The realization of Industry 5.0 depends on the effective utilization of high-quality, context-rich, long-tail data. Existing centralized data markets are inefficient due to high operational costs and persistent data silos. As a novel autonomous paradigm based on block-chain and smart contracts, Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO) offers a superior governance framework to address these issues. However, DAO natively lacks efficient data discovery mechanisms. The prevailing pull-based query model is economically unviable for large-scale, fine-grained demands due to excessive on-chain costs. To tackle this challenge, this paper introduces Content-Addressed Subscription, a novel data discovery mechanism operating within a DAO-governed industrial data market. This mechanism builds upon the classic publish/subscribe model, algorithmically generating a unique topic identifier from the semantic content, thereby circumventing the reliance on predefined topic lists and transforming the data discovery process from inefficient pull-based queries to event-driven push notifications. The paper presents the complete architecture of the proposed solution and validates its feasibility through an industrial case study.
A presente dissertação propõe o desenvolvimento de uma plataforma designada SoundSlice, que visa automatizar a gestão de direitos de autor em conteúdos musicais reutilizados e na criação de mixes, através da integração de tecnologias blockchain e contratos inteligentes. O sistema permite o registo de obras originais, reutilizações parciais, a combinação de múltiplas faixas em novas composições (mixes) e a atribuição automática de compensações aos titulares de direitos, assegurando transparência e rastreabilidade em todo o processo. A solução combina uma infraestrutura centralizada, suportada por uma base de dados MongoDB e armazenamento de ficheiros GridFS, com uma camada descentralizada baseada em Ethereum, responsável pela execução dos contratos inteligentes que formalizam a partilha de royalties. A nível prático, foi implementado um frontend web que permite o upload, análise, reutilização e criação de mixes musicais, bem como um backend Node.js que gere a lógica de negócio e a comunicação com a blockchain. O desenvolvimento da plataforma baseou-se nos conceitos teóricos e modelos de integração propostos pelos padrões Smart Contracts for Media (SC4M) e Interactive Music Application Format (IMAF), os quais orientaram a estruturação de metadados, a modelação de contratos e o desenho da arquitetura da plataforma. Por fim, foram conduzidos testes funcionais, de desempenho e de usabilidade que demonstraram o correto funcionamento da plataforma, a eficiência na execução de transações e a aceitação positiva por parte dos utilizadores, validando a viabilidade e o contributo da abordagem proposta.
With the introduction of blockchain technology and the emergence of non-fungible tokens (NFTs), users can prove ownership of digital content by cryptographically tokenizing the content they create, and it becomes possible to trade digital content. As user-generated digital content is frequently traded online, many scholars have analyzed the factors of user transactions, but there is a limitation that they have not been able to analyze the direct relationship between the sentiments of users and price. Therefore, this study uses multi-layer perceptron so as to analyze the factors that affect the price of profile picture (PFP) NFTs by using not only collectable market indicators and technical indicators but also sentiment indicators. As a result, it was found that PFP NFTs are closely correlated with various indicators, and a model was developed to accurately predict the price fluctuations of PFP NFTs using these indicators. The empirical results demonstrate that the proposed MLP model achieved prediction accuracies of 81.49% for BAYC and 93.39% for Cryptopunks. Furthermore, stock indices were found to exert a positive influence on NFT prices, whereas increases in cryptocurrency values, interest rates, and discussion volume acted as negative determinants. By contrast, the interaction of positive and objective sentiment contributed positively to price formation.
