Grounded into Innovation Diffusion Theory and Technology Acceptance Model, the purpose of this study was to evaluate the impact of AI-powered financial services on financial access in the Saudi Arabian fintech sector. To achieve this aim, the research employed SEM analysis on the collected data from 194employees working in the departments related to AI-based services, staff members of fintech firms, and owners of small enterprises who use digital financial solutions in Riyadh, Jeddah, and Dammam. The results reveal that AI-based robo-advisory platforms, fraud detection, and credit scoring servicessignificantly improved financial access demonstrating that AI adoption in financial services can play a transformative role in promoting inclusion and reducing barriers for underserved populations whereas AI-based personalized banking solutions showed insignificant impact suggesting that while personalization may enhance user satisfaction or loyalty, it does not directly translate into increased access to financial services. In practical terms, the findings imply that fintech companies and financial institutions should prioritize AI-enabled services as a means of expanding access to professional financial advice which requiresa multi-stakeholder approach, where fintech firms, regulators, and policymakers collaborate to maximize the benefits of AI-powered financial services while minimizing associated risks. Furtherresearch should be carried out adopting longitudinal design and mixed methodology to study the role of emerging technologies such as blockchain-based identity verification, AI-driven insurance, or decentralized finance platforms on financial access.
Md Imran Khan, Ahmad Raza, Abdulrahman Alomair, Abdulaziz S. Al Naim
This study provides a comprehensive contribution to the current understanding of blockchain technology and non-fungible token (NFTs). Blockchain technology is a revolutionary data storage and management tool that records data shared across a network of computers globally, making it safe, transparent, and decentralized. Non-fungible token is a specific type of token built on a blockchain, enabling the authentication of digital assets and safeguarding them against copying or fabrication. The research employed information on 3760 abstract data collected for the period from January 1, 2017, to June 03, 2025. The search criteria for data retrieval are based on the following keywords: “blockchain”, “non-fungible token”, and “token”. The data sources are Scopus and Web of Science. The study highlights the multi-dimensional and evolving discussion around blockchain and NFTs, including elements of technology, security, money, digital rights, and decentralization. The Wordcloud indicates a strong and growing innovation ecosystem, proposing new study avenues in trust mechanisms, smart contract development, and tokenized economies. The correlation graph visualizes that AI, data, finance, and blockchain show their mutual dependence has revolutionized our view of autonomy and governance. The study highlights authors who actively research blockchain and NFTs, as well as correlations between them. China leads the way in this research area and USA leads in terms of citation. The study’s finding informs evidence-based decision-making regarding the regulation and governance of blockchain and NFT technologies. For industry practitioners, the study’s insights can guide the development of innovative applications and solutions leveraging blockchain and NFTs. By examining a vast dataset of academic papers, the inquiry illuminates the key themes, emerging trends, and potential research gaps within this rapidly evolving field.
ABSTRACT This study examines how blockchain transparency and smart-contract automation, paired with anomaly-detection models, support early detection and calibrated deterrence of manipulation in cryptocurrency markets. Although transparent ledgers and rule-based execution raise the likelihood that irregular activity is flagged and investigated, they do not prevent fraud; my emphasis is detection, deterrence, and post-incident support. I analyze a long-horizon Bitcoin panel using rolling z-score screens and Isolation Forest to surface anomalies consistent with manipulative trading. I fix a false-positive budget ex ante and evaluate capacity-aware performance (Precision@k, PR-AUC, lead time), archiving time-stamped evidence bundles for auditability. Alerts cluster around episodes consistent with pump-and-dump behavior, large-holder moves, and event-driven dislocations, improving investigative triage without prevention claims. The framework provides actionable guidance for exchanges and regulators seeking to strengthen market integrity through auditable records and model-based alerts, and I release a human-in-the-loop agentic AI application that automates ingestion, screening, ranking, and auditable export. Data Availability: A replication package including the agentic AI GenApp (Streamlit code), requirements, and input templates (daily data, events, sentiment) is provided in Appendix B. The package reproduces the pipeline exactly as specified in Section IV and writes time-stamped artifacts for audit; it is intended for detection and deterrence workflows and makes no prevention claims. JEL Classifications: G12; G15; G18; G24; G14; G41; H83.
