Blockchain Papers

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8,484 papersLast indexed Aug 16, 2026
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Jan 1, 2026·EPJ Web of Conferences
0 cites
Enhanced Private key Synchronization Mechanism Security in Passkeys System Based on Elliptic Curve Diffie-Hellman and Zero-Knowledge Proofs

Assane Ilboudo, Didier Bassole, Désiré Guel

Based on asymmetric cryptography, Passkeys Systems are a secure authentication method that can serve as an alternative to traditional authentication methods, such as usernames and passwords. In this paper, we propose a secure approach to enhance private key synchronization mechanisms in passkeys systems. Our secure service is based on Elliptic Curve Diffie-Hellman protocol and Zero-Knowledge Proofs in a peer-to-peer environment. Following a critical analysis of existing works, which highlights recurrent vulnerabilities related to authentication and confidentiality, we introduce a robust architecture using mutual identity verification, secure session key generation and encrypted passkey transfer. The security of our proposed protocol is assessed through a dual approach: an informal analysis based on potential attack modeling, and a formal validation using ProVerif and Scyther tools. The results demonstrate enhanced resistance to replay attacks, man-in-the-middle attacks, message modification, and identity impersonation, while ensuring optimized performance in terms of computational and communication costs.

Open access
Original source
Jan 1, 2026·Elsevier BV
0 cites
HybridTrust: PUF-Rooted Hierarchical Blockchain with Layered Zero-Knowledge Proofs for Scalable IoT Device Authentication​

Haozhe Zhou, Maolin Yang, hang LEI

Blockchain-based IoT authentication must reconcile security, scalability, and device-level resource efficiency—a trilemma that single-layer architectures cannot resolve simultaneously. We present HybridTrust, a hierarchical authentication system aligned with the device–fog–cloud topology, and evaluate it on a 50-node heterogeneous testbed with container-based scale-out. HybridTrust sustains 160–220 ms end-to-end authentication latency, 8,500 auth/s throughput, and ~90% device-side energy reduction over PKI- and ZK-based baselines, while remaining robust under ~1/3 Byzantine fog nodes and matched-rate DoS traffic. These results follow from a cross-layer cryptographic binding protocol that chains PUF-rooted device identities through fog-level Bulletproof batch commitments to cloud-level SNARK-attested aggregation: devices use PUFs and fuzzy extractors for hardware-rooted secrets with constant-time overhead, fog nodes aggregate commitments into batch Bulletproofs and sign attestation summaries, and the cloud generates a single Groth16 proof per window over fog signatures—avoiding the prohibitive cost of embedding Bulletproof verification inside a SNARK and yielding O(1) on-chain verification independent of device count. Analytical modeling projects sub-second latency at 10^6-device scale.​

Jan 1, 2026·Elsevier BV
0 cites
Cryptographic Proof and the Law of Verification in the Quantum Era

K. Lee

On June 22, 2026, the White House issued Executive Order 14413, directing the federal government to accelerate the deployment of quantum computing and to assess "the implications for the migration to post-quantum cryptography." The order is the latest and loudest signal of a fact the legal system has not yet absorbed: the cryptographic assumptions behind nearly all digital proof carry an expiration date. Every electronic signature, every encrypted database, and every blockchain transaction rests on math that a sufficiently powerful quantum computer can break. When that computer arrives, adversaries will be able to forge the signatures and decrypt the records on which courts, regulators, and markets now rely. Data stolen today is already being warehoused for decryption tomorrow. Signatures trusted today may be forgeable tomorrow. This Article argues that the quantum transition forces the law to confront a distinction it has long been able to ignore: the difference between probabilistic verification (an intermediary's opinion, an AI confidence score, an auditor's judgment) and deterministic verification (a mathematical result that anyone can independently reproduce). Across digital identity, financial services, insurance, defense, supply chains, and digital assets, organizations prove claims through intermediaries whose honesty cannot be checked and whose methods cannot be reproduced. A small set of well-understood cryptographic tools can replace that fragmented apparatus: hardware-secured signing keys, Merkle tree timestamping, post-quantum signature standards, and zero-knowledge proofs. Together they produce verification that is reproducible, tamper-evident, and quantum-resistant from the outset. The Article makes three contributions. First, it reframes the “verification gap” as a legal problem rather than a technical one, showing how the Federal Rules of Evidence, the Daubert reliability standard, data breach liability doctrine, and fiduciary oversight duties each already point toward deterministic proof. Second, it shows that quantum risk is collapsing the legal defenses built on classical cryptography, most visibly the “it was encrypted” defense in breach litigation, while creating new disclosure and diligence obligations for boards. Third, it maps deterministic verification onto concrete applications in six sectors and proposes a regulatory framework, including a “deterministic assurance level” for evidentiary purposes and a public governance process for the rule schemas that translate law into machine-checkable criteria.

