Blockchain Papers

Yuan Li, Zejun He

No abstract is available for this record.

William C. Johnson, Stefan Scharnowski

We examine how wrapped tokens – tokenized representations of assets on other block/chains – contribute to cryptocurrency price discovery. Based on high-frequency data for Wrapped Bitcoin (wBTC), our results indicate that wBTC accounts for about 10% of the total price discovery of Bitcoin as measured by information shares. We show that wBTC’s contribution to price discovery is positively related to wBTC liquidity and trading volume as well as to important measures of decentralized finance activity. Our results have significant implications for the relationships between crypto-assets on different platforms as well as for systemic risk in the crypto-ecosystem. • Wrapped Bitcoin (wBTC) is a tokenized form of Bitcoin on other blockchains. • wBTC contributes significantly to Bitcoin price discovery. • Price discovery rises with liquidity and trading volume. • wBTC’s price discovery share increases with decentralized finance activity. • Decentralized finance plays an important role in Bitcoin pricing.

José Ângelo Divino, Matheus Silva de Paiva

No abstract is available for this record.

Rashi Saxena, Pratibha Kumari

The increasing reliance on smart grids to manage power distribution efficiently has introduced significant cybersecurity vulnerabilities due to their interconnected nature. Traditional security approaches often fall short in real-time protection, particularly against advanced threats such as data manipulation, unauthorized access, and Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) attacks. This paper proposes a novel Smart Grid Secure Protocol (SGSP), integrating Attribute-Based Zero-Knowledge Proofs (AB-ZKP), Redundant Consensus Mechanisms combining Proof of Stake (PoS) and Practical Byzantine Fault Tolerance (PBFT) for scalable and fault-tolerant consensus, and Grid Safe Smart Contracts (GSSC) to enhance data confidentiality, automate security enforcement, and resist cyber threats. The AB-ZKP mechanism ensures selective attribute verification while preserving privacy and keeping sensitive data off-chain. The hybrid consensus mechanism merges energy-efficient PoS with fault-tolerant PBFT, securing the Blockchain layer against DDoS and Sybil attacks. Meanwhile, GSSCs automate transaction validation and policy enforcement, reducing human intervention and enabling real-time anomaly detection. Experimental results in a simulated environment demonstrate high resilience, improved data privacy (98.7% compliance), fast consensus (1.2 s), low energy consumption (0.09 kWh/transaction), and strong DDoS resistance (92.5/100). The proposed approach significantly outperforms traditional methods, paving the way for secure, scalable, and privacy-preserving smart grid ecosystems.

Mohamed Ali Ahmed Mohamed El-Erian

If limited liability companies were widely spread in the 1990s, limited liability companies based on blockchain technology have witnessed tremendous growth in the past two years due to digital globalization. These companies adopt decentralized autonomous organizations, known as DAOs, which operate on the blockchain platform through smart contracts and decentralization of control. Despite the many advantages of these companies, they face many legal challenges and regulatory risks. What increases the importance of this study is that the laws of commercial companies in the countries of Iraq (Kurdistan Region) and the United Arab Emirates do not include any regulatory rules in this regard, which raises the question of what are these newly created companies? What are the similarities and differences between them and traditional companies? What are their legal provisions? Should they be adopted within the legislative system or not? In other words, are the decentralized autonomous organizations that belong to these companies capable of displacing traditional organizational structures? In this study, we will highlight to what extent limited liability companies based on blockchain technology can be considered a new form of commercial companies or whether it is just a false idea confined to a narrow scope.

V.Ananya Sree, Aparna Tanam

No abstract is available for this record.

