Nedaa Baker Al Barghuthi, Hussam Juma Mohamed, Huwida Said
The emergence of blockchain technology has created a frenzy and a mind shift for organizations and industries. Governments and international bodies are increasingly discussing the potential implications of blockchain's distributed ledgers on business, governments and the economy. The intended purpose of the blockchain technology is to connect business network members in a decentralized way. The technology enables exchange and sharing of information without the involvement of intermediaries acting as arbitrators. Powered by its decentralized nature, the network will not have any single point of failure and will not rely on any single entity. Hence, blockchain eliminates the risks of centralization. This paper discusses a scenario of a blockchain technology in distributed ledgers to manage a well function and secure supply chain.
Along with other advanced technologies (AI, AR/VR, IoT), Blockchain technology has established a way to digitize all of our activities through cloud based development. A complex technology that embodied an ingenious and powerful vision to create a comprehensive solution to internet securities, Blockchain is rapidly evolving to be the next disruptive innovation for secured connectivity, promising major changes to how we work and live in the coming century. Our new challenge is how we will adapt with the advancements put forward by this new revolution. This article presents an overall view of Blockchain technology and its potential to contribute to the development of the future by proposing several directions for further research.
The paper covers the issues of development of a mechanism for ensuring reliable and secure interaction among participants in regional innovation systems based on the establishment of smart contracts in the blockchain. The technology allows to reduce the possibility of fraud by dishonest participants, as well as to exclude the need for a third party by transferring its functions to a smart contract. This mechanism is important for ensuring confidential and transparent relations between participants in innovative projects, as well as with all interested stakeholders in regional economic system.
Economic and Technological Systems Analysis
Digitalization and Economic Development in Agriculture
The modern stage of the evolution of money is associated with the development of virtual economy as part of the global economic system based on interactive business on the ground of information technologies. The development of new forms of money is due to the activation and deepening of the information sphere and information society. Due to such conditions and the impact of technological innovation, economic science acquires a new meaning; significant changes take place in all spheres of economic activity, including the financial sector. The manifestation of such changes is the transfer of transactions into the electronic format, the emergence of new means of payment, the latest payment instruments and systems. The paper considers the main features of cryptocurrencies, with attention to the most popular and widespread of them - Bitcoin. Based on the expert survey and literature, the attitude of the central banks of foreign countries and the National Bank of Kazakhstan regarding the recognition and regulation of cryptocurrency have been analyzed, and conclusions about the prospects for using cryptocurrency in Kazakhstan have been made.
Majed M. Alblooshi, Khaled Salah, Yousof Al-Hammadi
Recently, blockchain has been foreseen by industry and research community as a transformational and disruptive technology that is poised to play a major role in transforming the way we transact, trade, bank, track and register assets, and do business. Blockchain can potentially be used to provide trusted authenticity, origin, and ownership for IoT devices, in a way that is secure and decentralized without the involvement of a Trusted Third Parties (TTP) or centralized authorities and services. A TTP can be a subject to a single point of failure, and it can be disrupted, compromised or hacked. A TTP can potentially misbehave and become corrupt in the future, even if it is trustworthy now. This paper shows how Ethereum blockchain (with the powerful feature of programmability through smart contracts) can provide a trusted ownership management for medical IoT (MIoT) devices. Tracking the true ownership of MIoT devices is of a paramount importance as using counterfeited MIoT devices can be life-threatening to patients. The paper presents a general framework and solution to manage and trace back the true origin of ownership for an MIoT; whereby an MIoT device can be owned by multiple parties during its life cycle. The paper presents a detailed overview of our proposed system architecture, design, entity relationship, and interactions among all involved parties. The source code of the Ethereum smart contracts is made publicly available. Key aspects related to the algorithms, interactions, implementation and testing are discussed in the paper. Furthermore, we provide security analysis of our proposed solution in terms of satisfying the general security goals and also resiliency against popular attacks as those of DDoS, eavesdropping and replay attacks.