Open access
2 source records
Law, Rights, and Freedoms
Legal Rights and Human Rights
Legal Systems and Judicial Processes
Original source
Jan 1, 2026·IEEE Transactions on Information Forensics and Security
3 cites
DeSA: Decentralized Secure Aggregation for Federated Learning in Zero-Trust D2D Networks

Lingling Wang, Zhongkai Lu, Meng Li, Jingjing Wang · 6 authors

Secure Aggregation (SA) is a fundamental privacy-preserving technique in Federated Learning (FL) that ensures the confidentiality of local model updates while enabling global model aggregation. Previous studies have implemented SA within the FL architecture that includes a central server. However, in a Device-to-Device (D2D) based FL, decentralized SA becomes challenging due to the lack of a central server, particularly in a zero-trust network vulnerable to Byzantine attacks. To address this issue, we present a novel Byzantine-robust decentralized SA protocol (DeSA) that guarantees the integrity of model training and aggregation while protecting the privacy of model updates. Specifically, we utilize an enhanced zk-SNARK proof system to verify the local model training process. Additionally, we propose a framework that embeds multiple zero-knowledge proofs to ensure the integrity of model aggregation, while maintaining succinct proofs and fast verification. Moreover, we present a Byzantine-robust D2D aggregation protocol that can withstand malicious nodes trying to disrupt model aggregation. To protect privacy, we develop a one-time masking method that eliminates aggregated masks through a dynamic aggregation strategy. This strategy takes into account the adjacency and trust relationships among nodes in evolving network topologies. Finally, we perform a theoretical analysis and evaluate DeSA on real-world datasets. Experimental results show that the time required to verify an embedded proof is significantly reduced compared to the time of verifying multiple proofs. Additionally, its accuracy remains robust against malicious nodes.

Privacy-Preserving Technologies in Data
Cryptography and Data Security
Adversarial Robustness in Machine Learning
Original source
Jan 1, 2026·Digital Library of the Belarusian State University (Belarusian State University)
0 cites
Using Decentralized Indicators (DID) and Zero-Knowledge Proofs (ZKP) to securely share data across supply chain participants

А. М. Verchenkova

Секция 5. Логистика в современном бизнесе.

Open access
Privacy-Preserving Technologies in Data
Data Quality and Management
Cryptography and Data Security
Original source
Jan 1, 2026·Open MIND
0 cites
The Prism ecosystem: A Privacy-Native Authentication Ecosystem Combining WebAuthn, Zero-Knowledge Proofs, and NFC Presence Verification , with Working Implementation

