understanding of how consortium blockchain revolutionizes MSCs.
The paper provides an integrated literature review of recent scientific publications on quantum computing in finance and identifies promising directions for future research on the subject. The review covers seven thematic areas: portfolio optimization, derivative pricing and stochastic volatility, quantum machine learning for fraud detection and credit risk, insurance and actuarial science, mixed-frequency econometrics, fuzzy-quantum approaches for financial explainability, and security of cryptocurrencies. The paper compiles the essential quantum computational methods proposed in the literature, outlines their economic significance and the existing constraints for empirical testing and implementation, and discusses cross-cutting issues of explainability, trustworthy AI, robustness, and governance that arise across these application domains. Drawing on this review, the paper identifies five macro-gaps in the existing literature and proposes seven concrete directions for future research, grounded in European financial data and currently available quantum computing infrastructure. A special focus throughout is the increasingly available quantum infrastructure in Europe and the regulatory emphasis on trustworthy artificial intelligence, both of which create timely opportunities for future applications in financial modelling, risk management, and explainable financial AI.
In cryptocurrency markets, credibility may be created before it can be verified. Promotional signals from influencers, online communities, exchanges, and project actors can create an impression of legitimacy before consumers are able to independently assess the quality, risks, or underlying value of the asset. This systematic review examines how promotional activity contributes to this condition and how the literature connects it with ethical concerns, consumer consequences, and governance. Following PRISMA 2020, 54 empirical studies published between 2019 and 2025 were identified through Scopus and analyzed using thematic synthesis. The findings indicate that promotion is distributed across social media, influencers, communities, exchanges, and project actors, making the boundary between marketing, personal opinion, and financial advice difficult to maintain. Ethical problems arise not only from fraud, but also from selective information, hidden incentives, artificial attention, and market signals that give uncertain assets an appearance of legitimacy. Consumer vulnerability is similarly situational. Knowledge and experience may offer some protection, but trust, technological complexity, social influence, and speculative expectations continue to shape judgement. Regulatory and educational responses remain fragmented because responsibility is dispersed across actors and jurisdictions. The review connects these relationships through an ethical marketing cycle that conceptually organizes how ethical concerns may develop across communication, market activity, consumer interpretation, and governance. This perspective extends ethical marketing beyond the accuracy of individual claims and locates responsibility within the structures through which cryptocurrency credibility is produced. The review is limited by its reliance on Scopus and the absence of a formal risk-of-bias assessment of the included studies.
This study evaluates the risk-adjusted consequences of large-weight equity–cryptocurrency substitution and examines whether these effects differ systematically across equity styles (Growth vs. Value) and regions (Asia, Europe, and the Americas). Using daily data from January 1, 2021 to December 31, 2023, the analysis constructs style-segmented MSCI country equity indices and compares annual Sharpe ratios under four constant-mix, daily rebalanced strategies: (S1) 100% equity; (S2) 50% equity / 50% cryptocurrency; (S3) 50% equity / 50% global bonds; and (S4) 33.33% equity / 33.33% global bonds / 33.33% cryptocurrency. Five major non-stablecoin cryptocurrencies—Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), Ripple (XRP), Solana (SOL), and Binance Coin (BNB)—are evaluated individually to isolate coin-specific substitution effects. Performance is assessed annually and compared across Growth and Value portfolios within identical country–year–cryptocurrency environments to identify style-dependent outcomes. The results show that cryptocurrency substitution generally improves Sharpe ratios, but the effects are benchmark-, coin-, style-, and region-dependent. Improvements are more heterogeneous under direct 50% equity–crypto substitution, especially for Value portfolios, but become uniformly positive when crypto is introduced within an equity–bond benchmark. SOL provides the largest and most consistent improvements, while ETH and BNB are frequently strong and BTC is the least consistent. Growth portfolios benefit more than Value portfolios in Asia and the Americas, whereas Europe shows more style-neutral effects. Because cryptocurrency shocks are common within a given coin-year, statistical inference is interpreted as cross-market evidence rather than fully independent observations.
Abstract This study examines the dynamic volatility spillover between financial technologies and traditional and alternative financial markets. The analysis utilizes daily data covering the period from January 2018 to March 2026 for FinTech ETFs, the Nasdaq, Bitcoin, and gold markets. Interconnectivity among financial markets was analyzed using the time-varying parameter VAR (TVP-VAR) connectedness approach. The findings indicate the presence of a moderate and time-varying connectivity structure among the markets. In particular, a strong interaction was observed between the FinTech and Nasdaq markets, while Bitcoin was found to play a significant role as a volatility transmitter during certain periods. The gold market, on the other hand, generally exhibited more stable and limited interactions. Additionally, the study found that financial market linkages increase during periods of crisis and uncertainty. These results highlight that the transmission of volatility across financial markets has a dynamic structure and that portfolio diversification strategies should be evaluated accordingly. By examining FinTech markets alongside other major asset classes, the study provides a timely and comprehensive contribution to the literature.
