Cryptocurrency mining, especially Bitcoin's Proof of Work (PoW), significantly impacts the environment through high energy consumption, carbon footprint, and e-waste. Ethereum's adoption of Proof of Stake (PoS) in 2022 offers a potential solution to reduce these effects. This study compares the environmental impacts of PoW and PoS, focusing on energy consumption, mining efficiency, hash rate, and carbon footprint. Using regression analysis and t-tests on data from Bitcoin (PoW) and Ethereum (before and after PoS) from 2017 to 2024, the results show that PoS significantly reduces energy consumption, carbon footprint, and e-waste, while improving mining efficiency. The findings highlight that transitioning to PoS can mitigate the environmental impact of cryptocurrency mining and encourage its broader adoption to align with global sustainability goals.
Mihajlo Karadžić, Dušan Mačkić, Sandra Rakočević, Marija Antić
Traditional STB management systems rely on TR-069, which faces challenges in scalability, security, and efficiency when dealing with modern IoT-based deployments. We compare WISE with TR-069 in terms of latency, scalability, and security, incorporating Zero-Knowledge Proof (ZKP) authentication to strengthen access control. Our evaluation demonstrates that WISE significantly reduces management latency and scales more efficiently compared to TR-069 while ensuring a more secure authentication process.
Cooperation among telecom carriers and datacenter providers (DCPs) is essential to ensure the resiliency of network-cloud ecosystems. To enable efficient cooperative recovery in case of traffic congestion or network failures, we introduce a novel, to our knowledge, multi-entity cooperation platform (MCP) for implementing cooperative recovery planning. The MCP is built over distributed ledger technology (DLT), which ensures decentralized and tamper-proof information exchange among stakeholders to achieve open and fair cooperation. We experimentally demonstrate a proof-of-concept DLT-based MCP on a testbed. We showcase a DCP–carrier cooperative planning process and the corresponding recovery in the data-plane, showing the possibility of multi-entity cooperation for quick recovery of network-cloud ecosystems.
Cross-chain data sharing in decentralized storage networks faces challenges in security and performance, including data breaches and high latency. This paper proposes a layered protocol integrating decentralized storage and cross-chain communication to address these issues. The protocol ensures robust security and optimizes performance through sharding, encryption, and concurrency. Experimental results show significant improvements in throughput and latency compared to baseline schemes, with manageable storage overhead. This study offers a secure, efficient solution for cross-chain data sharing, with applications in decentralized finance and distributed computing. Future work will focus on high-load optimization and real-world validation.
Web3 grant programs are evolving mechanisms aimed at supporting innovation within the blockchain ecosystem, yet little is known on about their effectiveness. This paper proposes the concept of maturity to fill this gap and introduces the Grant Maturity Framework (GMF), a mixed-methods model for evaluating the maturity of Web3 grant programs. The GMF provides a systematic approach to assessing the structure, governance, and impact of Web3 grants, applied here to four prominent Ethereum layer-two (L2) grant programs: Arbitrum, Optimism, Mantle, and Taiko. By evaluating these programs using the GMF, the study categorizes them into four maturity stages, ranging from experimental to advanced. The findings reveal that Arbitrum's Long-Term Incentive Pilot Program (LTIPP) and Optimism's Mission Rounds show higher maturity, while Mantle and Taiko are still in their early stages. The research concludes by discussing the user-centric development of a Web3 grant management platform aimed at improving the maturity and effectiveness of Web3 grant management processes based on the findings from the GMF. This work contributes to both practical and theoretical knowledge on Web3 grant program evaluation and tooling, providing a valuable resource for Web3 grant operators and stakeholders.
The investigation of Bitcoin network topology has garnered significant academic attention due to its potential to enhance blockchain system performance and strengthen network robustness. However, current Bitcoin P2P network topology reconstruction mechanisms face four critical limitations: inefficient topology recovery, reliance on obsolete protocols, poor compatibility with new protocol versions, and disruptive impacts on network operations. To address these challenges, we initiate our study from Bitcoin's network formation mechanisms. Through longitudinal analysis of client version control histories, we systematically trace the architectural evolution of its P2P network and perform the first protocol-level reverse engineering with the node discovery mechanism. Building on these insights, we propose a novel graph-theoretic analytical framework that introduces fresh perspectives for blockchain topology analysis. Our experimental validation on the live Bitcoin network identified 8,106 active nodes with 1.8 million connection edges, demonstrating a 38% improvement in node discovery efficiency over existing approaches. Comparative analysis further quantified the operational intrusiveness of mainstream connection restoration methods, confirming our method's capability to achieve complete topology reconstruction under non-intrusive conditions. These findings substantially expand the research horizons for blockchain network analysis by establishing an extended foundational network scope and delivering comprehensive topological datasets, providing critical infrastructure insights for future blockchain architecture research.