ietje Smid-Woelders

The Prism Protocol is a privacy-native authentication and identity architecture in which a user can prove attributes or authentication state without directly revealing their identity to the server. It combines WebAuthn (W3C Level 3), Zero-Knowledge Proofs (Groth16 via circom/snarkjs), and NFC-based physical presence verification into a single coherent protocol stack. The core mechanism is a triangular key derivation model: biometric authentication (WebAuthn), a device-bound private key (FIDO2 Secure Enclave), and a time-limited wearable nonce (NFC ISO 14443 or BLE) jointly produce an ephemeral key. In v14, a working ZKP implementation is demonstrated: an age-threshold circuit proves that a user meets a criterion without the server ever receiving the attribute value. Verification is performed server-side via snarkjs.groth16.verify(). Within the demonstrated implementation flow, the server receives no name, no biometric data, no persistent identifier, and no direct attribute value. Sessions are designed to be mathematically unlinkable from the server perspective. A working proof-of-concept was demonstrated on 25 April 2026 at prismpass.globalsecurity.nu. The broader ecosystem (PrismPass, PrismID, PrismShield, PrismAdd, PrismChat, PrismAir, PrismGuard, PrismHash, PrismWipe) is documented in this Invention Disclosure. The protocol introduces no novel cryptographic primitives; its novelty lies in the specific architectural combination, orchestration model, and protocol-class definition addressing twelve authentication questions not simultaneously addressed by existing systems. Note: The post-quantum migration path (ML-KEM-768, ML-DSA-65) is documented as a formal architectural claim and forward-compatibility design decision. It describes the intended migration route, not a currently implemented feature. The working implementation uses ECDH, ECDSA, AES-256-GCM and Groth16. Author: I. Smid-Woelders, independent inventor, Zwolle, Netherlands. First documented: 25 April 2026. Contact: contact@globalsecurity.nu

Open access
Original source
Jan 1, 2026·Studies in big data
0 cites
Blockchain Technology: Fundamentals and Applications

Priya Saxena, Shyam Jaiswal, Vaishnavi Mishra, A. Syed Ismail

No abstract is available for this record.

Blockchain Technology Applications and Security
Big Data and Digital Economy
Physical Unclonable Functions (PUFs) and Hardware Security
Original source
Jan 1, 2026·International Journal of Computer Theory and Engineering
0 cites
ZK-FLGuard: Verifiable Privacy via Zero-Knowledge Proofs in Federated Anomaly Detection for 5G Edge-IoT Systems

Mariana Reis

This paper presents Zero-Knowledge Federated Learning Guard (ZK-FLGuard), a privacy-preserving and verifiable federated learning framework for real-time anomaly detection in Fifth-Generation Mobile Network (5G)-enabled Internet of Things (IoT) environments. Building on the integration of zero-knowledge proofs (zk-SNARK—Zero-Knowledge Succinct Non-interactive Argument of Knowledge) and blockchain-based access control, ZK-FLGuard ensures the integrity of model updates without exposing private data. Using real-world intrusion detection datasets (CICIDS2017—Canadian Institute for Cybersecurity Intrusion Detection System 2017, TON_IoT—Telecommunications Organisation of the National Security—IoT) and a synthetic adversarial dataset, our evaluation shows that ZK-FLGuard achieves up to 0.96 F1-score (harmonic mean of precision and recall), improves recall in low-frequency attack detection, and introduces less than 10% additional latency overhead compared to standard Federated Learning (FL). Compared with centralized Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) and FL without Zero-Knowledge Proof (ZKP), ZK-FLGuard provides competitive accuracy while ensuring verifiable computation and strong privacy guarantees. We address the critical challenge of securing federated anomaly detection in 5G-enabled IoT systems against data leakage, model poisoning, and unauthorized access. While FL preserves privacy by keeping raw data local, it remains vulnerable to gradient leakage and adversarial manipulation. Our hypothesis is that combining zero-knowledge proofs and blockchain with FL can deliver a scalable, tamper-resistant, and privacy-preserving detection pipeline suitable for resource-constrained edge environments.