The contemporary Internet, a cornerstone of modern society, is characterized by a high degree of centralization. This centralization concentrates data and power within a few large corporations, raising significant concerns regarding data privacy, censorship, single points of failure, and monopolistic control. The "Decentralized Internet," often associated with the Web3 paradigm, proposes a fundamental shift toward a more open, trustless, and user-centric network. This paper presents a comprehensive survey of the decentralized Internet, beginning with an exploration of its core principles—trustlessness, censorship resistance, and user-controlled data. We then examine the key enabling technologies that underpin the decentralized Internet, including distributed ledger technologies (DLT), peer-to-peer (P2P) data protocols such as the InterPlanetary File System (IPFS), and smart contracts. Finally, we discuss the significant open challenges and research questions that must be addressed, including scalability, usability, governance, and regulatory uncertainty. This paper aims to provide a structured overview for researchers, developers, and policymakers interested in the future of Internet architecture. Index Terms—Decentralized Internet, Web3, Blockchain, Peer-to-Peer (P2P), IPFS, Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT), Smart Contracts, Decentralized Applications (dApps), Scalability, Governance.
This paper presents a peer to peer (P2P) file sharing system designed on top of Interplanetary File System (IPFS) and blockchain. Decentralized storage solutions that enable programmatic file accessibility, security and reliability as well as eliminating bottlenecks, scaling problems, and user experience limitations in web based P2P application are explored. It integrates IPFS to store and retrieve the files using content-based addressing and. Pinata is also used for file pinning and keeping the file in the network free availability, and Helia is a JavaScript based interface for web application to communicate with IPFS. To increase security and transparency, decentralized verification is conducted via smart contracts on Ethereum by permanently logging a file hash record. With Meta Mask and Web3 technologies for secure payment, users can handle storage and access payment to services effectively. Despite these advancements, web based P2P programs have considerable challenges. Since they can run on limited processing power, storage, and fragile net stability, the processing is carried out in the client side, and that means slow file transfers and high latency. Moreover, the acceptance of decentralized applications is also hindered by the fact that users must understand the cryptographically based transactions and other complex concepts such as IPFS hashes. In this paper, we attempt to find approaches to improve performance on cryptographic computations using WASM, cache adaptive for faster download, and Ethereum Layer 2 solutions like rollups reducing transaction costs and improving scalability. Aside from that, associating with the File coin to facilitate growth of the distribution storage is considered to support the system growth
The rapid evolution of blockchain technology has revolutionized digital asset ownership through NonFungible Tokens (NFTs). NFTs enable creators to tokenize unique digital assets such as art, music, and collectibles, ensuring authenticity, transparency, and verifiable ownership. This research paper presents the design and development of a decentralized NFT Marketplace using Solidity Smart Contracts and Pinata IPFS (InterPlanetary File System) integration. The proposed system eliminates the need for intermediaries by leveraging blockchain-based automation, allowing creators to mint, list, and sell NFTs securely while maintaining full ownership control. The marketplace integrates MetaMask wallet authentication for secure transactions and employs Solidity smart contracts to handle NFT minting, transfer, and royalty distribution on the Ethereum blockchain. Additionally, Pinata IPFS provides decentralized storage for digital media and metadata, ensuring data permanence and tamper-proof accessibility. The system architecture combines transparency, security, and user-friendliness, empowering creators with fair compensation and buyers with verifiable proof of ownership. Experimental implementation results demonstrate that the proposed NFT Marketplace provides a reliable, transparent, and scalable environment for digital asset exchange. This study highlights the potential of decentralized systems in reshaping the digital economy and sets the foundation for future enhancements such as multi-chain support, AI-based recommendations, and mobile integration.
Edgar Roberto Dulce Villarreal, Julio Ariel Hurtado, Jose Garcia-Alonso, Enrique Moguel · 5 authors
Achieving a balance between interoperability and security in blockchain systems has led to the development of various integration mechanisms. These include the use of specialized smart contracts to facilitate cross-chain interactions, enabling reliable connections and secure transfers of information and assets. While technical interoperability is effectively addressed at lower layers, achieving semantic interoperability at the application layer remains a significant challenge. This paper proposes a mechanism to address this challenge by leveraging a model-driven approach. Metamodels, models, and transformations are created, and smart contracts are defined abstractly and then semi-automatically generated for specific blockchain platforms. The proposed approach was validated by generating contracts between Ethereum and Hyperledger, enabling semantically compatible transactions. The mechanism was further evaluated using the Technology Acceptance Model with expert participants. This evaluation demonstrated its effectiveness in specifying and transforming contracts and fostering semantic interoperability across blockchains.