Ammar Arief Ainol Ahmam, Nor Adora Endut

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

Giovanni Vindigni

This study examines the economic, legal, and institutional structures of non-fungible tokens (NFTs) as emerging mechanisms of digital value creation in the global art and media sector. Correspondingly, the aim was to analyze the functional logic of these blockchain-based forms of exploitation and to determine their role in the ongoing knowledge economization of cultural production. Utilizing a qualitative-exploratory multiple-case design, this study meticulously analyzed exemplary use cases from the art, music, and creative industries. Notable examples include ArtTrade.io, Royal.io, and the Kool Savas NFT drop, all of which were scrutinized through systematic document analysis and a PRISMA-based literature evaluation. However, to enhance analytical rigor and support theoretical triangulation, an additional institutional comparison set has been introduced. This set includes significant large-scale distributed ledger technology initiatives such as BLOCKBASTER (collaboration between Deutsche Börse and Deutsche Bundesbank), BIS Helvetia Phase II, Collateral Management Benefit from DLT, and Delivery versus Payment (DvP) utilizing Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC). The projects in question effectively contextualize NFT-based market structures within the wider landscape of digital financial infrastructures, underscoring the convergence of cultural, technological, and regulatory frameworks surrounding tokenization. As the results indicate, NFTs currently function primarily as tokenized representations that do not transfer copyright or property rights. They point out a structural paradox: blockchain promises to decentralize technology, but governance, pricing, and monetization are still centralized. From an economic perspective, hybrid revenue models consisting of primary sales and secondary royalty mechanisms dominate, utilizing attention, exclusivity, and scarcity as core resources. However, NFTs thus appear as socio-technical infrastructures that redefine the interface between technology, market, and culture. As a contribution to the study of the global dynamics of digital creative economies, it highlights that NFTs represent less of a disruption of existing structures and more of an algorithmic reorganization of them. They thus mark the transition to a tokenized knowledge economy in which creativity, data, and code become convergent factors of production in a new economic era.

Authors unavailable

No abstract is available for this record.

Jing Shi, Xiaoying Bai, Wenzheng Zhang, Pei-Lun Li · 7 authors

No abstract is available for this record.

Authors unavailable

No abstract is available for this record.

Breno Jacinto Duarte da Costa, Márcio Ferro, Mohamed Yassine Zarouk, Alan Silva · 6 authors

No abstract is available for this record.

Sushil Khairnar

The growth in IoT devices means an ongoing risk of data vulnerability. The transition from centralized ecosystems to decentralized ecosystems is of paramount importance due to security, privacy, and data use concerns. Since the majority of IoT devices will be used by consumers in peer-to-peer applications, a centralized approach raises many issues of trust related to privacy, control, and censorship. Identity and access management lies at the heart of any user-facing system. Blockchain technologies can be leveraged to augment user authority, transparency, and decentralization. This study proposes a decentralized identity management framework for IoT environments using Hyperledger Fabric and Decentralized Identifiers (DIDs). The system was simulated using Node-RED to model IoT data streams, and key functionalities including device onboarding, authentication, and secure asset querying were successfully implemented. Results demonstrated improved data integrity, transparency, and user control, with reduced reliance on centralized authorities. These findings validate the practicality of blockchain-based identity management in enhancing the security and trustworthiness of IoT infrastructures.

David Shi, Kevin Joo

x402 enables Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) services like application programming interfaces (APIs), data feeds, and inference providers to accept cryptocurrency payments for access. As agents increasingly consume these services, discovery becomes critical: which swap interface should an agent trust? Which data provider is the most reliable? We introduce TraceRank, a reputation-weighted ranking algorithm where payment transactions serve as endorsements. TraceRank seeds addresses with precomputed reputation metrics and propagates reputation through payment flows weighted by transaction value and temporal recency. Applied to x402's payment graph, this surfaces services preferred by high-reputation users rather than those with high transaction volume. Our system combines TraceRank with semantic search to respond to natural language queries with high quality results. We argue that reputation propagation resists Sybil attacks by making spam services with many low-reputation payers rank below legitimate services with few high-reputation payers. Ultimately, we aim to construct a search method for x402 enabled services that avoids infrastructure bias and has better performance than purely volume based or semantic methods.

