Blockchain Papers

Darcy W E Allen, Chris Berg, Brendan Markey‐Towler, Mikayla Novak · 5 authors

No abstract is available for this record.

Oliver Kühn, Axel Jacob, Michael Schüller

Purpose: The study provides a recent overview of the diffusion of blockchain technology in the logistics industry. It reveals the adoption of blockchain technology at German logistics service providers (LSPs) and their expectations regarding the future relevance of the technology. Based on the TOE Framework adoption supporting and inhibiting factors are identified. Methodology: In a first step, LSPs listed in the “Die Top 100 der Logistik 2016/2017” were contacted and questioned about their blockchain activities. Based on the responses, qualitative interviews were conducted with seven participants as part of a three-stage Delphi study. Findings: In particular small and medium-sized German LSPs are currently hardly involved in blockchain technology. Larger LSPs are beginning to define their own use cases and are trying to develop them further in joint projects with partners. A systematic use is currently not taking place. Originality: The study reveals the current discrepancy between rapidly evolving theoretical approaches for the use of blockchain technology in logistics, on the one hand, and the absence of the technology in everyday operations on the other hand. It also reveals a reluctant attitude of the management towards the technology.

A.K.M. Najmul Islam, Matti Mäntymäki, Marja Turunen

This paper investigates the focal actors in a blockchain network and their heterogeneity in splits. Disagreements in blockchain communities often lead to splits in both the blockchain and the community. We use three key elements of the actor-network theory — punctualization, translation, and actor heterogeneity—and employ case study methodology to examine Bitcoin splits. We identify several human actors, such as miners, developers, merchants, and investors, as well as non-human actors, including blockchain, exchanges, hardware manufacturers, and wallets, involved in Bitcoin splits. Our results show that the consolidation of actors in homogeneous groups plays a key role in blockchain splits. We further describe how the human and non-human actors' fluid moves into micro and macro actor positions in the network affect the development of the split. In addition, we discuss the roles of these actors and their engagement in forming micro and macro agencies in blockchain splits.

Victor Zakhary, Divyakant Agrawal, Amr El Abbadi

This paper presents TXSC, a framework that provides smart contract developers with transaction primitives. These primitives allow developers to write smart contracts without the need to reason about the anomalies that can arise due to concurrent smart contract function executions.

Redhwan Al-Amri, Nur Haryani Zakaria, Adib Habbal, Suhaidi Hassan

In this research, a Systematic Literature Review (SLR) is performed to identify the carried-out research topics related to cryptocurrency adoption and models that have been used as well as the current adoption challenges that need to be overcome in future studies.

Shuai Wang, Wenwen Ding, Juanjuan Li, Yong Yuan · 6 authors

Decentralized autonomy is a long-standing research topic in information sciences and social sciences. The self-organization phenomenon in natural ecosystems, the Cyber Movement Organizations (CMOs) on the Internet, and the Distributed Artificial Intelligence (DAI), and so on, can all be regarded as its early manifestations. In recent years, the rapid development of blockchain technology has spawned the emergence of the so-called Decentralized Autonomous Organization [DAO, sometimes labeled as Decentralized Autonomous Corporation (DAC)], which is a new organization form that the management and operational rules are typically encoded on blockchain in the form of smart contracts, and can autonomously operate without centralized control or third-party intervention. DAO is expected to overturn the traditional hierarchical management model and significantly reduce organizations’ costs on communication, management, and collaboration. However, DAO still faces many challenges, such as security and privacy issue, unclear legal status, and so on. In this article, we strive to present a systematic introduction of DAO, including its concept and characteristics, research framework, typical implementations, challenges, and future trends. Especially, a novel reference model for DAO which employs a five-layer architecture is proposed. This article is aimed at providing helpful guidance and reference for future research efforts.

Marijn Janssen, Vishanth Weerakkody, Elvira Ismagilova, Uthayasankar Sivarajah · 5 authors

No abstract is available for this record.

Weizhao Tang, Weina Wang, Giulia Fanti, Sewoong Oh

Payment channel networks (PCNs) are viewed as one of the most promising scalability solutions for cryptocurrencies today. Roughly, PCNs are networks where each node represents a user and each directed, weighted edge represents funds escrowed on a blockchain; these funds can be transacted only between the endpoints of the edge. Users efficiently transmit funds from node A to B by relaying them over a path connecting A to B, as long as each edge in the path contains enough balance (escrowed funds) to support the transaction. Whenever a transaction succeeds, the edge weights are updated accordingly. In deployed PCNs, channel balances (i.e., edge weights) are not revealed to users for privacy reasons; users know only the initial weights at time 0. Hence, when routing transactions, users typically first guess a path, then check if it supports the transaction. This guess-and-check process dramatically reduces the success rate of transactions. At the other extreme, knowing full channel balances can give substantial improvements in transaction success rate at the expense of privacy. In this work, we ask whether a network can reveal noisy channel balances to trade off privacy for utility. We show fundamental limits on such a tradeoff, and propose noise mechanisms that achieve the fundamental limit for a general class of graph topologies. Our results suggest that in practice, PCNs should operate either in the low-privacy or low-utility regime; it is not possible to get large gains in utility by giving up a little privacy, or large gains in privacy by sacrificing a little utility.