Bitcoin has become an increasingly important asset for portfolio allocation, yet its diversification value and option-implied information remain difficult to evaluate. This paper examines Bitcoin risk from portfolio and option-implied perspectives. This study assesses whether Bitcoin improves the risk-return opportunity set with traditional assets and whether its diversification role remains stable during market stress. Option-implied measures, including the 25-delta Risk Reversal (RR25), smile curvature, and an at-the-money Implied-Volatility-minus-Realized-Volatility (IV-minus-RV) proxy, are then constructed to predict market conditions. Portfolio analysis shows that Bitcoin can improve risk-return tradeoffs but does not function as a stable minimum-variance asset or a reliable crisis hedge. Baseline regressions provide limited evidence that RR25 consistently predicts future realized volatility or returns. However, extreme negative short-dated RR25 is followed by higher future realized volatility, suggesting RR25 is more informative as a nonlinear stress-state indicator than as a continuous forecasting variable. Smile curvature captures the implied-volatility surface but provides weaker predictive information. Finally, the IV-minus-RV analysis shows that gradual RR25-based exposure scaling achieves a better risk-adjusted profile than a binary exposure rule. Overall, the findings indicate that Bitcoin's diversification benefits and option-implied information are state-dependent.
Abstract Financial technologies (Fintech), such as digital payments, have become transformative economic tools. Yet despite technological advances and the documented benefits of financial inclusion, 1.3 billion adults remained unbanked in 2024, and cash persists globally. Why is fintech growth accompanied not by more intermediation but by persistent disintermediation (through cash and, increasingly, Bitcoin) that varies significantly across countries? I present a theory of disintermediation identifying three primary drivers: weak state capacity, underdeveloped infrastructure, and political institutions shaping citizens’ incentives regarding formal finance. The first two are supply-side factors: weak state capacity enables merchants to demand cash payments to avoid taxation, strengthening informal sectors, and lacking banking infrastructure raises the cost of intermediation. The third is a demand-side factor extending Hirschman’s ‘Exit, Voice, and Loyalty’ framework to finance: autocratic governance increases citizens’ exit from formal finance. I test this theory through two empirical analyses using two-way fixed effects, each capturing disintermediation within a different population: First, cash dependency among the broad population of economic actors in 158 countries, 2001–2020 ( n = 2760). Second, the choice of peer-to-peer over exchange-based channels among cryptocurrency users in 161 countries, 2019–2024 ( n = 921), using a novel dataset provided by Chainalysis, a market leader in blockchain intelligence. The two measures are deliberately not parallel: the cash analysis tests the theory on the broadest possible population, while the Bitcoin analysis tests whether the same institutional drivers predict the choice of disintermediated channels within the population of cryptocurrency users. Consistent results across populations this different indicate that the theorized mechanism is general rather than an artifact of either measure. Results are robust across estimators, including Callaway and Sant’Anna staggered difference-in-differences. Findings demonstrate that supply and demand drivers each shape disintermediation, and establish a research agenda investigating fintech adoption through financial disintermediation.
Authentication in Web 3.0 faces a structural conflict. Systems that offer full anonymity leave no lawful way to identify a malicious actor. Systems built for accountability expose a persistent wallet address to blockchain-graph analysis, or fall back on centralized key recovery. Existing designs solve one side of this conflict at the cost of the other. This paper presents PEUAP-W3, a Privacy-Enhanced and User-centric Authentication Protocol. Its contribution is the integration of five established components into a single deployed and formally analyzed system. A Circom 2 circuit of 1579 Groth16 constraints proves four facts in a single 192-byte on-chain proof: knowledge of an opening of the session credential commitment, an SpO2 value inside an 85–100% band, single-use nonce binding, and HMAC integrity. Shamir (k = 2, n = 3) sharing distributes the identity payload across three independent relays. The coordinator reconstructs an identity only after a threshold vote has been recorded on chain. Credentials are issued as W3C Verifiable Credentials 2.0 in did:key form. Four Solidity contracts verify the proof on Ethereum Sepolia. Verification costs about 241,000 gas and takes roughly 3 ms. ProVerif and Scyther find no attack under the Dolev–Yao model. A concurrency sweep to 500 simultaneous requests completes 1191 requests with zero failures at about 15.4 requests per second. A behavioral gate screens commodity abuse as a supplementary control; it is not treated as a security boundary. Against a nine-property framework, PEUAP-W3 satisfies six properties. Three remain conditional and are not verified in the current deployment: biological-origin assurance and digital replay prevention, both of which need an attested sensor; and GDPR erasure equivalence. Here, formally verified refers to the protocol models and theorems, not to the complete deployed software.