Chong Chen, Jiachi Chen, Lingfeng Bao, David F. Lo · 10 authors
Smart contract vulnerabilities, particularly improper Access Control that allows unauthorized execution of restricted functions, have caused billions of dollars in losses. GitHub hosts numerous smart contract repositories containing source code, documentation, and configuration files-these serve as intermediate development artifacts that must be compiled and packaged before deployment. Third-party developers often reference, reuse, or fork code from these repositories during custom development. However, if the referenced code contains vulnerabilities, it can introduce significant security risks. Existing tools for detecting smart contract vulnerabilities are limited in their ability to handle complex repositories, as they typically require the target contract to be compilable to generate an abstract representation for further analysis. This paper presents TRACE, a tool designed to secure non-compilable smart contract repositories against access control vulnerabilities. TRACE employs LLMs to locate sensitive functions involving critical operations (e.g., transfer) within the contract and subsequently completes function snippets into a fully compilable contract. TRACE constructs a function call graph from the abstract syntax tree (AST) of the completed contract. It uses the control flow graph (CFG) of each function as node information. The nodes of the sensitive functions are then analyzed to detect Access Control vulnerabilities. Experimental results demonstrate that TRACE outperforms state-of-the-art tools on an open-sourced CVE dataset, detecting 14 out of 15 CVEs. In addition, it achieves 89.2% precision on 5,000 recent on-chain contracts, far exceeding the best existing tool at 76.9%. On 83 real-world repositories, TRACE achieves 87.0% precision, significantly surpassing DeepSeek-R1's 14.3%.
In the digital era, managing royalties for creative works remains a major challenge. Existing systems are often outdated and lack the transparency and efficiency required to meet the growing demands of digital content distribution. This paper presents BlockRoyalty, an application based on blockchain and smart contract technologies, designed to modernize royalty management for digital books. The system automates the registration of authors, publishers and buyers. It manages book publication, applies dynamic pricing based on sales trends and ensures real-time royalty distribution. All transactions are securely and recorded in a verifiable manner on the blockchain, fostering trust among stakeholders.
Asif Mahmood, Razib Hayat Khan, Jahid Hasan Rony, M. M. Mahbubul Syeed · 5 authors
The rapid growth of digital services has made it essential to have secure, transparent, and decentralized platforms to support reliable and efficient service exchanges in recent time. This study presents a distributed blockchain-based framework that facilitates trustworthy and reputation-driven interactions between service providers and receivers. Service providers can register and promote their services, while users can browse, search, and request offerings through a decentralized and transparent network in this system. Each transaction is immutably recorded on a blockchain ledger, ensuring tamper-proof documentation of service details, including transaction ID, participants, status, timestamp, and review content. The platform also uses a dynamic reputation system where user feedback generates a score that influences future service interactions for both the service provider and the receiver. A proof-of-concept prototype was developed and evaluated to demonstrate the feasibility of integrating this blockchain-based distributed peer-to-peer system into serviceoriented digital platforms. The experimental results validate the system's capacity to handle diverse transaction types while maintaining performance, scalability, and user satisfaction. This approach improves accountability, fosters trust, and mitigates fraud in peer-to-peer digital marketplaces.
With the rapid adoption of diffusion models for visual content generation, proving authorship and protecting copyright have become critical. This challenge is particularly important when model owners keep their models private and may be unwilling or unable to handle authorship issues, making third-party verification essential. A natural solution is to embed watermarks for later verification. However, existing methods require access to model weights and rely on computationally heavy procedures, rendering them impractical and non-scalable. To address these challenges, we propose NoisePrints, a lightweight watermarking scheme that utilizes the random seed used to initialize the diffusion process as a proof of authorship without modifying the generation process. Our key observation is that the initial noise derived from a seed is highly correlated with the generated visual content. By incorporating a hash function into the noise sampling process, we further ensure that recovering a valid seed from the content is infeasible. We also show that sampling an alternative seed that passes verification is infeasible, and demonstrate the robustness of our method under various manipulations. Finally, we show how to use cryptographic zero-knowledge proofs to prove ownership without revealing the seed. By keeping the seed secret, we increase the difficulty of watermark removal. In our experiments, we validate NoisePrints on multiple state-of-the-art diffusion models for images and videos, demonstrating efficient verification using only the seed and output, without requiring access to model weights.