Kaidong Wu, Yun Ma, Gang Huang, Xuanzhe Liu

Summary With the increasing popularity of blockchain technologies in recent years, blockchain‐based decentralized applications (DApps for short in this paper) have been rapidly developed and widely adopted in many areas, being a hot topic in both academia and industry. Despite of the importance of DApps, we still have quite little understanding of DApps along with its ecosystem. To bridge the knowledge gap, this paper presents the first comprehensive empirical study of blockchain‐based DApps to date, based on an extensive dataset of 995 Ethereum DApps and 29,846,075 transaction logs over them. We make a descriptive analysis of the popularity of DApps, summarize the patterns of how DApps use smart contracts to access the underlying blockchain, and explore the worth‐addressing issues of deploying and operating DApps. Based on the findings, we propose some implications for DApp users to select proper DApps, for DApp developers to improve the efficiency of DApps, and for blockchain vendors to enhance the support of DApps.

Pieter Hartel, Ivan Homoliak, Daniël Reijsbergen

Since it takes time and effort to put a new product or service on the market,\none would like to predict whether it will be a success. In general this is not\npossible, but it is possible to follow best practices in order to maximise the\nchance of success. A smart contract is intended to encode business logic and is\ntherefore at the heart of every new business on the Ethereum blockchain. We\nhave investigated how to measure the success of smart contracts, and whether\nsuccessful smart contracts have characteristics that less successful smart\ncontracts lack. The appearance of a smart contract on a listing website such as\nEtherscan or StateoftheDapps is such a characteristic. In this paper, we\npresent a three-pronged analysis of the relative success of listed smart\ncontracts. First, we have used statistical analysis on the publicly visible\ntransaction history of the Ethereum blockchain to determine that listed\ncontracts are significantly more successful than their unlisted counterparts.\nNext, we have conducted a survey among more than 200 developers via an\nanonymous online survey about their experience with the listing process. A\nsignificant majority of respondents do not believe that listing a contract\nitself contributes to its success, but they believe that the extra attention\nthat is typically paid in tandem with the listing process does contribute.\nFinally, based on the respondents' answers, we have drafted 10 recommendations\nfor developers and validated them by submitting them to an international panel\nof experts.\n

Tsan‐Ming Choi, Lipan Feng, Rong Li

No abstract is available for this record.

Brendan Markey‐Towler

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to introduce the notion of blockchain as an institutional technology, defend the idea of National Innovation Systems as institutional systems, and then make use of the theory of institutional competition to characterise challenges posed by innovation public policy by blockchain technology. Design/methodology/approach The approach is to consider the nature of blockchain technology as an institutional technology, and to consider the nature of National Innovation Systems as institutional systems. The author then applies a theory of institutional competition developed elsewhere to appraise the interaction of the two. Findings The author expects for there to emerge sustained competition for National Innovation Systems from innovation systems implemented using blockchains. There will be pressure exerted by the latter upon the former to become more integrated, secure, usable and to greater support profit expectations for entrepreneurs. Originality/value The theory of institutional competition upon which this work is based makes use of cutting-edge behavioural and institutional economics. It has hitherto only been applied at a general level and has not been applied to a specific set of institutions such as National Innovation Systems.

Ireneusz Miciuła

The development of the cryptocurrency market and the implications for the whole economy and finance for all traders cause a keen interest in this subject. The chapter discusses the functioning of a financial system based on cryptocurrencies and its significance for economies. In this chapter, the development of the global cryptocurrency market was presented and the history of the most popular cryptocurrency, bitcoin, was analyzed. The analysis and the assessment of the state and structure of the Polish cryptocurrencies market were presented on the background of the global cryptocurrency market. Also, we presented the possible development paths for the cryptocurrencies market in Poland and in the world.

Abhaya Kumar Jaiswal, K. B. Akhilesh

No abstract is available for this record.