The Blockchain-Based Secure Document Sharing project offers a decentralized approach to secure, transparent, and efficient document sharing, resolving the weaknesses of conventional centralized systems. Utilizing Ethereum blockchain, smart contracts, and the Inter Planetary File System (IPFS), the system provides immutability, strong access control, and auditability. Smart contracts handle document ownership, versioning, and permissioned sharing, while IPFS facilitates decentralized storage of encrypted files, with content identifiers being stored on-chain for integrity checks. The frontend, implemented in React with Web3.js integration, has a user-friendly interface for wallet management, document upload, and secure sharing using protected routes and Bootstrap to make it responsive. The backend, implemented with Express.js, performs file upload through Multer and emulates IPFS interaction, with a plan to fully integrate IPFS. Local development is done using Ganache and Truffle to test and deploy the blockchain. Key features are tamper-proof audit trails, attribute-based access control, and real-time global accessibility, making the system ideal for industries such as healthcare, finance, and education. Scalability and reliability challenges such as IPFS integration, Web3 provider error handling, and contract address configuration are being tackled to make the system scalable and reliable. Through blockchain's immutability coupled with IPFS's decentralized storage, this project presents a safe and affordable substitute to centralized document storage systems, while promoting compliance and trust as it simplifies collaboration. Planned for the future include layer-2 scalability solutions as well as wider testing to improve production readiness.
Online social platforms for digital communication necessitate an in-depth understanding of their evolving dynamics, especially after the renewal requests brought about by new paradigms, such as Web3. The dynamics within online social networks (OSNs) are influenced by numerous factors, encompassing user behavior, content generation, platform features, and technological advancements, with triadic closure standing out as a prominent and influential element. In this study, we focus on the temporal aspects of triadic closure and its role in the evolution of OSNs, especially after the advent of the Web3 paradigm. By analyzing networks with timestamped links from diverse platforms based on different architectures, including communication, Web3-based, and trade networks, we developed a comprehensive analytical pipeline to support the study of triadic closure patterns. This pipeline includes an algorithm for the census of time-ordered triads, a vector-based model for representing growing networks (growth triadic profile), the identification of triadic closure rules (TERs), and the evaluation of the speed of the formation of closed triads. Our findings reveal significant variations in the impact of triadic closure across different OSNs, marked by diverse growth triadic profiles and varying formation speeds of closed triads as well as diversity in the predictability of evolutionary patterns based on triads. This study not only enhances the comprehension of triadic closure in the temporal evolution of OSNs but also provides valuable insights to be taken into account for the design and administration of online social platforms.
In digital freelancing, businesses and organizations employ potential staff members under contract to complete certain tasks. Most current systems for freelancing are centralized. They are put into practice using client-server centralized systems. High fees for freelancers and their clients, unfair treatment of user accounts, inequity between clients and freelancers, payment delays, and weakened trust between clients and freelancers as a result of third-party platforms are some of the problems that arise from the use of centralized freelancing structures. In this project, we suggest a decentralized freelance system built on the blockchain. A decentralized freelance system is one in which the communication between independent contractors and their clients is not managed by a single platform. Our decentralized system is an Ethereum-based internet marketplace. Through smart contracts, it provides an innovative means for clients and independent contractors to communicate and collaborate. This study outlines the developed freelance system and illustrates its features, including job posting, bidding, employing freelancers, work completion, and project submission to clients. Since smart contracts provide money to freelancers as soon as the project is completed, there won't be any delays in payment distribution. Since no third-party platforms are involved that hamper any interactions between clients and freelancers, our method guarantees fairness and affordable transaction fees.
In Ethereum, private transactions, a specialized transaction type employed to evade public Peer-to-Peer (P2P) network broadcasting, remain largely unexplored, particularly in the context of the transition from Proof-of-Work (PoW) to Proof-of-Stake (PoS) consensus mechanisms. To address this gap, we investigate the transaction characteristics, (un)intended usages, and monetary impacts by analyzing large-scale datasets comprising 14,810,392 private transactions within a 15.5-month PoW dataset and 30,062,232 private transactions within a 15.5-month PoS dataset. While originally designed for security purposes, we find that private transactions predominantly serve three distinct functions in both PoW and PoS Ethereum: extracting Maximum Extractable Value (MEV), facilitating monetary transfers to distribute mining rewards, and interacting with popular Decentralized Finance (DeFi) applications. Furthermore, we find that private transactions are utilized in DeFi attacks to circumvent surveillance by white hat monitors, with an increased prevalence observed in PoS Ethereum compared to PoW Ethereum. Additionally, in PoS Ethereum, there is a subtle uptick in the role of private transactions for MEV extraction. This shift could be attributed to the decrease in transaction costs. However, this reduction in transaction cost and the cancellation of block rewards result in a significant decrease in mining profits for block creators.