Risfiana Mayangsari, Hidayat Darussalam, Edi Mulyono
This article analyzes the communication patterns that emerge and develop from the integration of Smart Contracts in Islamic financial transactions. The adoption of Smart Contracts marks a fundamental shift from traditional sighat (ijab qabul) to automated and immutable programmed communication on the blockchain. This study finds that the communication patterns involved are divided into three main dimensions: first, formal human-to-contract communication, which is the process of coding and initial agreement of the contract (such as mudharabah or murabahah) where the sighat is represented by explicit digital input; second, fully automated system-to-system communication, where Smart Contracts communicate with external data (oracles) to verify conditions and trigger self-executing transactions; and third, contract-to-ledger communication, which results in transparent and immutable transaction recording on the blockchain. Although promising efficiency and improved Sharia Compliance through the elimination of operational gharar, this programmed communication pattern poses challenges related to contract flexibility and code error risks. Therefore, it is necessary to formulate clear Sharia code standards and digital governance mechanisms recognized by the Sharia Supervisory Board to ensure that this new communication pattern validly and ethically supports maqasid syariah (Sharia objectives).
The proliferation of Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) has revolutionized digital asset ownership and trading, creating unprecedented opportunities for creators and collectors. However, existing NFT marketplaces face significant challenges, including limited user discovery mechanisms, inadequate recommendation systems, security vulnerabilities, and poor user experience design. This paper presents a new way to run an NFT marketplace using Blockchain and Artificial Intelligence. The system keeps everything secure by storing asset information on a distributed online ledger. With built-in AI, it helps users find content they'll like by giving personalized suggestions. It also uses multiple authentication steps to make sure the marketplace stays safe for everyone. The design uses decentralized storage through the InterPlanetary File System (IPFS). It employs smart contract automation for transaction processing and incorporates machine learning algorithms for fraud detection and user behavior analysis. We demonstrate the effectiveness of our approach with implementation results that show improved user engagement, reduced transaction costs, and better security compared to traditional NFT platforms. The system achieves a 47% improvement in user retention and a 63% increase in successful transactions through personalized recommendations. This research contributes to the growing field of blockchain-based digital asset management and provides a scalable framework for next-generation NFT marketplaces.
This paper surveys the growing empirical literature on decentralized finance (DeFi), emphasizing how protocol design and incentive structures shape economic outcomes in blockchain-based financial systems. We review evidence on tokens, decentralized exchanges, lending platforms, yield farming, derivatives, governance, infrastructure, and regulation. Across these domains, research highlights mechanisms of liquidity provision, price discovery, leverage, systemic fragility, and investor behavior, as well as vulnerabilities stemming from arbitrage frictions, liquidation dynamics, and maximal extractable value. We also examine the roles of audits, oracle networks, settlement mechanisms, and transparency tools in substituting for traditional oversight. The findings indicate that DeFi replicates many functions of traditional finance while introducing new risks linked to pseudonymity, smart contracts, and composability. The survey concludes by outlining open questions for research and policy on market efficiency, governance, systemic risk, and long-term sustainability.
Crowdfunding websites tend to have centralized escrow infrastructure, which can create concerns over the lack of transparency, security threats, and fraud vulnerability. The proposed system, a hybrid blockchain–AI architecture, combines Ethereum-based smart contracts and machine learning-based fraud detection to result in a decentralized and transparent crowdfunding space. The blockchain layer ensures accountability with controlled release of funds based on milestones, limiting the tendency to spend funds more due to the cryptocurrency nature with the AI module detecting fraudulent activity based on analysis of textual, transactional, temporal, and reputation data. Experimentation proves that the proposed system promotes higher trust, reduces transaction cost, and signifies a robust fraud detection model compared to conventional crowdfunding models. The results suggest creating a combination of the immutability of blockchains with the analytical power of AI as a potential route to safer and more effective decentralized finance apps.
