The growth of decentralized data ecosystems has increased the need for transparent and traceable contract agreements between organizations. Although the Eclipse Dataspace Components offer a flexible, open-source framework for sovereign data exchange, they present limitations in terms of end-to-end transparency and traceability of these agreements. This thesis explores how blockchain technologies, specifically smart contracts and tokenized assets, can enhance the Eclipse Dataspace Components to address these limitations. We introduce a model in which contract agreements are represented as non-fungible tokens. These tokens represent uniquely identifiable off-chain contracts whose state changes are immutably recorded on the blockchain. This allows for contract life-cycle monitoring and tamper-proof traceability across dataspace participants. The implementation includes a custom ERC-721 smart contract deployed on the Sepolia Testnet, as well as a decentralized application that connects its functionality to the Eclipse Dataspace Components. The evaluation is conducted using a Minimum Viable Dataspace hosted on two separate servers, representing one data provider and one data consumer. The evaluation demonstrates that agreements based on smart contracts significantly improve transparency and traceability while maintaining data sovereignty. Overall, the results show that blockchain-based contract agreements build trust without modifying the existing workflows of the Eclipse Dataspace Components. This provides a viable path toward the management of trustworthy and sovereign contracts in future dataspaces.
This paper introduces DNET (Dual Network Exchange Technology), an interface architecture that unifies Settlement, Exchange, and Record generation into a single transaction structure for digital payments. Modern payment systems often treat exchange and settlement as separate backend processes, leading to fragmented identifiers, inconsistent idempotency behavior, and operational divergence across implementations. DNET resolves these issues by binding Payment Intent, Exchange Decision, and Settlement Outcome under a single TxID, enabling atomic SER‑coupling across Web2 and Web3 environments. The architecture provides a protocol‑level foundation for multi‑asset payments, ensuring traceability, auditability, and interoperability while reducing operational complexity. This work positions DNET as an OS‑layer interface for value transfer, offering a structural standard for future financial infrastructure.
This paper presents the design, implementation, and evaluation of a decentralized system for issuing and verifying academic certificates based on blockchain technology. The proposed solution addresses common limitations of traditional certification models, such as susceptibility to forgery, reliance on centralized infrastructures, and inefficient verification processes. The system is built on the TRON blockchain and integrates smart contracts written in Solidity, a decentralized web application (dApp) for user interaction, and the InterPlanetary File System (IPFS) for decentralized storage of certificate metadata. The methodology comprised architectural design, smart contract development, and the implementation of a web-based interface, followed by functional, security, performance, and usability evaluations. Experimental results show that the system correctly supports certificate issuance and public verification, enforces access control, and resists common misuse scenarios. Performance analysis indicates low confirmation latency and negligible transaction costs, making the solution suitable for large-scale academic environments. Additionally, usability assessment using the System Usability Scale (SUS) resulted in a score of 76.67, indicating good user acceptance. Overall, the results demonstrate the technical feasibility and practical viability of the proposed approach, highlighting the TRON blockchain as an effective and cost-efficient infrastructure for decentralized academic certification systems.
Prof. Sampada S. Kapse, Nithin C, Nithin C, Pavan Adithya V · 5 authors
Abstract In recent years, the protection and management of Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) have become challenging due to the rapid growth of digital content, ownership disputes, and lack of transparency in traditional systems. Most existing IPR management frameworks rely on centralized authorities and manual verification processes, which are inefficient, time-consuming, and vulnerable to tampering. This paper introduces IPR Management Using Blockchain, a decentralized system designed to securely register and manage intellectual property assets. The system uses blockchain technology to ensure immutability, transparency, and tamper-proof ownership records. Smart contracts are employed to automate IP registration, ownership verification, licensing, and royalty distribution without third-party involvement. The proposed system enables creators to securely register digital assets and provides verifiable proof of ownership through cryptographic hashing and distributed ledgers. Experimental evaluation shows improved security, transparency, and efficiency compared to traditional IPR management approaches. The blockchain-based IPR system offers a scalable and reliable solution for modern digital rights protection. Keywords: Blockchain; Intellectual Property Rights; Smart Contracts; Digital Ownership; Decentralized Ledger chatbot
The rapid expansion of the Non-Fungible Token (NFT) market has underscored significant challenges in copyright protection and ownership authentication. While blockchain technology ensures the immutability and transparency of token transactions, the off-chain storage of metadata and original content remains a critical vulnerability, exposing NFTs to risks such as data loss, manipulation, and copyright disputes. In response to these challenges, this study proposes a blockchain-integrated watermarking framework that embeds resilient copyright information into digital assets via a general frequency-domain approach. The watermark is stored off-chain within the InterPlanetary File System (IPFS), while its associated Content Identifier (CID) is anchored in a smart contract, ensuring traceability of provenance and verification of authenticity. Comparative experiments with the Least Significant Bit (LSB) method demonstrate the superior robustness of the proposed frequency-domain technique against various attacks, including compression, noise, and image manipulation. The proposed framework significantly enhances copyright protection, facilitates transparent NFT provenance, and provides a scalable foundation for secure digital asset management within blockchain-based ecosystems.