The Metaverse has evolved into a transformative ecosystem, merging virtual and physical realities with consumer electronics and IoT to enable immersive experiences. However, vulnerabilities like avatar impersonation, identity theft, and Sybil attacks, compounded by centralized intermediaries, underscore the urgent need for decentralized solutions to enhance interoperability, security, and user-centricity. This paper proposes a smart contract-based authentication scheme for the Metaverse, leveraging Web 3.0 technologies to achieve decentralization and address existing limitations. The scheme ensures user-server and avatar-avatar authentication while maintaining anonymity, unlinkability, and incorporating an avatar revocation mechanism. Security validation is conducted using the informal analysis, and smart contract implementation. The system’s operational efficiency is benchmarked against existing solutions using metrics such as computational, bandwidth, and communication costs. Results demonstrate the proposed scheme’s superior performance in reducing computational and communication overhead, making it highly suitable for Metaverse applications. Additionally, the smart contract is implemented on the Ethereum test network, confirming its feasibility and showcasing an acceptable cost for blockchain consumption.
As Web3 matures, decentralized naming and storage systems, such as ENS, Unstoppable Domains, and IPFS, offer new paradigms for publishing and accessing web content without relying on centralized infrastructure.However, the process of retrieving content in such an environment remains fragmented, often dependent on vulnerable public gateways or centralized APIs.This paper investigates the resilience of content retrieval in decentralized systems, using Web3Compass as a case study.The system integrates real-time registry monitoring, onchain name resolution, and direct access to decentralized storage via self-hosted IPFS nodes.By avoiding reliance on third-party resolution services and fallback gateways except when necessary, Web3Compass provides a robust method for discovering and rendering Web3 websites.We detail the system's architecture, including resolver logic, node infrastructure, and content validation policies, and evaluate its robustness against gateway failure, incomplete pinning, and resolution inconsistencies.Our findings indicate that proactive pinning, resolver-specific logic, and local node infrastructure significantly improve access reliability, even under constrained network conditions.
Timed signatures are cryptographic primitives that enable senders to predefine the validity period of a signature. Currently, two primary types of timed signatures have been developed. The first type, known as Verifiable Timed Signatures (CCS'2020), implements a delay before a signature becomes effective. The second type is Short-Lived Signatures (ASIACRYPT'2022), which allows for the setting of an expiration time for signatures upon creation. However, certain applications requiring time-sensitive authorization demand both activation and expiration times to be set, a requirement not fulfilled by the existing timed signature schemes. To overcome this limitation, we propose a novel flexible timed signature scheme called Time Interval Signatures (TIS). TIS combines Verifiable Delay Functions and Short-Lived Signatures with our Zero-Knowledge Proof of Product, facilitating the flexible setting of both activation and expiration times for the signature. Building on TIS, we present TimeGuardian, a time-bound NFT rights protocol that enables presetting authorization and revocation periods for NFT usage rights. Experimental results show that TIS achieves signature size reductions of 98.67% and 57.14% compared to existing verifiable timed signature solutions.
