Blockchain Papers

Josef Lubas, Johann Eder

No abstract is available for this record.

David Aveiro, João Zambujal‐Oliveira

No abstract is available for this record.

Essi Kivelä

Tämä kandidaatintyö on kirjallisuuskatsaus, joka käsittelee hajautettua autonomista organisaatiota (Decentralized Autonomous Organization, DAO). Työn tavoitteena on selvittää, mikä on hajautettu autonominen organisaatio, miten se toimii ja millaisia hyötyjä sen avulla voidaan saavuttaa, erityisesti liiketoiminnassa. Työssä eritellään hajautettujen autonomisten organisaatioiden ominaisuuksia ja niiden pohjalta saavutettavia hyötyjä. Työ esittelee jo olemassa olevia hajautettuja autonomisia organisaatioita sekä pohtii konseptin mahdollisuuksia tulevaisuudessa. Tässä yhteydessä käsitellään myös hajautettujen autonomisten organisaatioiden haasteita ja rajoitteita. Lohkoketjujen ja DAO:n tekniseen toteutukseen liittyvät seikat on jätetty työssä tarkastelun ulkopuolelle. Digitalisaation myötä organisaatiot kohtaavat kasvavan paineen sopeutua nopeasti muuttuvaan ympäristöön. Ympäristön kilpailullisuuden lisääntyminen lisää entisestään painetta tehokkaiden toimintatapojen löytämiselle. Nykyisten organisaatioiden keskitetty hallintorakenne luo haasteita skaalautuvuudelle, tehokkuudelle ja automaattisten prosessien hyödyntämiselle. Keskeisimpänä haasteena perinteisissä organisaatioissa on kuitenkin riippuvuus luottamusta vaativasta keskitetystä hallinnosta. Lohkoketjuteknologia ja sen päälle rakennetut hajautetut autonomiset organisaatiot mahdollistavat mullistavia uusia tapoja organisoitumiselle. Lohkoketjuteknologia on teknologisen kehityksen merkittävimpiä uusia harppauksia. Se mahdollistaa aivan uuden tavan organisoitua: älysopimusten avulla rakennetut hajautetut autonomiset organisaatiot. Älysopimukset toimivat hajautettujen autonomisten organisaatioiden rakennuspalikkana. Ne ovat ennalta määriteltyjen ehtojen pohjalta automaattisesti itsensä toteuttavia ohjelmia, jotka toimivat lohkoketjuissa. DAO toimii hajautetun luonteensa ansiosta täysin riippumattomasti luottamuksellisesta kolmannesta osapuolesta. Ominaisuuksiensa vuoksi se tuo mullistavan uuden tavan organisoitua ja hallita tulevaisuuden liiketoimintaa. Hajautetun autonomisen organisaation merkittävimpiä ominaisuuksia ovat hajautuneisuus, itseohjautuvuus, avoimuus, anonyymius, muuttumattomuus ja tehokas yhteentoimivuus. Näiden pitkälti lohkoketjuteknologian pohjalta periytyvien DAO:n ominaisuuksien myötä syntyy merkittäviä hyötyjä liiketoiminnalle. Hajautetun rahoituksen palvelut ovat tällä hetkellä suurin DAO:n mahdollistama toimiala. Riippumattomuus pankeista tai suurista organisaatioista, palveluiden turvallisuus ja läpinäkyvyys sekä jäsenten mahdollisuus vaikuttaa organisaation hallintaan ovat suurimpia saavutettuja hyötyjä. Myös korkea likviditeetti, tehokkuus ja avoin mahdollisuus osallistua protokollien toimintaan ovat merkittäviä saavutettuja hyötyjä. Haasteita DAO:n toiminnalle tuo tiedon ja regulaation puute, sekä toteutuksen tekninen haastavuus.

Nenad Petrović, Issam Al-Azzoni

No abstract is available for this record.

Johannes Rude Jensen, Omri Ross

In the span of just six years, the once-nascent concept of the decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) has grown into a rich tapestry of fluid organizations and token-powered communities.1 Today, DAO governance is considered to be a new universal primitive for value generation and capture across digital markets and industries. The thinking is that, in all instances in which value is generated by networks of prosumers and consumers, a DAO model has the potential to reallocate value capture to the network.