Open access
Blockchain Technology Applications and Security
Advanced Steganography and Watermarking Techniques
Agentic AI platforms launch short-lived software agents that act with delegated authority across services and organizations. Existing authentication protocols were designed for traditional web applications and long-lived microservices, not ephemeral autonomous agents, creating uncertainty about their applicability to agentic scenarios. This paper systematically analyzes authentication mechanisms for agentic ecosystems, including SPIFFE/SPIRE for workload identity, OAuth 2.0 and OpenID Connect for user delegation, Token Exchange for delegation chains, DPoP for sender-constrained tokens, CIBA for human step-up, and decentralized identity approaches for cross-domain portability. We propose a five-pattern taxonomy organizing these mechanisms by interaction type: user-to-agent, orchestrator-to-agent, agent-to-internal service, agent-to-external API, and cross-domain federation. For each pattern, we evaluate capabilities and limitations based on specifications and implementations, identify integration prerequisites, and highlight operational challenges. To validate the feasibility of protocol composition, we implement a hybrid prototype that demonstrates agent-to-internal-service authentication. Measurements show that sender-constrained tokens add 52ms of cold-path and 11ms of warm-path overhead, with token caching providing a 4.6× speedup. Our analysis indicates that protocol compositions can address core agentic requirements (ephemerality, delegation, replay prevention, auditability) within a single trust domain, while identifying critical research gaps, including multi-hop delegation semantics, federation automation, and high-churn performance.
The thesis deals with the development of a decentralized Ethereum-based application for purchasing, selling and playing music. The goal of the application is to demonstrate the use of a blockchain-based platform that can replace corporate intermediaries.
One of the main Web3 applications is Non-Fungible Tokens, blockchain-based certificates to keep track of the ownership of unique digital or physical assets. Nowadays, there is no standard method to evaluate an NFT, and only for a trait-based collection can we rely on the rarity score, which estimates the scarcity of the traits of the NFT. However, rarity is unsuitable for describing the price of a token in a volatile market, and it is not a good price indicator because a token’s price is strictly related to external unpredictable events and the interest people have in specific assets. In this paper, we propose an evaluation model called The Popularity Model , that aims to evaluate NFTs based on marketability The Popularity Model is based on a set of indices which define a dynamic, socioeconomic indicator, with an antifraud system. We formalised and compared our popularity model and the rarity score to show their differences. Finally, we propose two applicable use cases in which the popularity index can be applied. The experiments show and confirm the utility and efficacy of the proposed evaluation model.
P. Chinnasamy, R. Shashidhar Reddy, Y. Lohith Kiran, D. Prathap Reddy · 5 authors
In the age of using technology to work together remotely, the inability to share files in a secure manner is a problem often faced since many online sharing options available do not have good protection on their sharing options and do not safeguard against unauthorized use of the files. This paper presents a secure file sharing portal that has end to end encryption and user-based access controls and that works inside a web browser. The system uses the Web Crypto API interface to provide local encryption on the user’s devices using the AES-GCM encryption algorithm, so that the user’s plaintext documents do not leave the device. A separate layer of protection exists in the system. It is not enough for a user to just receive the encrypted file. The user has to receive a decryption key that the sender has to share through a separate channel. Access is for members only which requires sender approval and we have features like secure QR code share, session monitoring, digital certificates for identity proof and policy enforcement for compliance. Also, we have a "Secure Space" module which is for ephemeral work groups that has in space chat, multi user invites, controlled key exchange and one click revocation which in turn puts power back in the users’ hands. We combined zero knowledge structure with audit able workflows to present a privacy first, scalable and easy to use solution. Also, we show how we used modern web tech to create a trusted setting for sensitive file share which at the same time does not sacrifice ease of use or performance.