Monu Sharma

Workday's compliance with global standards -- such as GDPR, SOC 2, HIPAA, ISO 27001, and FedRAMP -- shows its ability to best protect critical financial, healthcare, and government data.Automated compliance attributes like audit trails, behavioral analytics, and continuous reporting improve automation of the process and cut down on the manual effort to audit. A comparative review demonstrates enhanced risk management, operational flexibility, and breach mitigation. The paper also discusses potential future solutions with AI, ML and blockchain, to enhance attackdetection and data integrity. Overall, Workday turns out to be a secure, compliant and future-ready ERP solution. The paper also explores emerging trends, including the integration of AI, machine learning, and blockchain technologies to enhance next-generation threat detection and data integrity. The findings position Workday as a reliable, compliant, and future-ready ERP solution, setting a new benchmark for secure enterprise cloud management.

Chenchen Yang

No abstract is available for this record.

Raja Wasim Ahmad, Tahir Maqsood, Atta ur Rehman Khan

No abstract is available for this record.

Haodong Xu, Mingyuan Weng, Hua Han

No abstract is available for this record.

Kattya Cascante Hernandez, Tahina Ojeda Medina

This article examines the convergence of two major initiatives of international cooperation: the European Union’s Global Gateway (GGE) and China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). At first glance, these projects appear to embody distinct paradigms. The GGE emerged within the framework of North-South Cooperation (NSC), traditionally associated with the Global North’s approach to development assistance, emphasizing aid conditionality, institutional reforms, and adherence to liberal democratic norms. In contrast, the BRI is rooted in South-South Cooperation (SSC), which stresses solidarity among developing countries, mutual respect, and non-interference. Despite these different origins, both frameworks have increasingly adopted convergent strategies, driven by shared geopolitical ambitions and the pressing need to frame global development within the narrative of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. The analysis proceeds from a critical theory perspective within International Relations, questioning whether these initiatives genuinely transform the global order or, rather, reproduce existing power asymmetries. Building on the insights of Robert Cox, the article emphasizes that international cooperation is not a neutral or purely humanitarian exercise. Instead, it constitutes a political mechanism that sustains hegemonic structures. Aid, investment, and connectivity projects often reinforce the interests of donor states, embedding them in development agendas that appear universal but remain shaped by particular geopolitical priorities. This theoretical framing provides the basis for interrogating the practices of both the GGE and BRI. From this critical lens, the article argues that cooperation should not be understood simply in terms of poverty alleviation or technical assistance. Rather, it is part of a broader struggle over global governance, legitimacy, and influence. Discourses around sustainability, inclusion, and “win-win” partnerships often obscure the underlying reality: cooperation serves to project power, secure strategic resources, and expand spheres of influence. The EU and China, though employing different narratives, both use development as a foreign policy instrument, reinforcing their global standing at a time when multipolarity and competition over leadership in the Global South are intensifying. Both the GGE and the BRI claim to tackle urgent global challenges. The EU highlights infrastructure deficits, climate change, and digital divides, framing its response in terms of values such as transparency, democracy, and rules-based governance. Conversely, China emphasizes its commitment to mutual benefit, shared prosperity, and non-interference, presenting the BRI as an inclusive framework that accommodates partner countries’ priorities without imposing political conditions. These discourses reveal important ideological differences but also converge on the goal of legitimacy: both seek to present themselves as reliable partners to the Global South and as leaders in shaping a post-Western order. Institutionally, the two models diverge significantly. The Global Gateway operates through a complex, multilayered governance structure involving the European Commission, EU Member States, development banks such as the EIB, private sector actors, and civil society organizations. This decentralized architecture is coordinated through the “Team Europe” approach, designed to promote coherence and visibility of European external action. By contrast, the BRI remains a highly centralized initiative. Strategic direction is set by Chinese ministries, while state-owned enterprises play a central role in implementation, supported primarily by financing from state-owned development banks such as the China Development Bank and the Export-Import Bank of China. This centralized and state-led model reflects China’s preference for bilateralism and flexibility, allowing Beijing to negotiate directly with partner governments on a case-by-case basis. Yet, despite these structural differences, both models demonstrate a growing convergence in financial logic. Traditional concessional aid has declined in importance, giving way to investment-driven cooperation that blends public and private capital. This shift emphasizes risk mitigation, return on investment, and the mobilization of large-scale funding for infrastructure and connectivity projects. The EU’s EFSD+ mechanism, for instance, offers €40 billion in guarantees and €13.5 billion in grants, designed to catalyze up to €135 billion in private investment across strategic sectors. China’s BRI, meanwhile, had mobilized over $1.17 trillion in cumulative investments by 2024, with more than $11 billion allocated to renewable energy alone in that year. Such figures underscore how development cooperation has become increasingly financialized, subordinating aid to logics of profitability and visibility. This financialization also reveals a deeper ideological shift. Earlier models of cooperation often invoked moral obligations or humanitarian imperatives. By contrast, the contemporary discourse stresses mutual benefit and partnership—rhetoric that often conceals underlying asymmetries. “Win-win” outcomes are frequently skewed toward donor states, whose strategic and economic priorities dominate project design. Moreover, the growing reliance on repayable instruments raises concerns about debt sustainability in recipient countries, particularly those with weak governance structures or limited fiscal capacity. The danger is that development cooperation, instead of fostering autonomy, may deepen dependency and vulnerability. These trends highlight a broader transformation in the global aid architecture. While the vocabulary of the 2030 Agenda emphasizes inclusivity, equality, and sustainability, the actual practices of cooperation remain subordinated to geopolitical imperatives. Far from redistributing resources equitably or enabling independent development trajectories in the Global South, cooperation increasingly functions as a means of securing access to markets, strategic corridors, and political alignment. The EU and China thus represent two different pathways to the same end: the use of development as an instrument of geopolitical positioning. The article further considers the role of recipient states and non-state actors in this dynamic. Officially, both the GGE and the BRI advocate for local ownership, context-sensitive implementation, and participatory governance. In practice, however, the influence of local actors remains limited. The GGE incorporates civil society organizations to a greater degree, particularly in monitoring and advocacy, but final decision-making is driven by institutional and financial imperatives at the EU level. In the BRI, local participation is even more constrained, with negotiations conducted primarily between Chinese officials and partner governments, often behind closed doors. This imbalance reflects the structural challenge of ensuring genuine agency for recipient states in a context where power asymmetries remain pronounced. Ultimately, the article concludes that both the GGE and the BRI are not transformative frameworks but rather mechanisms that reconfigure existing hierarchies of global governance. While their instruments, discourses, and institutional arrangements differ, their substantive impact converges: reinforcing rather than challenging the dominant structures of international order. This convergence underscores the limitations of the 2030 Agenda, which, despite its universal aspirations, has become deeply entangled with the foreign policy agendas of major powers. As international cooperation becomes increasingly subordinated to strategic competition in a multipolar world, the scope for building genuinely solidarity-based frameworks narrows. The article calls for renewed debate on the purpose, governance, and political economy of development cooperation. It argues for moving beyond the adaptation of existing frameworks toward the envisioning of new paradigms rooted in equity, pluralism, and democratic governance. Such paradigms would not treat the Global South merely as a beneficiary but as a co-architect of global development, capable of shaping agendas, institutions, and norms on equal footing. Only in this way can cooperation transcend its role as a vehicle of power projection and become a tool for genuine transformation.