Rustam Galimullin, Thomas Ågotnes

No abstract is available for this record.

Cristóbal Marinkovic, Julio López Fenner, Óscar Ancán, Carlos Cares

Smart contracts are contracts made of executable code running on Blockchain platforms. DasContract was introduced in 2019-2020 as a domain-specific language (DSL) for smart contract modeling with the ability to generate code in a programming language (Solidity), yet its environment exhibits various limitations, both in technical and design aspects. In this work, we propose a user interface with improved usability that includes tools for syntax verification, develop a software prototype, demonstrate its usage with a case study, and identify future lines of research.

G V Sudharmendra, Bhuvenashwer Swaroop, L M Gokul, B Vineetha · 5 authors

Decentralized applications have evolved in the recent past. Many sectors have shown focus towards the Decentralized applications. This paper extends the application to the education sector. The work is associated with the creation of a Decentralized Application on the Ethereum Blockchain, which includes the decentralized way of storing data such as the student details. Face detection feature has been incorporated to tackle the problem of proxy attendance and other malpractices. The Decentralized Application interacts with the smart contract written on the Ethereum network. The smart contract created involves in storing the details of the student’s education timeline, such as his/ her marks, institution information, etc. Cloud technology has been used to store large files which cannot be stored in the smart contracts. Many natural calamities and other causes have led to the destruction of the stored details in the traditional databases, these problems have been overcome with this use of Cloud technology, where it provides features like replicability to avoid loses, reliability to avoid failures, scalability to avoid shortage of resources, etc. Authentication has been addressed with the help of face recognition tool which detects the identity of a person. This attempt of solving the above problems have been stated in this paper. Addition of a security layer with face recognition, storage of media files in the AWS S3 cloud, and interaction with the Decentralized Application, makes this paper unique from the other papers.

Bruno Bernik

Blok-lanac tehnologija pruža mnoge mogućnosti kao što su neizmjenjivost podataka, sigurnost i distribuiranost. Zbog navedenih svojstava blok-lanac tehnologija počinje se primjenjivati u širokom spektru industrija, a jedna od tih industrija je i industrija video igara. U radu će se opisati nekoliko igara razvijane koristeći blok-lanac tehnologiju te implementirati aplikacija na Ethereum platformi.

Sante Dino Facchini

The Ph.D research project aims to explore the potential of the Decentralized Autonomous Organization paradigm in conjunction with classic software architectures for Artificial Intelligence applications. The intended goal is to investigate and formalize a possible integration path between Multi-agent System architectures and Decentralized Autonomous Organizations. Starting from the Foundation for Intelligent Physical Agents standards, we will extend basic primitives to integrate Multi-agent Systems on Distributed Ledger Technology networks. Possible deployment of services and applications in the Internet-of-Things, Artificial Intelligence and Distributed Machine Learning areas will be tested. Application of Data Analysis techniques on datasets built on such a framework will be also addressed.

Bernd Finkbeiner, Jana Hofmann, Florian Kohn, Noemi Passing

Smart contracts are small but highly error-prone programs that implement agreements between multiple parties. We present a reactive synthesis approach for the automatic construction of smart contract state machines. Towards this end, we extend temporal stream logic (TSL) with universally quantified parameters over infinite domains. Parameterized TSL is a convenient logic to specify the temporal control flow, i.e., the correct order of transactions, as well as the data flow of the contract's fields. We develop a two-step approach that 1) synthesizes a finite representation of the - in general - infinite-state system and 2) splits the system into a compact hierarchical architecture that enables the implementation of the state machine in Solidity. We implement the approach in our prototype tool SCSynt, which - within seconds - automatically constructs Solidity code that realizes the specified control flow.

Michele Soavi, Nicola Zeni, John Mylopoulos, Luisa Mich

No abstract is available for this record.

Davi Pedro Bauer

Unit tests are used to test code execution scenarios and ensure that they behave as expected. Most important, unit tests allow you to refactor code and make new changes without breaking existing behaviors.

David Minarsch, Marco Favorito, Seyed Ali Hosseini, Yuri Turchenkov · 5 authors

No abstract is available for this record.

Kevin Purnell, Rolf Schwitter

No abstract is available for this record.