Sangita Lade, Muhammad Parkar, Shreyas Nagarkar, Om Shintre · 5 authors
This paper focuses on the design and development of a decentralized blogging platform aimed at overcoming the limitations of existing centralized content publishing systems through the use of blockchain technology. Most mainstream blogging platforms remain vulnerable to censorship, data breaches, content manipulation, and arbitrary content removal. To address these challenges, the proposed system leverages Ethereum smart contracts for transaction validation and content management, along with the Interplanetary File System (IPFS) for secure, reliable, and distributed storage. The integration of these technologies ensures immutability, author verification, and strong resistance to censorship. Additionally, the platform incorporates an incentive mechanism that rewards content creators through a token-based economy and wallet-driven identity management. The system was evaluated on the Ethereum testnet and demonstrated significant improvements in content persistence, ownership verification, and censorship resistance compared to traditional platforms. Performance analysis indicates stable transaction confirmation times and efficient storage utilization, with potential for further optimization of gas consumption. User interface testing further confirms that the platform effectively abstracts blockchain complexity, offering a user-friendly experience. Overall, this work presents a practical Web3-based content publishing solution that supports creator empowerment and content integrity in a trustless digital environment.
Raghavan Sheeja, Sherwin Richard R., Shreenidhi Kovai Sivabalan, Srinivas Madhavan
<p>The generational improvement has significantly converted several industries, and the area of intellectual property rights (IPR) isn’t any exception. IPRs, being as important as they are, need to be securely managed in some way. Blockchain, with its decentralized and immutable nature, gives a promising answer for enhancing the management of intellectual property (IP). This paper explores the strategic integration of blockchain generation for the control of IPR. The proposed system consists of a complete system, from registration and validation to predictive evaluation and royalty distribution, all facilitated through clever contracts. The use of zero-knowledge proofs guarantees the safety and confidentiality of sensitive information. The paper discusses the advantages and future implications of implementing this type of device.</p>
In the case of upgrading smart contracts on blockchain systems, it is essential to consider the continuity of upgrades and subsequent maintenance. In practice, upgrade operations often introduce new vulnerabilities. Existing static analysis tools usually only scan a single version and are unable to capture the correlation between code changes and emerging risks. To address this, we propose an Upgradeable Smart Contract Security Analyzer, USCSA, which uses Abstract Syntax Tree (AST) difference analysis to assess risks associated with the upgrade process and utilizes large language models (LLMs) for assisted reasoning to achieve high-confidence vulnerability attribution. We collected and analyzed 3,546 cases of vulnerabilities in upgradeable contracts, covering common vulnerability categories such as reentrancy, access control flaws, and integer overflow. Experimental results show that USCSA achieves a precision of 92.26%, a recall of 89.67%, and an F1-score of 90.95% in detecting upgrade-induced vulnerabilities. As a result, USCSA provides a significant advantage to improve the security and integrity of upgradeable smart contracts, offering a novel and efficient solution for security auditing on blockchain applications.