Dominik Roeck, Henrik Sternberg, Erik Hofmann

With the emergence of distributed ledger technology (DLT), numerous practitioners and researchers have proclaimed its beneficial impact on supply chain transactions in the future. However, the vast majority of DLT initiatives are discontinued after a short period. With the full potential of DLT laying far down the road, especially managers in supply chain management (SCM) seek for short-term cost-saving effects of DLT in order to achieve long-term benefits of DLT in the future. However, the extant research has bypassed grounding long-term as well as short-term effects of DLT on supply chain transaction with empirical data. We address this shortcoming, following an abductive research approach and combining empirical data from a multiple case study design with the corresponding literature. Our study reveals that the effects of DLT on supply chain transactions are two-sided. We found six effects of DLT solutions that have a cost-reducing or cost avoidance impact on supply chain transactions. In addition, we found two effects that change the power distribution between buyers and suppliers in transactions and a single effect that reduces the dependency of supply chain transactions on third parties. While cost-reducing and avoidance as well as dependency-reducing effects are positive effects, the change in power distribution might come with disadvantages. With these findings, the paper provides the first empirical evidence of the impact of DLT on supply chain transactions, which will enable managers to improve their assessment of DLT usage in supply chains.

Nitin Gaur

Purpose Blockchain technology can be used to record virtually anything of value – your identity, a will, a deed or almost any type of secure transfer of information. But in many respects, blockchain is lacking some critical capabilities to make it ready for widescale adoption by business. This paper on IBM blockchain attempts to uncover the promise of blockchain for enterprise, which goes beyond its role as an industry disruptor. It also has tremendous potential to improve existing business processes, as well as to improve efficiencies in existing transaction systems, leading to exponential cost saving for the enterprise and the end consumer. Disintermediation and disruption is the investment magnet for blockchain-related ideas, riding on the success of the business and underpinned by peer-to-peer and crowdsourcing models. Blockchain technology promises a similar explosion in trade, ownership and trust, as the tenets of both technologies rely on principles of distributed governance and rules established for a time-tested protocol. Design/methodology/approach The idea behind defining the path to blockchain enterprise adoption is to ensure that we have a microscopic focus on a singular use case and that we distill the existing business into a blockchain paradigm. This implies both business and technology models. We take a singular use case that has an industry and enterprise impact and apply business and technology acumen to the problem domain. Findings The result is a well-thought-out business architecture and technology blueprint, along with requirements for compliance, audit and enterprise integration. The point of this exercise is to expend time and energy with the right business domain expertise and blockchain technology expertise to derive an adoption model that enlists and surfaces hurdles, challenges and factors in the costs and economic viability of the blockchain solution. Originality/value The resulting artifacts/collateral of the blockchain client led engagement are envisioned to be instrumental in socialization and in providing a blueprint for a business seeking executive sponsorship and the necessary funding for first project.

Suhag Pandya, Murugan Mittapalli, Sri Vallabha Teja Gulla, Ori Landau

Abstract This research paper is a holistic review done on the rise of Blockchain and cryptocurrency, then elaborate about the great advantages of having a decentralized finance system. The existing scenarios from a sample of countries were reviewed in regards to their effort to adopt cryptocurrency to find some of the challenges like what are the security challenges this new monetary system faces, and limitations faced by different countries. A detailed analysis was done to answer some of the vital questions as such why cryptocurrency is banned in a few countries when other countries see cryptocurrency as a secured mode of payment transaction or what kind of security is provided by cryptocurrency compared to the traditional payments such as pay by cash, credit, or checks. Lastly, this paper also summarizes a high-level overview to propose recommended solutions to overcome the security concerns associated with the adoption of cryptocurrencies and how does the future of cryptocurrency look.

Bin Lian, Gongliang Chen, Jialin Cui, He Dake

E-cash has its merits comparing with other payment modes. However, there are two problems, which are how to achieve practical/complete tracing and how to achieve it in compact E-cash. First, the bank and the TTP (i.e., trusted third party) have different duties and powers in the reality. Therefore, double-spending tracing is bank's task, while unconditional tracing is TTP's task. In addition, it is desirable to provide lost-coin tracing before they are spent by anyone else. Second, compact E-cash is an efficient scheme, but tracing the coins from double-spender without TTP results in poor efficiency. To solve the problems, we present a compact E-cash scheme. For this purpose, we design an embedded structure of knowledge proof based on a new pseudorandom function and improve the computation complexity from O(k) to O(1). Double-spending tracing needs leaking dishonest users' secret knowledge, but preserving the anonymity of honest users needs zero-knowledge property, and our special knowledge proof achieves it with complete proofs. Moreover, the design is also useful for other applications, where both keeping zero-knowledge and leaking information are necessary.