Middlemen handle disputes during the payment process to ensure that it remains seamless and efficient in systems that are highly distributed. It boils down to primarily addressing common challenges like fraud, transaction speed, and the need for transparency. This paper presents a web-based payment system designed to facilitate the transfer of cryptocurrency over the internet without relying on any intermediaries by leveraging ledger-based distributed technology, automated agreements, and protection measures. This ensures seamless operations with fewer intermediaries while maintaining efficiency and safeguarding transactions. Our implementation consists of a simple web application built using React, Node.js, and CSS for a responsive front end. The backend incorporates autonomous agreements and is tested using a simulated blockchain network, facilitating trustless record-keeping. MetaMask compatibility allows users to link wallets and securely execute digital asset exchanges, reducing transaction costs and ensuring visible, verifiable transfers. This paper contributes to the growing body of knowledge on open finance (DeFi) and serves as a cornerstone. Our website offers an operational example of these concepts, providing a realistic viewpoint on blockchain-based payments in real-world scenarios. While it establishes a protected structure, off-chain agreements are susceptible to coding flaws or exploitation. Poorly designed contracts can lead to financial losses if attackers identify and take advantage of weaknesses. Performing thorough security evaluations and adopting best practices in contract development are crucial to ensuring strong protection against potential threats. Key Words: Blockchain Payments, Cryptocurrency Transactions, Decentralized Finance (DeFi), Smart Contracts, Distributed Ledger Technology
The decentralized finance (DeFi) ecosystem continues to evolve, allowing crypto holders greater control over their assets. This research examines key aspects of token accessibility, liquidity provisioning, and holder distribution. The study focuses on evaluating whether holders can check their ranking and percentage ownership, the availability of the token on decentralized exchanges (DEXs), the feasibility of liquidity pool creation, and opportunities for holders to acquire at least 0.1% of the total supply. In present paper, Coredaovip token has been considered as example to evaluate the crypto holder accessibility, liquidity and participation in decentralized ecosystem.
Ethereum has adopted a rollup-centric roadmap to scale by making rollups (layer 2 scaling solutions) the primary method for handling transactions. The first significant step towards this goal was EIP-4844, which introduced blob transactions that are designed to meet the data availability needs of layer 2 protocols. This work constitutes the first rigorous and comprehensive empirical analysis of transaction- and mempool-level data since the institution of blobs on Ethereum on March 13, 2024. We perform a longitudinal study of the early days of the blob fee market analyzing the landscape and the behaviors of its participants. We identify and measure the inefficiencies arising out of suboptimal block packing, showing that at times it has resulted in up to 70% relative fee loss. We hone in and give further insight into two (congested) peak demand periods for blobs. Finally, we document a market design issue relating to subset bidding due to the inflexibility of the transaction structure on packing data as blobs and suggest possible ways to fix it. The latter market structure issue also applies more generally for any discrete objects included within transactions.
This article presents a comprehensive framework for integrating blockchain technology with Oracle SOA Suite to facilitate secure and efficient real-time financial transactions. The proposed architecture leverages distributed ledger technology's inherent security features alongside Oracle's robust service orchestration capabilities to address prevalent challenges in traditional payment systems. Through systematic implementation and rigorous testing, the article demonstrates significant improvements in transaction processing speed, security, and regulatory compliance. The integration framework incorporates smart contracts for automated transaction validation, enhanced payment messaging protocols, and optimized data processing pipelines. The article indicates that this hybrid architecture effectively reduces transaction settlement times while maintaining data integrity and meeting industry regulatory requirements. The article contributes to the growing body of knowledge in enterprise integration architecture and provides valuable insights for financial institutions seeking to modernize their transaction processing systems.
The Ethereum network, built on the devp2p protocol stack, was designed to function as a "world computer" by supporting decentralized applications through a shared P2P infrastructure. However, the proliferation of blockchain forks has increased network diversity, complicating node discovery and reducing efficiency. Ethereum mainnet nodes cannot easily distinguish between peers from different blockchains until after establishing an expensive TCP connection, encryption, and protocol handshake. This inefficiency is further worsened by client diversity, where differences in software implementations cause protocol incompatibilities and connection failures. This paper introduces a monitoring tool that tracks devp2p message exchanges and client statuses to analyze connection dynamics and protocol variations. Our findings highlight issues such as inefficiencies in node discovery and client incompatibility, including timeouts in Geth during the discovery process. The study emphasizes the need to consider chain and client diversity when assessing the health and performance of the post-merge Ethereum network.
T. T. Lei, Qinnan Zhang, Wangjie Qiu, Hongwei Zheng · 9 authors
Consensus mechanisms are fundamental to maintaining consistency in distributed systems. With the advent of Web 3.0, blockchain has revealed limitations of traditional Delegated Proof of Stake (DPoS) consensus mechanisms. To address these issues, we propose a novel Quadratic Voting-based DPoS (Q-DPoS) consensus mechanism. Our approach integrates Quadratic Voting into DPoS to optimize voting power distribution, vote counting, and reward settlement processes, thereby incentivizing participation from users with lower stakes while reducing the concentration of influence. To prevent the system from reverting to a linear reward structure under Sybil Attacks, we introduce admission rules and vote similarity detection mechanisms to strengthen its robustness. Simulation results demonstrate that Q-DPoS significantly increases voter participation and alleviates stake centralization, thereby enhancing overall decentralization. Additionally, theoretical analysis grounded in game theory confirms that the proposed mechanism effectively diversifies voting preferences, contributing to a more balanced and resilient consensus mechanism suitable for Web 3.0 ecosystem.