Cryptocurrency is a rapid developing financial technology innovation which has attracted a large number of people around the world. The high-speed evolution, radical price fluctuations of cryptocurrency, and the inconsistent attitudes of monetary authorities in different countries have triggered panic and chain reactions towards the application and adoption of cryptocurrency and have caused public security related events. So far, a lot of researches and analyses have focused on just one or only a few number of cryptocurrencies, a comprehensive analysis of the whole cryptocurrency market and its systemic risk is still lacking. In this paper, we analyze the dynamics and systemic risk of the cryptocurrency market based on the public available price history. We first validated that the correlation matrix and asset tree are good tools to analyze the risk and stability of the cryptocurrency market. Furthermore, consistent with public perception, our quantitative analysis reveals that the cryptocurrency market is relatively fragile and unstable. Our work is the first to investigate the systemic risk of the whole cryptocurrency market and may shed some light on cryptocurrency related investment decision, regulation, and legislation.
Kentaroh Toyoda, Tomoaki Ohtsuki, P. Takis Mathiopoulos
Due to the increased popularity of Bitcoin, many researchers have analyzed how Bitcoin is being used based on the transaction history. However, the existing works analyze the transaction history in a "static" manner and none of them analyzes transaction history "dynamically", i.e. without taking into account the "time variation of how Bitcoin is transferred". The time analysis is in great demand for many practical cases, such as digital forensics tool that infers what was going on behind the scene of a fraudulent scam, and real-time inference of marketplace sales. In this paper, we propose a novel time series analysis for analyzing the history of Bitcoin transactions. In fact the main goal of our research is to detect changing points, namely anomaly detection, against a given (Bitcoin) address's transaction history. To show the effectiveness of the proposed approach, it is tested against the transaction history of Pirate@40's HYIP (High Yielding Investment Program) scheme, which raised 700,000 BTC from his investors and was charged by the Security and Exchange Commission (SEC) in 2013. It is shown that the proposed approach can successfully detect several remarkable points of Pirate@40's HYIP scheme, such as when its program's name was changed to Bitcoin Saving & Trust and when its investment rule was changed.
Fahad Alkurdi, Ibrahim Elgendi, Kumudu S. Munasinghe, Dharmendra Sharma · 5 authors
Blockchain shows a huge prospective in the coming future. It is atechnology that provides the possibility of generating and sharing transaction ledgers that are tamper proof. Use cases of Blockchain are enlarging in numbers and width in multiple areas like, Internet of Things (IoT), finance and security. Even though many public and private sectors are introducing this technology, it remains a fear to others due to their lack of familiarity and the point of it not taking any big role in any major security enterprises till now. In this paper we will explain what is a blockchain and define its characteristics, benefits, and the differences between them. And help in choosing the suitable type that accommodates your needs. Then we present the immutability aspect of blockchain and its benefits and compare it with a traditional database. And finally, we will discuss blockchain security (For public and private blockchains) and compare it with a standard cyber security environment and discuss both of them in different cyber-attack scenarios.
Blockchains, a decentralized storage technique, have many applications, including in reengineering cloud datacenters. This article proposes a conceptual model for fusing blockchains and cloud computing for additional value creation. The proposed model comprises three deployment modes: Cloud over Blockchain (CoB), Blockchain over Cloud (BoC), and Mixed Blockchain-Cloud (MBC). The article also highlights the potential benefits of such a fusion and outlines a number of future research directions.
Reports on cryptocurrencies and examined issues and concerns of privacy and information security. Cryptocurrencies can have significant privacy costs. A motivated adversary has available a range of actions to identify the actual user associated with a cryptocurrency account. By taking appropriate measures, cryptocurrency users can minimize privacy violations and reduce the risk of privacy breaches.
Eaman Jahani, P. M. Krafft, Yoshihiko Suhara, Esteban Moro · 5 authors
Participants in cryptocurrency markets are in constant communication with each other about the latest coins and news releases. Do these conversations build hype through the contagiousness of excitement, help the community process information, or play some other role? Using a novel dataset from a major cryptocurrency forum, we conduct an exploratory study of the characteristics of online discussion around cryptocurrencies. Through a regression analysis, we find that coins with more information available and higher levels of technical innovation are associated with higher quality discussion. People who talk about "serious" coins tend to participate in discussion displaying signatures of collective intelligence and information processing, while people who talk about "less serious" coins tend to display signatures of hype and naïvety. Interviews with experienced forum members also confirm these quantitative findings. These results highlight the varied roles of discussion in the cryptocurrency ecosystem and suggest that discussion of serious coins may be oriented towards earnest, perhaps more accurate, attempts at discovering which coins are likely to succeed.