Abdullah Jameel Abualhamayl, Mohanad A. Almalki, Firas Al-Doghman, Abdulmajeed A. Alyoubi · 5 authors
Traditional real estate markets are often dominated by institutional investors, which may limit access for small investors due to high entry costs and limited opportunities for fractional participation. Such market dynamics create slow, expensive, and inflexible transaction processes that limit liquidity and prevent broader participation in property ownership. To address these challenges, we propose a blockchain-based framework using fractional non-fungible tokens (F-NFTs) to digitally certify and manage shared real estate ownership. Our approach involves improvements to the ERC-721 token standard to support fractional ownership, development of smart contract algorithms for property registration and transfer, implementation of a prototype, and deployment on the Ethereum Sepolia testnet. The performance evaluation reveals that the complete certification process costs around $47.16 USD and can be completed in roughly 264 seconds, which reflects notable enhancements in transaction efficiency compared to traditional systems. By enabling costeffective and transparent property certification, this framework enhances transparency, democratizes property investment, and broadens market accessibility.
A. Marques, Luiz Eduardo Terra de Faria, Diogo S. Mendonça
The exponential growth of the cryptoasset market and the advancement of decentralized technologies have challenged traditional models of tax collection. In particular, self-custody wallets, which allow users to maintain direct control over their digital assets without the mediation of financial institutions, pose significant obstacles to oversight and tax compliance. This paper proposes an approach for the automatic collection of taxes on foreign exchange operations with stablecoins, using smart contracts on decentralized exchanges (DEXs). Through the implementation of a Proof of Concept (PoC), based on the Split Payment logic, we demonstrate the technical feasibility of applying a tax rate, analogous to the IOF, directly during transactions carried out by self-custody wallets, without the need for prior user identification. Experimental results, validated on the Polygon mainnet, reinforce the potential of the proposed model as a practical solution aligned with the principles of Web3, contributing to the debate on automated tax compliance mechanisms in decentralized environments.
P. R. Sarode, Aditya Takawale, Sarita Yadav, Meera Sawalkar
Even while modern crowdfunding platforms have become quite popular, they still have problems that won’t go away, especially when it comes to centralized control, possible fund misappropriation, and not being open enough. People who would want to help with a project often don’t because they don’t believe it will work out or because they don’t like how the money is being handled. This article presents Sahaay, an innovative crowdfunding platform aimed at resolving these challenges through the integration of blockchain technology and artificial intelligence (AI). Sahaay employs a decentralized ledger to make sure that all transactions, from pledges to giving out money, are entirely open and can’t be modified. Smart contracts are designed to automatically distribute money to the proper persons when particular project milestones are reached. This means that people are more responsible and don’t have to perform things by hand as often. An AI-based assessment tool also checks the text, team, and market aspects of prospective campaigns to see how likely they are to work. The AI also lets a complicated recommendation system find the best sponsors for initiatives. This article discusses how the Sahaay platform is created in layers, what its primary pieces are (including machine learning models and smart contract logic), and how it functions. We also discuss crucial moral concerns and present a complete set of rules for figuring out how well the system works, how safe it is, and how easy it is to use. Sahaay combines the security of blockchain with the analytical power of AI to make a smart, safe, and efficient ecosystem that is ready to alter crowdfunding by generating trust and making projects more likely to succeed.
This study investigates the structural transformation of financial intermediation in the context of decentralized finance (DeFi).Building on canonical theories of intermediation, it reframes traditional credit institutions as epistemic architectures, systems that define, validate, and circulate truth about economic behavior.The paper introduces the DeFi Intermediation Matrix (DIM), a conceptual framework that maps the functional equivalence between institutional and protocol-based mechanisms of trust, including risk screening, liquidity transformation, diversification, and compliance.It demonstrates how blockchain architectures redistribute informational power by substituting trust by institution with trust by design, turning verification from a delegated process into a transparent, auditable function.Through this analytical lens, decentralized finance emerges not as a technological disruption but as an epistemological shift: the evolution of finance from a model of delegated expertise to one of reflexive governance.The work concludes that the future of credit systems depends on designing architectures capable of balancing automation and interpretation, ensuring that transparency does not replace judgment, but sustains it.