A Research Program on the Gift as Economic Primitive, and the Register of Everything That Could Show It Wrong This document states a research program and the conditions under which it should be abandoned. The program's hard core is a single claim about direction: that value can be organized to move only forward — from giver to receiver to the next receiver — and that a system built on that constraint circulates better than one that permits return to the source. Four chapters name the ways the core can break: whether receiving creates the capacity to give, whether the constraint survives a change of currency, whether it survives past the family, and whether it survives the giver. Each chapter is attached to pre-registered predictions, published here as a register of sixty-six items with their falsifiers, their instruments, and their status. The program is published at a deliberate moment: almost nothing in it has been run. Two desk censuses have returned results, both null or partial-null. There have been no field tests. The first is gated on a product launch in August 2027. A register published after the data arrives cannot be distinguished from a register assembled to fit it; this one is published while the outcome is unknown, which is the only condition under which it constitutes evidence of anything. --- Provenance. This paper is part of the THonly research corpus, dedicated to the public domain under CC0 1.0. The canonical version is at https://thonly.org/research/which-way-value-moves. Its SHA-256 is 89dfd48398c1c23ec6613ae953a3b326a469f8a14e76258fcdabc46fea156d5b, independently timestamped to the Bitcoin blockchain via OpenTimestamps and signed under RFC 3161 by three trust authorities, one of them eIDAS-qualified. AI co-authorship is disclosed. Miss Aquarius is the consistent name used for the AI collaboration across all venues.
The present research explores how blockchain technology and cryptocurrencies challenge the traditional continental civil law framework. By reassessing the legal taxonomy of digital assets, the paper argues against their strict classification as jura in personam, primarily due to the absence of a designated debtor in permissionless networks. Alternatively, it supports the recognition of a sui-generis real right (jus in re) grounded in the concept of ‘cryptographic possession’. Furthermore, classical civil classifications are reinterpreted to address the ubiquitous nature of digital assets and the inherent complexities of jurisdictional localization. The study highlights the legal distinction between fungible cryptocurrencies and Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs), alongside the emerging fructiferous character of assets deployed within Decentralized Finance (DeFi) ecosystems, which generate civil fruits. To contextualize these shifts, three European regulatory paradigms are evaluated: the French dualist approach under the PACTE Law, the German institutional integration into the banking sector, and the Swiss DLT framework, which innovatively merges substantive rights with digital tokens. Finally, the analysis focuses on the practical implications for the pathology of legal relations, particularly regarding the efficacy of forced execution and the safeguarding of the creditors' general pledge. The paper concludes with targeted de lege ferenda proposals for the Romanian legal system. These include the express statutory recognition of digital assets as intangible movable property in the Civil Code, alongside modern civil procedure mechanisms, such as the judicially mandated surrender of private keys under penalty and automated electronic garnishment, aimed at harmonizing state coercive power with the realities of the Web 3.0 economy.
Cryptocurrencies have also seen their development within the last decade becoming a globally popular financial phenomenon that once existed as a niche technological experiment. What started with the launch of the bitcoin in 2009 has grown into a massive ecosystem of digital assets, decentralized applications and blockchain-based financial services (Zribi et al., 2023). These inventions have been a paradigm shift in the conventional concept of money, trust and the financial intermediation. Cryptocurrencies have provided new avenues in financial inclusion, especially in areas whose banking systems are poorly developed, due to the ability to conduct peer-to-peer transactions that do not require centralized institutions, like banks or governments (Sapra & Shaikh, 203).