Introduction: Digital content, including images and videos, is increasingly ruling the online world, and so multimedia services form a part of this modern life. However, the digital resources face significant problems, especially regarding copyright infringement. In such an instance, any modification without authority infringes intellectual property rights. Methods: Based on Inter Planetary File System (IPFS) and blockchain technology, a decentralized and distributed framework has been proposed in this study for dealing with insecurity over digital assets and openness of multimedia resources. In this respect, secure, transparent, and immutable transactions in regard to the transfer and ownership of creative works have been facilitated by the use of such a framework. Results: This paper proposes novel decentralized and Blockchain enabled framework to address the problem of video copyright protection by employing solidity based smart contract in a Ethereum network, that allows the content creators to register their videos. The designed smart contract performs copyright checks and release copyright disputes by generating and comparing perceptual hash's (Phash) for original video and modified video. Discussion: Phash techniques play a crucial role in multimedia content analysis, particularly in verifying the integrity and similarity of the video data under various transformations. Additionally, the framework generates Inter Planetary File System (IPFS) main values that signifies the ownership of the video content. Then it compars the phash values, IPFS and similarly score in public Blockchain environment i.e. Ethereum. The framework performance was measured by simulating the contracts of the Application Binary Interface (ABI), JSON file in the Hyperledger Caliper environment. This result shows the performance in the form of video registration, the measured latency was 5.02 seconds with a throughput of 409.87 seconds. For video verification the latency was 4.57 seconds with a throughput of 484.23 seconds.
The rapid evolution of internet technologies has triggered exponential growth in multimodal data, intensifying security and efficiency challenges in digital copyright protection. This paper proposes a Multimodal Semantic Sharding Graph Convolutional Blockchain System (MSSGC) that innovatively integrates multimodal semantic fragmentation with graph convolutional neural networks (GCN). The system enables load-balanced blockchain dynamic sharding through GCN-based joint clustering of semantic features and transaction networks, effectively reducing cross-shard communication overhead. We develop a Trust-enhanced Proof of Stake (T-PoS) protocol to optimize account sharding via incentive mechanisms while maintaining decentralization and network equilibrium, complemented by queuing theory-based analysis of transactional performance ceilings. Experiments on blockchain simulators demonstrate that MSSGC significantly outperforms baseline systems across diverse sharding configurations: throughput improves by approximately$\mathbf{2 0 \%}$, latency is reduced by$\mathbf{3 0 \%}$, and load-balancing efficiency increases by roughly 2.3. Notably, the system maintains about 70% transaction integrity even under malicious attacks. This work bridges theoretical gaps in semantic-aware copyright protection while advancing practical blockchain implementations for digital rights management.
Smart contract upgrades are increasingly common due to their flexibility in modifying deployed contracts, such as fixing bugs or adding new functionalities. Meanwhile, upgrades compromise the immutability of contracts, introducing significant security concerns. While existing research has explored the security impacts of contract upgrades, these studies are limited in collection of upgrade behaviors and identification of insecurities. To address these limitations, we conduct a comprehensive study on the insecurities of upgrade behaviors. First, we build a dataset containing 83,085 upgraded contracts and 20,902 upgrade chains. To our knowledge, this is the first large-scale dataset about upgrade behaviors, revealing their diversity and exposing gaps in public disclosure. Next, we develop a taxonomy of insecurities based on 37 real-world security incidents, categorizing eight types of upgrade risks and providing the first complete view of upgrade-related insecurities. Finally, we survey public awareness of these risks and existing mitigations. Our findings show that four types of security risks are overlooked by the public and lack mitigation measures. We detect these upgrade risks through a preliminary study, identifying 31,407 related issues - a finding that raises significant concerns.
Self-Sovereign Identity (SSI) is a paradigm for digital identity management that offers privacy and flexibility advantages. A key technology in SSI is Decentralized Identifiers (DIDs) and their associated metadata, DID Documents (DDOs). DDOs contain crucial verification material such as the public keys of the entity identified by the DID (i.e., the DID subject) and are often anchored on a distributed ledger to ensure security and availability. Long-lived DIDs must support updates (e.g., key rotation). Ideally, only the DID subject should authorize DDO updates. However, in practice, update capabilities may be shared or delegated. While the DID specification acknowledges such scenarios, it does not define how updates should be authorized when multiple entities jointly control a DID (i.e., group control). This article examines the implementation of an on-chain, trustless mechanism enabling DID controllers under group control to program their governance rules. The main research question is the following: Can a technical mechanism be developed to orchestrate on-chain group control of a DDO in a ledger-agnostic and adaptable manner?