Mufti Ubaid ul Rahman, Saba Aorangzaib, Shehbaz Shabbir
The growing trends of the digital economy have profoundly influenced all aspects of human life, particularly in the financial sector, where emerging concepts such as blockchain, cryptocurrency, and non-fungible tokens (NFTs) have challenged the traditional notions of ownership, exchange, and investment. In Islamic jurisprudence (fiqh), ownership (milk) holds a fundamental position encompassing not only tangible assets but also intangible and abstract rights. This provides the essential framework for understanding and analyzing digital assets from a Shariah perspective.Blockchain, as a transparent, decentralized, and immutable digital system, has established new standards of trust and integrity in financial transactions. Cryptocurrency, being a product of this system, enables peer-to-peer exchanges without the intervention of central banks or financial institutions. From a fiqhi viewpoint, the permissibility or impermissibility of this system depends on whether it fulfills the Shariah principles of ownership, lawful exchange, and trust (amanah).Similarly, NFTs represent unique and non-replicable forms of digital property, extending the concept of ownership beyond the material realm. The crucial question arises: can assets that exist solely in digital form be recognized as legitimate “property” (mal) under Islamic law? Islamic jurisprudence identifies essential conditions for ownership including the presence of benefit (manfa‘ah), the right of disposal (tasarruf), and the owner’s responsibility (daman). When evaluated through this lens, digital assets that possess real value, are free from fraud, gambling, or usury, and have clearly defined rights, may align with the foundational fiqhi principles of ownership.From this perspective, the digital economy opens new avenues for ijtihad (juridical reasoning). It is increasingly important for Islamic jurists, economists, and technology experts to collaborate in formulating a framework that regulates modern digital assets in accordance with Islamic ethical and legal standards. Such a framework would not only promote transparency and morality in financial dealings but also ensure that technology operates within the moral and spiritual objectives of Islam.Hence, the concept of digital ownership in light of Islamic jurisprudential principles is not only plausible but also consistent with contemporary economic needs provided that its implementation prioritizes the Shariah’s core objectives of justice, trust, transparency, and responsibility.
Mohd. Sultan Ahammad, Maisha Maliha, Nilufa Easmin Nila, Md Shofiqul Islam
Blockchain technology is revolutionizing industries by fundamentally transforming data management and storage practices. Traditional banking systems, however, continue to face challenges such as dependency on intermediaries, lack of transparency, vulnerability to fraud, and restricted accessibility. To overcome this limitation, we propose an innovative blockchain framework built on the Ethereum platform to enhance security and efficiency in banking. The proposed system eliminates intermediaries by using Ethereum-based smart contracts to enable secure, automated peer-to-peer (P2P) deposits, withdrawals, and transfers while incorporating a user-friendly interface with MetaMask and custom wallets for accessibility. The architecture was implemented and tested on the Sepolia Ethereum Testnet using Solidity, Ether.js, and React.js, ensuring seamless interaction between the smart contract and the user interface. Our experimental evaluation demonstrated significant improvements in transaction speed, transparency, and operational efficiency compared to traditional systems, with near real-time processing and automated verification. Performance benchmarking showed competitive latency and throughput, while gas cost analysis highlighted trade-offs in transaction expenses compared to conventional banking. These findings suggest that our blockchain framework has strong potential to address long-standing inefficiencies in the financial sector. While challenges remain, including scalability and regulatory considerations, this work offers a concrete and impactful step toward the practical adoption of blockchain in mainstream banking.