Decentralized unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) swarms require low-latency peer communication while remaining resilient to spoofing, replay, command injection, key compromise, and malicious membership changes. This study develops a zero-trust communication framework that separates the real-time swarm data plane from a permissioned Byzantine-fault-tolerant trust ledger. The method is grounded in an existing GPS-denied UAV software baseline implementing canonical packet hashing, HMAC-SHA256 authentication, trust epochs, timestamp and sequence freshness checks, onboard security-state transitions, command-policy gating, and firmware trust records. The proposed extension introduces per-node identities, authenticated session establishment, AEAD-protected peer traffic, and event-sparse ledger anchoring for trust-changing evidence. Formal models are derived for message acceptance, trust dynamics, Byzantine tolerance, consensus traffic, storage growth, processing overhead, and energy cost. Under a representative analytical case of 100 swarm messages/s, a 1% anchoring ratio reduces ledger event rate and modeled consensus-control traffic by 100 times compared with per-packet anchoring. Repository benchmark measurements are reported separately from blockchain projections. The analysis supports using blockchain as a decentralized trust anchor rather than as a transport for flight-critical telemetry.
Background: In recent years, the Internet of Medical Things (IoMT) has transformed the healthcare sector through real-time patient monitoring and continuous data collection.However, transmitting sensitive medical information over public networks exposes IoMT systems to significant security threats, while emerging quantum computing technologies challenge the reliability of traditional cryptographic systems.Objective: The objective of this study is to propose PQAC-BIoMT, a secure and robust model for remote user authentication and access control in IoMT environments, capable of withstanding both conventional and quantum attacks.Methods: This article proposes a decentralized authentication framework that integrates post-quantum cryptography using Kyber Public-Key Encryption (Kyber-PKE) into blockchain-based smart contracts.Fog computing nodes are used to reduce the authentication latency and improve the system scalability.A role-based authorization mechanism is integrated to link user identities to functional roles and enforce authorization to medical data and system resource access.Formal security verification is conducted using Burrows-Abadi-Needham (BAN) logic to validate the correctness of authentication, and the Automated Validation of Internet Security Protocols and Applications (AVISPA) tool is used to assess resistance to known attacks.PQAC-BIoMT is further evaluated through a comparative analysis of the computational load, energy consumption and security properties.Results: Our security analysis demonstrates that PQAC-BIoMT effectively resists common attacks while providing quantum-resistant protection against them.The performance evaluation shows that the proposed scheme achieves relatively lower computational and energy overhead compared to existing approaches, making it suitable for resource-constrained IoMT devices.Conclusion: The proposed PQAC-BIoMT scheme delivers a secure, quantum-resilient authentication and authorization mechanism for IoMT systems, enhancing both data protection and operational efficiency, which can support practical deployment in real-world IoMT applications.
Open access
Blockchain Technology Applications and Security
Physical Unclonable Functions (PUFs) and Hardware Security
Centralised cloud authentication and authorisation commonly rely on a trusted server for identity, policy enforcement, and audit logging, which can increase the impact of compromise and complicate tamper-evident accountability. This paper presents a decentralised biometric authentication and authorisation framework that integrates fingerprint minutiae verification with Ethereum smart contracts and IPFS-based off-chain storage. Biometric templates are processed off-chain using a NIST NBIS-based pipeline ( MINDTCT minutiae extraction and Bozorth3 matching) and protected via SHA-256 hashing, zlib compression, and authenticated encryption (Fernet), while the blockchain stores only integrity metadata (hashes and IPFS content identifiers) and authorisation state. To mitigate replay attacks without introducing additional session-creation transactions, the framework uses a domain-separated request-binding hash ( tokenHash ) over the caller, nonce, timestamp, chain id, and contract address, validated on-chain together with one-time nonce consumption. A prototype was implemented using Solidity on a local Ethereum-compatible test network (Ganache), with Python/Web3 tooling and an IPFS-compatible content-addressed storage interface. Biometric performance is reported using standard metrics (FAR/FRR/EER and ROC/DET curves) on SOCOFing and FVC2002/FVC2004 benchmarks. In the core blockchain experiment, the proposed single-call attendance workflow required 74,773 gas while adding nonce-based replay protection and auditable authorisation checks on top of CID/hash anchoring (the separate literature benchmark reports end-to-end call-path gas under a shared harness). Compression reduces encrypted-template storage by approximately 76–84% across tested dataset sizes. Security analysis and attack simulation show that replay attempts (nonce/token reuse), unauthorised access, and off-chain payload tampering are rejected under the stated threat model.