Presented here is a functional implementation of Distributed Ledger Technology applied to the task of cataloguing CCTV video evidence. We describe and demonstrate a prototype camera that participates in blockchain creation in real time, and the system designed to manage and coordinate its distribution and use. This application is of specific interest to law enforcement agencies charged with the management of high volumes of CCTV evidence. We discuss applicability and scalability with reference to simulation results and real-world testing. The combination of blockchain technology with a novel digital watermarking application is demonstrated here providing immediate benefit against an existing real-world problem of trustworthy evidence protection in distributed network environments.
Open access
Advanced Steganography and Watermarking Techniques
The growth of technology has brought upon a slew of devices that have the ability to connect to the internet. This has led to much more opportunistic and easier ways to perform tasks but it also opens the doors for new attacks. Blockchaining is a new technology that was introduced with the creation of Bitcoin in 2008. Blockchaining has mostly been implemented in the field of cryptocurrency but there are many other useful applications of blockchaining. It allows for a decentralized ledger of data that can securely keep a network honest and prevent from possible attacks. Blockchains are based on a consensus algorithm and the proof of stake algorithm bases consensus between nodes based on the stake that the nodes have in the system.
Blockchain Technology Applications and Security
IoT and Edge/Fog Computing
Advanced Steganography and Watermarking Techniques
Dmitrijs Rusovs, Sigurds Jaundālders, Pēteris Stanka
The energy consumption of fast growing blockchain mining industy should be considered as opportunity esspecially for renewable sources. Possible limitation of feed-in tariffs for electrical energy exported into the grid often challenge existence of distributed biogeneration. Since, electrical energy cost had crucial influence on feasibility of cryptocurrencies minings, presented paper suggest definition of levelized cost of Bitcoin. However, participation in mining activity request higher efficiency of electrical energy generation. Combined heat and power plants can perform in trigeneration mode and this will enhance total energy performance for mining farms due to reduction of energy consumption for mining rigs cooling.
Global payment systems powered by blockchain technology through various cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, Litecoin, Ethreum are growing rapidly providing public access to its database. The technology eliminates the need for a central authority like bank to control the data. Instead, verification and integrity of data are provided through cryptographic techniques. Bitcoin is not a monetary generated by a government. Analyzing the public dataset and exploring its statistical property can uncover some hidden facts in cryptocurrency and the blockchain protocol. There are two underlying motivations for us to write this survey. First is to provide an up-to-date literature survey on Bitcoin transaction analysis, and second is to understand the hidden facts that could be revealed by analyzing Bitcoin transactions. To provide a comprehensive survey, we categorize existing analysis based on anonymity, user behavior, wealth accumulation and currency rate prediction. Analyzing the Bitcoin transactions can help to understand it from a broader perspective that can help investors in decision making.
2 source records
Blockchain Technology Applications and Security
Data Stream Mining Techniques
Advanced Steganography and Watermarking Techniques
Recently, the interest in using Blockchain as a secure and distributed ledger has increased dramatically. Although the main purpose of Blockchain by means of Bitcoin was about cryptocurrency and peer to peer transactions, its application to other systems has been widely used. One of the fields that has potential possibilities to benefit from BlockChain features is telecommunication. BlockChain can be applied in case of management of various networks to reduce some expenses. In this position paper, we apply a BlockChain network with smart contract in the cellular mobile networks. The Blockchain can provide a distributed HSS in a way that the core networks of different operators can use it in a secure manner. Moreover, the smart contract can act as a distributed Self Organizing Network features to handle self-transactions among mobile operators in return of sharing small cells' infrastructure.