Two parallel but potentially opposing forces in the financial landscape: the worldwide development of central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) and rapid development of privately offered tokenized assets and decentralized finance (DeFi). Though with more than 130 countries now looking into CBDCs and the tokenized asset market forecast at $16 trillion by 2030, the dynamic between public and private digital monies is shaping up to be the lifeblood of the future direction of payments, lending and monetary policy. This document examines whether or not these systems can work together, or whether their structural differences will create fragmentation, regulatory friction, and systemic risk. Employing a mixed-methods design that ranges from on-chain data analysis, comparative case studies related to major CBDC initiatives (for example, digital euro, digital yuan, Project mBridge, Project Aurum), to interviews with professionals—central bankers, DeFi developers and regulators—we address three crucial questions: (1) Under what circumstances can CBDCs be used as settlement infrastructure for tokenized assets without compromising monetary policy autonomy? (2) What are the implications of design decisions for CBDCs, in particular, programmability, privacy and access, for alignment with DeFi ecosystems? (3) Which governance mechanisms might align both public and private digital money to support inclusive, efficient and resilient financial markets? Our results favour a “layered monetary architecture,” with CBDCs to serve as reliable, low-risk, secure settlement anchors and private tokenized finance to facilitate innovation, access and user-friendly services and innovative user experiences. In this paper, we present the Monetary Layer Compatibility Framework which, as we have mentioned, is a diagnostic instrument for tracking the alignment on five aspects of these criteria: settlement finality, programmability scope, privacy guarantees, access permissions, and regulatory hooks. Based on both empirical evidence and policy analysis, we suggest a “public anchor, private innovation” model that maintains monetary sovereignty and benefits from the productivity gain from tokenization. The paper ends with practical policy recommendations to central banks and international institutions to promote interoperability, reduce disintermediation vulnerabilities and halt financial balkanization.
Rismawati Rismawati, Monika Handayani, Ela Elliyana Abdulah, Indra Pahala
Sustainable embedded finance is transforming the financial sector by incorporating green investing strategies into digital platforms. This study examines how embedded finance, fintech innovations, and decentralized financial models enhance access to sustainability-linked financial products. Essential elements encompass the function of AI-driven ESG analytics, blockchain-enabled transparency, and digital payment systems in promoting financial access for environmentally sustainable initiatives. The study analyzes policy frameworks and regulatory obstacles, highlighting the necessity of integrating financial plans with the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). As embedded finance progresses, it presents novel options for scalable, transparent, and technology-driven sustainable investments. The results underscore the essential interaction among finance, technology, and sustainability, offering guidance for investors, politicians, and enterprises in steering the future of sustainable finance.
This study addresses key challenges in tax governance for multinational enterprises, including data silos, delayed risk identification, and insufficient privacy protection. It proposes a collaborative governance framework that integrates blockchain-based smart contracts and multimodal machine learning, termed the Blockchain-Enhanced Multimodal Risk Assessment Framework. The framework employs a dual-layer architecture that combines blockchain technology with federated feature engineering. At the data processing layer, it utilizes a multi-chain coordination mechanism based on Adaptive Proof of Stake, enhanced by a node reputation-based dynamic evaluation algorithm to significantly improve consensus efficiency and data transmission security. At the risk prediction layer, it integrates temporal dependency mining with heterogeneous graph neural networks, applying a composite embedding method to extract 89 highly discriminative features from an initial 1,423-dimensional feature space.