Wesley L. Harris, Jarunee Wonglimpiyarat

Purpose Given that Blockchain technology poses a growing challenge to the banking industry, this paper aims to analyse the innovation of Blockchain banking with regard to its systemic dimension, as well as dynamics of competition. The empirical research demonstrates how the systemic characteristics of Blockchain banking relate to the pursuit of strategies and to what extent these strategies influence the directional path and level of technology diffusion. Design/methodology/approach The research study uses a case study methodology to explore the strategic competition of Blockchain banking. The study proposes the systemic innovation model for analysing and tracking the path of innovations. The model can be applied to any industry to understand the process of innovation development and the strategies to win market share in the banking industry. This research makes a contribution towards the theory of technology diffusion to understand the directional path of innovations. Findings The analyses of findings reveal the situation whereby most banks still compete to create their own Blockchain banking systems. The analyses, based on the systemic innovation model, also shows the low systemic feature of Blockchain banking at present. From the technology diffusion perspective, the future of Blockchain banking may need cross-chain interoperability to support a full spectrum of payments and value exchanges on the internet of things. Originality/value The main contribution of this paper is the systemic analysis of the latest innovation of Blockchain banking. Given that the research also includes the major banking innovation cases of ATM/cash cards, credit cards and electronic fund transfer at the point of sale/debit cards, the comparative analyses offer strategic insights to predict the progress, as well as pattern of technology development and diffusion for the case of Blockchain banking.

Anton Klarin

No abstract is available for this record.

Andrew Murray

This chapter examines online payment methods, including the use of tokens, in electronic commerce. It first provides an overview of token payments before looking at alternative electronic payment systems including debt substitution, payment by credit cards, and fund transfer. The chapter reviews the failure of the European Commission’s Electronic Money Directive 2000 and examines whether the current law, found in the 2009 Electronic Money Directive, is likely to provide a better legal environment for electronic money to flourish. It spends considerable time looking at the development of cryptocurrencies, including bitcoin and how blockchain is used to establish trust in cryptocurrency transactions, before concluding with an analysis of the law in relation to cryptocurrency.

Ahmed Ashoor, Kamaljeet Sandhu

Cryptocurrency has gained an increasing interest as a new type of technology that is potentially both a leader and a destroyer to the payment industry on a global scale. However, the future of cryptocurrency is unclear because there are many different usage scenarios and different needs of the stakeholders. Blockchain technology is the infrastructure-enabling technology for the cryptocurrency. Blockchain technology has become very powerful and created the backbone of a new type of internet. This research article will give a better future perspective to study the conceptual framework and model for cryptocurrency acceptance and the continued usage of digital finance. This is by using potential business innovations by combining the theory of the innovation diffusion (IDT) and the technology acceptance model (TAM).

Po-Chun Kuo, Hao Chung, Tzu-Wei Chao, Chen-Mou Cheng

The Byzantine general problem is the core problem that consensus algorithms are trying to solve, which is at the heart of the design of blockchains. As a result, we have seen numerous proposals of consensus algorithms in recent years, trying to improve the level of decentralization, performance, and security of blockchains. In our opinion, there are two most challenging issues when we consider the design of such algorithms in the context of powering blockchains in practice. First, the outcome of a consensus algorithm usually depends on the underlying incentive model, so each participant should have an equal probability of receiving rewards for its work. Secondly, the protocol should be able to resist network failures, such as cloud services shutdown, while maintaining high performance otherwise. We address these two critical issues in this paper. First, we propose a new metric, called fair validity, for measuring the performance of Byzantine agreements. Intuitively, fair validity provides a lower bound for the probability of acceptances of honest nodes' proposals. This is a strong notion of fairness, and we argue that it is crucial for the success of a blockchain in practice. We then show that any Byzantine agreement could not achieve fair validity in an asynchronous network, so we will focus on synchronous protocols. This leads to our second contribution: we propose a fair, responsive, and partition-resilient Byzantine agreement protocol able to tolerate up to 1/3 corruptions. As we will show in the paper, our protocol achieves fair validity and is responsive in the sense that the termination time only depends on actual network delay, as opposed to arbitrary, pre-determined time-bound. Furthermore, our proposal is partition-resilient. Last but not least, experimental results show that our Byzantine agreement protocol outperforms a wide variety of state-of-art synchronous protocols, combining the best from both theoretic and practical worlds.

Domhnall Carlin, Jonah Burgess, Philip O’Kane, Sakir Sezer

Traditional malicious attacks have evolved beyond file-based methods, with malicious files now existing as processes and services to evade detection. This article examines the rise of cryptojacking-the use of another's machine for profit through cryptocurrency mining-and how we're all at risk.