Blockchain-based credential verification provides durable integrity and decentralized validation, but the persistence of blockchain commitments can make premature disclosure of sensitive attributes difficult to reverse. This study developed a pre-commitment privacy risk intelligence framework that assessed potential information leakage before credential commitment and used the estimated risk to guide adaptive protection. Synthetic credential records and simulated attacker-side information were employed to characterize privacy exposure through uniqueness, re-identification susceptibility, cross-source linkage, attribute inference, and attributeinteraction effects. These indicators were transformed into predictive features and evaluated using machinelearning models for continuous privacy-risk estimation and categorical risk assessment, followed by an optimization stage that considered privacy reduction and retained utility. In the reported training experiment, the gradient-boosted regression model achieved a mean absolute error of 0.03290, root mean square error of 0.04645, and coefficient of determination of 0.84398. Logistic regression provided the strongest classification performance, attaining 85.63% accuracy, 81.33% recall, an F1-score of 82.44%, and a privacy false-negative rate of 18.67%. A subsequent evaluation of 1,100 records reduced the mean privacy-risk score from 0.81826 to 0.67337, corresponding to a 17.71% relative reduction, while maintaining a mean utility score of 0.84227. The findings indicated that pre-commitment privacy assessment could support risk-sensitive protection decisions while retaining substantial utility for verifiable credential processing.
Cybercrimes that exploit virtual assets—including laundering, concealment, and illicit financing through the dark web—are increasing rapidly, while existing tracking tools remain limited when offenders leverage multi-layer blockchain architectures and off-chain mechanisms to obscure fund flows. This paper proposes a practical full-node-based blockchain forensic framework for the automated detection and tracking of illicit virtual asset transactions across Layer-1 and Layer-2 environments. The framework operates a full-node network to construct a continuously updated database of all on-chain transactions, from which exchange-controlled internal addresses are identified using six formalized heuristics (H1–H6) expressed as a weighted-sum scoring model. A unified multi-layer transaction graph incorporates Layer-2 events—payment channel closures, rollup batch submissions, and bridge deposits and withdrawals—as contextual edge attributes correlated with Layer-1 settlement. Protocol-specific cross-layer correlation procedures, covering Arbitrum retryable tickets, Optimism cross-domain messages, zkSync Era batch commitments, and third-party bridge relays, were validated on live main-net transactions. Applying the framework to 7511 suspect wallet addresses, 821 (10.93%) were attributed to four Korean exchanges, and real laundering cases involving mixing and swapping—together with integrated real-time alerting and transaction-freeze request functions—demonstrate its direct applicability to law enforcement investigations. In addition, attribution reliability is quantified through the 98.80% labeling consistency observed across repeated independent collections of the same addresses, the standard forensic metrics are formally defined together with publicly released evaluation tooling, and the end-to-end detection latency is bounded analytically by the confirmation properties of the underlying protocols, substantiating the real-time capability of the framework.
Ho Thanh Tri, Le Hoang Minh Khue, Le Dinh Van, Tran Gia Linh · 6 authors
As the digital economy rapidly develops, quick access to capital has become a critical survival factor for individuals intending to start a new business. However, under traditional bank lending systems, these aspiring entrepreneurs face significant barriers due to complex financial documentation requirements and stringent credit history checks. Drawing on the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM), this study investigates factors influencing users’ adoption of blockchain-enabled digital lending platforms among individual customers with startup intentions in Vietnam. The empirical model examines the effects of Perceived Ease of Use and Perceived Usefulness on Attitude Toward Using, and the effect of Attitude on Behavioral Intention to Use. The results show that both perceived ease of use and perceived usefulness positively influence users’ attitudes, while attitude strongly affects behavioral intention. Blockchain-related characteristics, including decentralization, data immutability, and smart contracts, are discussed as technological mechanisms that may improve lending efficiency, transparency, and users’ confidence in digital lending systems. The study provides practical implications for banks and FinTech firms seeking to design user-friendly and secure digital lending platforms for underserved entrepreneurial users.
The urgency of climate change has increased the need for effective mechanisms to reduce emissions and mobilize climate finance. Carbon markets provide a market-based approach through trading carbon credits from verified projects, but they face issues such as low transparency, double counting, weak monitoring, and lack of trust. This chapter examines how blockchain technology can address these challenges by improving transparency, traceability, and efficiency in carbon trading systems. Based on a conceptual review and global case studies, it highlights how blockchain enhances tracking, verification, and trading of carbon credits. The findings suggest that blockchain strengthens monitoring and reporting, reduces fraud risks, and improves accountability. It also enables more accessible and efficient carbon markets with broader stakeholder participation. The chapter concludes that blockchain-enabled carbon markets can enhance credibility and support the transition to a low-carbon economy.