With the rapid evolution of the Decentralized Web (DWeb), decentralized technologies have paved new avenues for Web3 applications and the authentication of digital assets. Among them, Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) have gained significant popularity due to their immutability and uniqueness, reshaping the landscape of artistic creation, marketing, and intellectual property protection. However, current blockchain-based NFT implementations still face core challenges within decentralized architecture: how to maintain decentralization while ensuring the visual uniqueness of digital assets and reducing storage costs. The rampant issue of duplication undermines the scarcity of digital art and erodes market confidence in copyright authenticity. Moreover, high gas fees and energy consumption further hinder the widespread adoption of NFTs, while reliance on external storage solutions like InterPlanetary File System (IPFS) introduces risks of data instability and loss. To address these challenges, this article presents the UniqueNFT framework, a novel architecture that deeply integrates blockchain oracles with decentralized storage verification mechanisms. The framework achieves three key technological breakthroughs: Using image inversion and generation techniques based on Encoder for Editing (E4E) and StyleGAN3, it extracts compact and expressive semantic features from NFT images, enabling efficient data compression and significantly reducing on-chain storage volume; The Crypto-Mask algorithm, by utilizing the hash value of blockchain user information (user-controlled SHA-256 digest of Ethereum address, user nickname, and registration time), ensures the visual uniqueness of NFTs; A smart contract extension compatible with the ERC721 standard, demonstrating UniqueNFT’s seamless integration within the blockchain ecosystem. By leveraging the technologies of the Decentralized Web, our framework represents an important step forward in enhancing the security and uniqueness of digital assets. It not only innovatively resolves the issues of NFT duplication and homogenization but also injects new vitality and long-term momentum into the creation of a trusted, sustainable blockchain-based digital asset ecosystem.
Michele Pasqua, Sofia Mari, Ferdinando Santoro, Mariano Ceccato
With Ethereum’s rise as the leading platform for decentralized applications, securing Ethereum smart contracts, very often having a financial impact, becomes paramount. Existing research lacks a comprehensive overview of Ethereum defects (and the terminology is often inconsistent), making it difficult for researchers, developers, and industry professionals to navigate this nowadays critical topic. This necessitates a unified source of information detailing defects affecting Ethereum and its smart contracts, along with their root causes, impact, and mitigation strategies. In this paper, we propose a knowledge base of defects , encompassing security vulnerabilities and code flaws found in the Ethereum blockchain and its smart contracts. We started by performing a systematic literature review to identify the currently known defects and then created a hierarchical tag system to classify them. This system was then used to build an ontology allowing users to easily search and learn about Ethereum defects. We also implemented EDOV, a tool to graphically navigate and explore the ontology, perform search queries, and visualize defect details, such as examples of defective/fixed code. As new defects may appear in the future, the ontology and the tool are built with extensibility in mind. We believe this research is a valuable contribution to helping developers and practitioners avoid common mistakes, improving the overall security and reliability of the Ethereum ecosystem.
In the context of cultural resource big data sharing and trading, existing practices face challenges such as coarse-grained permission management, privacy leakage during data delivery, and insufficient process automation. To address these issues, this paper proposes an integrated solution for permission management and automated transaction delivery. First, a multi-dimensional attribute permission model (MDAPM) for cultural resources is introduced, which leverages fuzzy mathematics and smart contracts to achieve dynamic authorization across the three dimensions of user, resource, and context, while incorporating zero-knowledge proofs (ZKP) to mitigate privacy leakage in permission verification. Second, a permission-data-address coupled delivery framework (PDACPF) is designed, which integrates the consortium blockchain and the interPlanetary file system (IPFS) for distributed storage to enable end-to-end automation of cultural resource data management, from preprocessing and transaction triggering through secure delivery. Simulation results demonstrate that under a lOO-concurrency scenario, the solution achieves a permission adjustment response time of less than 0.8 s, a data delivery success rate of at least 99.9%, and reduces privacy leakage risk to zero, thereby effectively supporting standardized trading and sharing of cultural resource big data.
In the advancement of Industry 4.0, integrating intelligent systems, automation, and real-time data exchange has significantly transformed global industries. Among these developments, blockchain technology has emerged as a pivotal innovation, offering unparalleled data integrity, transparency, and decentralized control capabilities. This paper introduces a novel Ethereum-based decentralized application (DApp) architecture, comprising modular smart contracts to enhance industrial and societal systems, particularly within environmental sustainability in water body management. Each contract addresses a distinct operational layer, from secure storage and role-based access control to verified participation, drive coordination, and automated Ether-based reward distribution. The system was developed and tested in Remix IDE to validate functionality and integrity. This DApp framework secures workflows and extends blockchain utility to civic engagement through verified volunteer activities and incentive-based water conservation initiatives. Unlike prior work, this model integrates decentralized, scalable, and auditable mechanisms that have not previously been consolidated within a unified environmental DApp.