The paper suggests a new approach based on blockchain technologies and smart contracts to creation of a distributed system for managing provenance metadata, as well as access rights to data in distributed storages, which is fault-tolerant, safe and secure from the point of view of preservation of metadata records from accidental or intentional distortions. The implementation of the proposed approach is based on the permissioned blockchains and on the Hyperledger Fabric blockchain platform in conjunction with Hyperledger Composer.
We showcase a graph mining tool, BiVA, for visualization and analysis of the Bitcoin network. It enables data exploration, visualization of subgraphs around nodes of interest, and integrates both standard and new algorithms, including a general algorithm for flow based clustering for directed graphs, and other Bitcoin network specific wallet address aggregation mechanisms. The BiVA user interface makes it easy to get started with a basic visualization that gives insights into nodes of interests, and the tool is modular, allowing easy integration of new algorithms. Its functionalities are demonstrated with a case study of extortion of Ashley Madison data breach victims.
This paper enlightens the stipulation of blockchain beyond the bitcoin and identifies the key challenges in the implementation of blockchain on a small scale or newly implemented projects based on the literature review, furthermore it also introduces Block maturity level (BML) as a Consensus protocol, which eliminates the 51% attack, the hardfork problem and small-scale problem by introducing sub-blocks as a defense mechanism against attackers. This technique can be used in the implementation of blockchain where the hash power and difficulty is lower and easy to match-up. This proposed consensus protocol would immensely secure the implementation of the blockchain on different projects.
Cloud Computing has powered a wide range disruptive technology that changed the economic landscape of many industries. One of these disruptive technologies is Block Chains and the emergence of cryptocurrencies like Bitcoins. This research explores the Islamic perspective of Bitcoin Mining. For a Bitcoin transaction to be processed it needs to be `mined', which is the process to solving a mathematical equation as well as approve Bitcoin transactions distributing it over various ledgers. The research will highlight the notion of anonymity of the source and destination of the funds in Bitcoin which seen as problematic with Islamic Banking scholars. Especially since anonymity is the cornerstone of Bitcoin and the feature that allowed Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies to spread. This research will rely on leading Islamic Banking scholars in the Kingdom of Bahrain to evaluate Bitcoin Mining's compliance with Sharia.
Among several common financing methods for solar project, loans from banks requires many conditions that are not easy to meet. Finance lease is easier to acquire but the interest rate is usually higher than loans. Internet financing lacks credibility and efficient regulation methods. Blockchain provides a decentralized, tamper-resistant, auditable ledger. This paper proposed a design of photovoltaic plants financing platform based on blockchain technology. The open source blockchain framework Fabric is used and smart contracts are developed to conduct automatic and compulsory transactions, thus improving the efficiency of financing process.
M. Magdalena Payeras–Capellà, Macià Mut–Puigserver, Miquel À. Cabot-Nadal
Blockchain can be the base for an evolution in several digital services. Fair Certified Notification is one of these and requires a fair exchange of values: a message and a non-repudiation of origin proof in exchange for a non-repudiation of reception evidence. The main contribution of this paper is the introduction of a blockchain-based Multiparty Fair Certified Notification system allowing the simultaneous fair notification to a set of receivers. We present and evaluate a smart contract for an optimistic multiparty protocol that achieves the properties of confidentiality, fairness and timeliness with a stateless TTP.
Bitcoin is a decentralized peer-to-peer electronic cash system, and it realizes the circulation and distribution of cryptocurrency via miners contributing their computational power to solve a cryptographic puzzle. With more and more people participating in Bitcoin mining, the continuous growing of the computational power might greatly reduce the time for finding a new valid block. To keep the stability of the Bitcoin system, the difficulty of the Bitcoin network will be adjusted every 2016 blocks. This paper aims to study the principles of the difficulty adjustment of the whole Bitcoin blockchain network in Bitcoin mining. We first describe the computing process of the target and thus the difficulty of a block, and then study its influence factors and their effect on the difficulty. After that, we study the adjustment of the difficulty, and propose a framework for the adjustment of the difficulty that can be easily used in practice. Our work can help researchers better understand the principles of Bitcoin mining.
Blockchain Technology Applications and Security
Retinal Imaging and Analysis
Advanced Steganography and Watermarking Techniques