Open access
Network Security and Intrusion Detection
Adversarial Robustness in Machine Learning
Smart Grid Security and Resilience
Original source
Jan 1, 2026·Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
0 cites
ZKP-IDFS: A Zero-Knowledge Proof-Based Digital Identity Framework for Financial Inclusion in Sub-Saharan Africa

John Okyere

Financial exclusion remains acute in Sub-Saharan Africa, where more than 350 million adults lack access to formal financial services. A defining barrier is the absence of verifable identity: in countries such as Mozambique, Tanzania, and Niger, over half of adults without mobile money accounts cite missing documentation as the primary obstacle. Existing remedies either centralise sensitive personal data, creating systemic privacy and security risks, or demand document-issuing infrastructure that does not yet exist in many communities. This paper proposes ZKP-IDFS (Zero-Knowledge Proof Identity for Financial Services), a decentralised, privacy preserving digital identity framework that lets individuals prove identity-related predicates to financial institutions without disclosing the underlying personal attributes. ZKP-IDFS combines Groth16 zk-SNARKs for succinct on-chain proof verification, Pedersen commitments for attribute hiding, a W3C-compliant Verifi-able Credential layer, and a lightweight USSD/SMS proof-relay channel designed for feature-phone users in low-connectivity environments. We formalise the cryptographic model, specify the system architecture, and present a simulated performance evaluation across four representative network conditions. Results from a controlled simulation study show that end-to-end proof generation and relay complete in under 4.2 seconds on entry-level Android handsets at 3G speeds, with on-chain verication costs below 0.003 USD on an EVM-compatible layer-2 chain; these results require validation in eld deployments. We further demonstrate compliance with FATF risk-based KYC guidance and with emerging African data-protection legislation.

Open access
3 source records
ICT in Developing Communities
Cryptography and Data Security
Blockchain Technology Applications and Security
Original source
Jan 1, 2026·IEEE Access
0 cites
A Privacy-Focused, Post-Quantum-Oriented Digital Identity System Using Blockchain and Zero-Knowledge Proofs

Sachdeva Ks

Digital identity is critical, yet centralized providers create single points of failure&#x2014;breaches have exposed billions of records&#x2014;and quantum computing threatens the classical public-key cryptography (RSA/ECC) on which these systems rely. We present a system-level integration of blockchain, zero-knowledge proofs (ZKPs), and post-quantum cryptography (PQC) for privacy-preserving digital identity. A blockchain-based decentralized identifier (DID) system removes central databases; all signing and key-encapsulation operations use lattice-based PQC (CRYSTALS-Dilithium and Kyber); and selective disclosure is provided by Groth16 zk-SNARKs, with revocation via on-chain Merkle non-membership accumulators. We specify the full credential lifecycle&#x2014;issuance, two-phase authentication, and revocation&#x2014;with an explicit trust boundary separating the in-circuit Groth16 relation from the off-circuit issuer-signature check. We report a measured evaluation on a reference prototype: under liboqs 0.15.0, Dilithium-II signs/verifies in 0.19/0.06 ms and Kyber-512 encapsulates/decapsulates in 0.018/0.022 ms; a single-authentication Groth16 proof over the 21,715-constraint BN254 credential circuit takes <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\approx 981$ </tex-math></inline-formula> ms (snarkJS) and <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\approx 177$ </tex-math></inline-formula> ms (native rapidsnark) on byte-identical inputs, with <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\approx 40$ </tex-math></inline-formula> ms verification, a 723-byte proof, and <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\approx 243$ </tex-math></inline-formula>,000 gas for on-chain verification on a local EVM. A lifecycle harness with a passing revoked-credential negative test validates correctness. The signing and key-encapsulation layers are quantum-safe under current lattice assumptions; the Groth16 proof layer is classically secure only, and its post-quantum migration is identified as future work. End-to-end credential unforgeability is conditioned on an honest holder wallet performing the off-circuit signature check (Assumption 5). Every quantitative claim is labelled measured [M], simulated [S], assumption [A], or future work [F].

Open access
2 source records
Blockchain Technology Applications and Security
Cryptography and Data Security
Cloud Data Security Solutions
Original source