Vibha Mani, Shruti Jaiswal

No abstract is available for this record.

MOSTOVENKO, OLEKSII, TSAP, VOLODYMYR, BORKOVYCH, VOLODYMYR, RUDYK, NATALIIA · 5 authors

The study's relevance is determined by the critical dependence of cryptocurrency market stability on thetechnical reliability of smart contracts and the increasing risks of financial losses due to their defects. Aim:The aim of the study is to formalize the ranking of technical vulnerabilities of smart contracts by theirimpact on the economic stability of domestic capital markets through systematization, simulationmodelling, and quantitative assessment of financial indicators. Methods: The research used the followingtechniques: vulnerability typing, simulation modelling, financial analytics, and comparative analysis.Obtained results: The study confirmed the critical impact of smart contract technical vulnerabilities on thefinancial stability of the markets, with peak VaR of up to -68.5% and liquidity deterioration of over -80%for reentrancy attack, delegatecall injection, and oracle manipulation. The risks were reduced by more thanhalf after implementing multi-level optimisations, demonstrating the effectiveness of comprehensivemitigation to stabilise key financial indicators. Academic novelty of the study: The academic novelty of thestudy is the formalized classification of technical vulnerabilities of smart contracts and the first empiricalassessment of their impact on the economic stability of capital markets based on comprehensive financialand economic metrics, which extends the theory of DeFi structural risks. Prospects for future research:Prospects for further research include the development of a pilot project for technical optimization ofsmart contracts with a focus on increasing resilience to logical and synchronization defects.