The rapid expansion of Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) ecosystem in Web 3.0 service has produced complex transaction networks that challenge traditional graph analysis methods. To address these limitations, this paper presents a higher-order network framework for modeling and analyzing NFT transaction data. Our approach constructs a multi-layered representation of the NFT ecosystem by integrating temporal hypergraphs and motif-based networks, thereby capturing multiway interactions and temporal dependencies beyond simple pairwise transactions. We target three specific tasks to uncover and leverage latent dependencies in NFT markets. First, we build a temporal hypergraph and motif-based network to encode multientity, multi-token relationships. Next, we develop a Higher-Order Graph Neural Network that incorporates token ownership chains and motif edges to improve node classification, significantly outperforming traditional model in identifying key actor roles. Finally, we propose a link prediction model that integrates shared-token and motif-based features, substantially enhancing accuracy in forecasting new NFT transactions compared to baseline models. Our findings validate that explicitly capturing higher-order dependencies is crucial for robust and interpretable analysis of NFT ecosystems, facilitating better Web 3.0 service.
Sahana Bhat, K Meeraja, Suhani Verma, Indu Radhakrishnan
VeryCert is a unified certificate management system that simplifies issuing, managing, and revoking digital certificates. As cyber threats rise and IT environments grow complex, secure authentication is essential. VeryCert provides a user-friendly platform for creating and managing certificates, ensuring access control by issuing them only after payment. The process begins with a Certificate Signing Request (CSR) submitted upon payment completion, after which the certificate is issued. For example, a valid certificate allows access to platforms like Cinezo, confirming payment. Administrators can view pending requests, approve them using a default CA or OpenSSL, and manage issued certificates with expiry tracking and revocation options. By integrating secure, verifiable payment-based authentication, VeryCert enhances security, data integrity, and compliance with industry standards.
The integration of blockchain technology introduced smart contracts, which revolutionized the automation and security of executing transactions. This article focuses on using smart contracts to manage information service subscriptions where reliability, transparency, and efficiency are required. Subscription management suffers from payment delays, trust issues, errors, and many other problems. Through automation and smart contracts, the self-executing nature of these agreements helps organizations streamline subscriptions, enforce terms with less risk, and greatly reduce operational blunders. Blunders. In this paper, I thoroughly review smart contracts, explore current gaps within subscription management, and explain how integrating blockchain can fill them. Some successful implementations are presented as case studies. Others discuss technical and organizational hurdles for practical adoption. Future scope widens by providing insight into blockchain-based decentralized solutions' role in contemporary subscription-centered business models. The research ends by recommending information service providers adopt smart contracts for better operational efficiency, reduced costs, and stronger customer relations.
Merkle Tree is a fundamental cryptographic primitive in Zero-Knowledge Proof (ZKP) protocols, sharing significant computational workloads with the Number Theoretic Transform (NTT) in zkSTARK schemes. Merkle Tree is a tree structure where nodes are primarily generated through hash computations. Among them, Poseidon Hash, as a ZK-friendly hash function, has emerged as one of the most widely adopted choices. Therefore, hardware acceleration of building Merkle Tree based on Poseidon Hash can significantly enhance the performance of ZKP protocols. We propose AcclMT, a highly resourceefficient and flexible Poseidon Hash-based Merkle Tree architecture. Our design employs hardware-software co-design and optimizes the hashing data flow, resulting in an area-efficient Poseidon Hash engine that improves modular multiplication resource utilization. Furthermore, AcclMT uses these engines alongside hierarchical on-chip cache and optimized task scheduling for building large Merkle Trees. It also supports flexible parameter configurations for various requirements. Experimental results show that our proposed Poseidon Hash engine achieves a $14.3 \times$ speedup compared to the latest FPGA-based work. By improving resource utilization, it also reduces area usage by 14.8% compared to unoptimized design. AcclMT achieves up to $1665 \times$ speedup over software implementations in building Merkle tree, with average utilization of 95.9% and 99.2% for the two hash engines.