This poster introduces HarvETHter, a smart contract decompiler for EVM-based platforms such as Ethereum, Binance, and Polygon. We present the corpus completeness hypothesis, which we investigate through HarvETHter. Relying on our hypothesis, HarvETHter sources knowledge of the Ethereum blockchain and leverages it to decompile smart contracts to Solidity source code.
The NFT ecosystem represents an interconnected, decentralized environment that encompasses the creation, distribution, and trading of Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs), where key actors, such as marketplaces, sellers, and buyers, utilize smart contracts to facilitate secure, transparent, and trustless transactions. Scam tokens are deliberately created to mislead users and facilitate financial exploitation, posing significant risks in the NFT ecosystem. Prior work has explored the NFT ecosystem from various perspectives, including security challenges, actor behaviors, and risks from scams and wash trading, leaving a gap in understanding the semantics and interactions of smart contracts during transactions, and how the risks associated with scam tokens manifest in relation to the semantics and interactions of contracts. To bridge this gap, we conducted a large-scale empirical study on smart contract semantics and interactions in the NFT ecosystem, using a curated dataset of nearly 100 million transactions across 20 million blocks on Ethereum. We observe a limited semantic diversity among smart contracts in the NFT ecosystem, dominated by proxy, token, and DeFi contracts. Marketplace and proxy registry contracts are the most frequently involved in smart contract interactions during transactions, engaging with a broad spectrum of contracts in the ecosystem. Token contracts exhibit bytecode-level diversity, whereas scam tokens exhibit bytecode convergence. Certain interaction patterns between smart contracts are common to both risky and non-risky transactions, while others are predominantly associated with risky transactions. Based on our findings, we provide recommendations to mitigate risks in the blockchain ecosystem, and outline future research directions.
This paper introduces a decentralized and configurable framework for will execution that integrates blockchain technology, smart contracts, and Shamir's Secret Sharing to provide a secure, transparent, and adaptable inheritance process. Unlike traditional systems that rely entirely on centralized intermediaries, our framework allows for flexible access control, enabling the inclusion or exclusion of trusted third parties based on the specific requirements of the testator and beneficiaries. The will document is encrypted, and the decryption key is distributed among designated participants using multilevel secret-sharing techniques. A blockchain-based smart contract autonomously governs the execution process, ensuring that predefined conditions, such as the testator's death, are verified before controlled access to the encrypted document is granted. By supporting threshold-based and hierarchical access structures, the system is adaptable to diverse inheritance scenarios. Experimental results demonstrate its scalability and efficiency in a blockchain environment, showcasing its potential as a secure and versatile solution for digital inheritance.
Abstract This research presents the Aegis Framework, a groundbreaking secure and upgradeable digital token contract system that fundamentally addresses cryptocurrency scam prevention through innovative smart contract architecture. The framework implements a novel timelock-protected proxy pattern that eliminates instant rug pull vulnerabilities while maintaining essential upgrade capabilities. Developed through systematic implementation of advanced smart contract patterns, the Aegis Framework comprises three core components: AegisToken (a secure, pausable ERC20 token with role-based access control), AegisProxy (an upgradeable proxy system using UUPS pattern), and AegisTimelock (a revolutionary mandatory delay mechanism for all upgrades). Technical validation confirms successful compilation of all contracts with AegisToken (2782 bytes, 17 functions), AegisProxy (1771 bytes, 8 functions), and AegisTimelock (680KB comprehensive security contract). The framework's security architecture prevents single-point-of-failure risks by separating roles (Owner, Minter, Pauser, Upgrader) and enforcing minimum delay periods (configurable from 1–7 days) for all contract upgrades. Implementation results demonstrate complete prevention of instant malicious upgrades, transparent upgrade processes with community notification periods, and emergency response capabilities through instant pausable mechanisms. Compared to existing solutions, the Aegis Framework introduces the first integrated timelock security system specifically designed for token contracts, addressing critical gaps identified in recent smart contract security literature. The complete system includes Python-based deployment tools, comprehensive validation scripts, and production-ready compiled contracts, establishing a new standard for secure token implementations in decentralized finance applications.