Sharadha Kodadi, Koteswararao Dondapati, Durga Praveen Deevi, Himabindu Chetlapalli · 6 authors

This research uses an Ethereum blockchain dataset that contains transactional data, metadata, registry logs, payments and invoices to investigate how Extreme Gradient Boosting (XGBOOST) and Merkle Tree Blockchain can be integrated to optimize Supply Chain Finance (SCF) operations. This will improve SCF processes by guaranteeing data integrity, transparency and security. In order to forecast monetary flows and effectively detect the anomalies, the researchers use a robust method that begins with preprocessing using One-Hot Encoding. After the preprocessing step, the Feature Extraction takes place and is done by Independent Component Analysis (ICA) to identify independent components from the dataset. Then the optimization is done by XGBOOST. Moreover, by comparing the Merkle Tree Blockchain method with the existing Practical Byzantine Fault Tolerance (PBFT), the proposed Merkle Tree Blockchain guarantees safe encoding, decoding and hashing processes while drastically lowering latency and raising throughput that improves the system’s overall efficiency. Furthermore, a robust SCF architecture is supported by network performance monitoring that guarantees scalability, low latency and high throughput. The proposed XGBOOST technique outperforms the current techniques in financial forecasting and fraud detection, reaching 99.96% accuracy, 99.05% precision, 98.61% recall and 99.54% of the F1-score. By enhancing the cash flow, this integration ensures sustainability and operational efficiency by fostering collaboration and trust among the supply chain partners. Thus, this research demonstrates the revolutionary potential of blockchain technology and powerful Machine Learning (ML) in transforming SCF operation by providing a more secure, transparent and effective way to manage financial transactions.

Tara Swaraj, Krishanu Nath, Manas Kumar Bera, Rajiv Kumar Mishra · 6 authors

This paper addresses the design of distributed adaptive control protocols for leader-follower consensus and time-varying formation problems, where agents communicate over directed graphs. Projection operator-based adaptive control protocols are developed for multi-agent systems modelled as general uncertain linear dynamics. An integral sliding mode-based robust control strategy is developed to compensate for the unknown bounded disturbance in the followers' dynamics. To relax the knowledge of the upper bound of the disturbance in designing a sliding-mode controller, a barrier function-based adaptive integral sliding-mode controller is designed to adjust the gain of the discontinuous part of the controller. This technique avoids overestimation of gains, which significantly reduces chattering. This control technique ensures the convergence of disagreement variables in a predefined neighborhood of zero. The Lyapunov-based stability proof demonstrates the convergence of disagreement variables in leader-follower consensus and time-varying formation control problems. Finally, numerical examples are provided to validate the efficacy of the proposed protocols.

城穂 参川

The modern international financial order is undergoing significant structural transformation driven by globalization and digital technological innovation. This paper analyzes this transformation from the perspective of “embedded liberalism,” which formed the foundation of the postwar order. This paper examines the history of how the Bretton Woods system achieved both international liberalization and domestic social stabilization through capital mobility restrictions, verifying that financial liberalization since the 1970s led to governance hollowing out. It then clarifies that while the rise of crypto assets demonstrates a “de-embedding” logic that circumvents centralization, it simultaneously triggers attempts at “re-embedding” through regulation. The risks of decentralized finance (DeFi) and regulatory fragmentation are difficult to address with conventional governance. Therefore, we conclude that transitioning to a “multi-layered governance model” where states, international institutions, and the protocol layer interact is essential for ensuring the stability of the future international financial order. This amounts to building a modern version of “embedded liberalism” that reconciles the freedom of technological innovation with social stability.