Property valuation, a foundational method for governments, financial institutions, and insurers to gauge economic stability, remains hindered by opaque, fragmented data practices. Despite technological advancements like Artificial Inteligence (AI) and Web3, valuation processes rely on siloed, non-standardized data that institutions rarely share—even internally. This paper identifies systemic barriers to global transparency and proposes a Proptech framework to resolve this disconnect. Unlike market valuation, which leverages AI and algorithms to predict prices, housing valuation depends on manual audits and confidential metrics. This lack of transparency limits governments' capacity to preempt real estate crises or curb speculative risks. By integrating blockchain-enabled data sharing and AI analytics, a decentralized Proptech platform, sharing a global network, could standardize and democratize valuation data, enabling real-time insights for crisis management and evidence-based policymaking. The study highlights how such innovation could transform urban planning, financial markets, and economic resilience, positioning Proptech as a catalyst for equitable, transparent valuation ecosystems. Received: 7 April 2025 | Revised: 29 July 2025 | Accepted: 14 October 2025 Conflicts of Interest The authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest to this work. Data Availability Statement The data that support this work are available upon reasonable request to the corresponding author. Author Contribution Statement Pedro Faria: Conceptualization, Methodology, Software, Validation, Formal analysis, Investigation, Resources, Data curation, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing, Visualization, Supervision, Project administration. Peter Finn: Conceptualization, Validation, Investigation, Resources, Writing – review & editing. Tiago Navarro: Conceptualization, Resources, Writing – review & editing, Visualization, Supervision.
Raghu, Gurpartap Singh, S. Kannimuthu, Denis Amirtharaj · 6 authors
The industry growth of the digital currency market and the existence of the old banking system, in turn, has necessitated an urgent requirement of a hybrid financial infrastructure that will offer an effective, secure, and real-time interoperability. The current banking networks are founded on centralised books, which implies that interbank settlements are slow, untransparent, and involve high fraud risks. In contrast, the decentralisation and immutability of a public blockchain network are associated with the price of scalability, as well as regulatory and integration issues. Such loopholes will be bridged in this research through the introduction of a Decentralised Ledger Architecture of Hybrid Banking (DLHB), a consortium-based permissioned blockchain infrastructure, in which interbank fiat settlements are registered. Nevertheless, open blockchain networks will be used to effect digital currency settlements. Their connection will be based on cross-chain smart contracts that will facilitate the coordination of atomic, secure, and auditable transfers. It is built on recent cryptography-based capabilities, such as zero-knowledge proofs (ZKPs) and secure multi-party computation (SMPC), which can protect sensitive financial information and facilitate compliance. BFT protocols, which are optimised at the consortium layer, are classified under Byzantine Fault Tolerance to ensure that the technology meets both security and high throughput requirements. The public blockchain layer is optimised for the validation of Proof-ofStake (PoS). Simulation experiments indicate that the DL-HB framework is capable of supporting up to 85% higher transaction throughput, 60% reduced latency, and much more audit-friendly and fault-tolerant compared to the traditional banking systems and to the current blockchain solutions. The recommended architecture will allow co-existing between digital and fiat transactions on a transparent basis since the architecture will eradicate bottlenecks in operations, decrease the possibility of fraud, and real-time settlements. This paper proves that a multi-layered high-technical quality blockchain platform can redesign the hybrid banking systems as an efficient, secure, and scaled platform to integrate the emerging digital assets into the traditional financial systems without affecting regulatory compliance or stability of operations.
A blockchain-and-smart-contracts architecture, which is suggested in the present research, can make public administration become more transparent, efficient, and trustworthy. The old-fashioned integrated systems of administration have the disadvantage of tampering with data, slow auditing and lack of trust of the population. To achieve these problems we develop a multi-layered solution that consists of: a user-facing application layer; a governance-rule automation layer driven by smart contracts; a Proof-of-Authority consensus layer that is fast with permissioned agreement; and a storage layer that integrates off-chain storage with immutable distributed ledger. To support the performance assessment, we establish mathematical models that are used to validate transactions, latency, cost, and transparency. The framework runs on a decentralized Hyperledger Fabric network with permissioned validator nodes and is tested on a real-world data sample of approximately 8, 000 government procurement records. Our experiments demonstrate significant improvements over conventional ERP-based systems: 2.8x increase in throughput, 65 percent decrease in average latency, an increase in a transparency index by 38 percent, 22 percent better data integrity, as much as 35 percent better fraud-detection effectiveness, and reduced operating cost per transaction by 39 percent. Through the introduction of read-only nodes, tamper-proof record and real-time audits, the suggested infrastructure enhances accountability and exemplifies how the blockchain-enabled governance can make the processes of the public sector more rapid, more secure, and people-focused.