This chapter investigates the nexus between blockchain and green markets by employing the wavelet coherency time-frequency analysis from July 14, 2021, to March 20, 2024. The study employs an index- based approach to represent the blockchain market and focuses on four green financial Assets: green bonds, clean energy, clean cryptocurrency and sustainable equities. Findings entail a weak to absent long run co-movement. The mid-run result shows a moderately positive co-movement, which suggests that these markets tend to move in the same direction, with the blockchain index showing the leading role in most cases. These results have significant implications for market participants and policy makers. In fact, investors can use these findings to diversify their portfolios by incorporating blockchain and green financial instruments and, therefore, mitigate portfolio risk. Policymakers could also take advantage of these findings by promoting sustainable economic policies which capitalize on the stabilizing effects that blockchain technology has.
Stian Lybech, Eun-Young Kang, Riccardo Tonello, Anders Dalskov
This paper develops a model of a smart-contract language for a blockchain architecture with off-chain components. Off-chain components are pieces of smart contracts that execute at designated locations outside of the network of blockchain nodes, but remain synchronised with the on-chain contract state. They react to changes to the on-chain state, but may also notify the on-chain component about events in the world, e.g. stock prices, weather data etc., or even act as a bridge between different blockchains. This affords greater flexibility for the developer, but may also enable new vulnerabilities. As a concrete example, we use the model to study the problem of ensuring integrity and secrecy of data between the on-chain and off-chain components, using static information flow control techniques. This fails, even in the absence of a loop construct, because off-chain components act as separate threads and can encode a blocking construct e.g. through recursive method calls. We end the paper with a discussion of possible ways to remedy this situation.
Alifta Dicasani, Galih Mahardika Munandar, Muhammad Nur Wahyu Hidayah, Faradhina Azzahra
Post-disaster aid logistics is frequently affected by fragmented data, mismatches between needs and availability, distribution delays, and weak accountability. This study integrates a systematic literature review (SLR) and a proof-of-concept (PoC) to examine how blockchain can support data governance and aid traceability. Articles published in 2020-2025 were retrieved from ScienceDirect and Scopus, selected using PRISMA principles, and synthesized thematically from 31 eligible studies. The synthesis identified coordination and information alignment, along with traceability of goods, funds, beneficiaries, and delivery status, as the dominant issues. Frequently reported mechanisms included distributed ledgers, smart contracts, audit trails, cryptographic identities, and role verification. These findings were translated into a Solidity-based smart-contract PoC on a local Ganache network covering requests, stock, allocation, shipment, receipt validation, and event logs. Three synthetic scenarios and an access-control test showed that valid transactions were recorded, over-allocation was rejected, receipt discrepancies were flagged, and unauthorized operations were reverted. Blockchain is therefore better positioned as an infrastructure for data governance and transaction validation than as a standalone solution to all disaster-logistics problems.
Vanessa Itacaramby Pardim, Luis Hernan Contreras Pinochet, Jhenifer Amore Castanho, Marcos dos Santos · 5 authors
Purpose This study aims to examine how heterogeneous stakeholder groups within the Brazilian non-fungible tokens (NFT) visual arts ecosystem prioritize acquisition criteria and evaluate market alternatives. Design/methodology/approach The study applies a quantitative multi-criteria decision-making approach to data from 128 participants grouped into artists/creators, designers/creative entrepreneurs, collectors/investors, and analysts/intermediaries. The criteria weights are derived using the method based on the removal effects of criteria, and five NFT-related alternatives are ranked using 11 compensatory multi-criteria decision-making techniques. Ranking robustness was assessed through stability and rank correlation analyses. Findings The results indicate stakeholder-sensitive decision patterns rather than sharply separated evaluative structures. NFT auctions have emerged as the dominant alternative for creative and analytical actors, whereas crowdfunding-based NFT projects are consistently preferred by collectors and investors. Criterion importance varies moderately among stakeholder groups, whereas alternative rankings exhibit greater stability across several aggregation methods. Practical implications The findings provide actionable insights for artists, platform managers, investors, and policymakers by demonstrating how different stakeholder groups evaluate NFT acquisition mechanisms. Understanding these differentiated decision patterns can support more targeted platform design, governance structures, and strategic positioning in NFT-based markets. Social implications This study highlights the importance of transparency, security, and stakeholder-sensitive governance in NFT-based creative ecosystems, particularly in emerging markets where digital assets remain institutionally unstable. Originality/value This study integrates institutional logics, digital innovation ecosystems, and multi-criteria decision-making to analyze NFT-related decisions from a multi-stakeholder perspective. It shows how NFT governance mechanisms and platform strategies can be aligned with different stakeholder priorities.