Valeria Fionda, Gianluigi Greco, Marco Antonio Mastratisi

No abstract is available for this record.

Michael Zargham, Kelsie Nabben

The concept of "Decentralized Autonomous Organization" has been popularized as part of the "Web 3.0" movement. This movement is characterized by digital infrastructures that are 'decentralized' in network architecture and permissionless to use. Decentralized autonomous organizations, referred to as DAOs, are a digital expression of the political will to self-organize. The granular entanglement of social and technical concepts makes it challenging to identify a historical precedent for DAOs. Yet, literature review and analysis reveals that this particular entanglement of information systems and self-organization is consistent with longstanding conceptual development and practice in the field of cybernetics. Drawing on Stafford Beer's Viable Systems Model, this piece bridges DAOs and cybernetics via two main principles of organization: viability and purpose. Viability is a property of a system such that it has sufficient adaptive capacity to thrive in the face of change; adaptive capacity is characterized according to Ross Ashby's concept of 'variety'. Purpose is the ability to define and collectively pursue a goal in the sense of feedback control systems. Building on the control theoretic concepts of observability, controllability, and reachability, we examine the 'governance surface' of an organization and the associated trade-offs between resilience and robustness that emerge in governance surface design. We propose that this trade-off can be addressed with a constitutional archetype whereby an organization's ability to update its code is constrained but not eliminated. A case study from a DAO known as '1Hive' is explored to demonstrate this archetype in action. We consider the limitations of the cybernetics perspective by emphasizing the subjectivity of the governance designer. Finally, we conclude with future research directions.

Ilham Qasse, Shailesh Mishra, Mohammad Hamdaqa

The revolutionary potential of automatic code generation tools based on Model-Driven Engineering (MDE) frameworks has yet to be realized. Beyond their ability to help software professionals write more accurate, reusable code, they could make programming accessible for a whole new class of non-technical users. However, non-technical users have been slow to embrace these tools. This may be because their concrete syntax is often patterned after the operations of textual or graphical interfaces. The interfaces are common, but users would need more extensive, precise and detailed knowledge of them than they can be assumed to have, to use them as concrete syntax. Conversational interfaces (chatbots) offer a much more accessible way for non-technical users to generate code. In this paper, we discuss the basic challenge of integrating conversational agents within Model-Driven Engineering (MDE) frameworks, then turn to look at a specific application: the auto-generation of smart contract code in multiple languages by non-technical users, based on conversational syntax. We demonstrate how this can be done, and evaluate our approach by conducting user experience survey to assess the usability and functionality of the chatbot framework.

Kritagya Upadhyay, Ram Dantu, Yanyan He, Abiola Salau · 5 authors

A Service Level Agreement (SLA) is a special kind of legal contract that binds a vendor to its customers where the vendor commits to provide certain services in exchange for certain payments from the customers. However, when customers do not get the services that they have subscribed for, it becomes a laborious job for customers to contact or visit the company and claim the correct amount of compensation or service credits. On the other hand, a Smart Contract is a contract that is a computer program that also binds multiple parties into given agreements but is a set of precise rules and is self-enforceable and self-executable. In this paper, we have introduced a novel work where we use fuzzy logic inside the Ethereum-based smart contract for two significant objectives. The first objective is to make the claim of the compensation easier and faster for customers by translating the SLA into a smart contract. The second objective is to make the smart contract even smarter and intelligent by implementing fuzzy logic so that customers who have a hard time understanding the legal jargon and ambiguities of the legal contract and SLA to find out if the compensation amount they are getting when the service is poor is good enough. Since fuzzy logic models semantics of linguistic expressions by capturing vagueness in the fuzzy sets, it becomes easier to solve the problem of contractual ambiguities and expedite the process of claiming compensation when implemented in a Blockchain-based smart contract.

Kunjian Song, Nedas Matulevicius, Eddie B. de Lima Filho, Lucas C. Cordeiro

Smart contracts written in Solidity are programs used in blockchain networks, such as Etherium, for performing transactions. However, as with any piece of software, they are prone to errors and may present vulnerabilities, which malicious attackers could then use. This paper proposes a solidity frontend for the efficient SMT-based context-bounded model checker (ESBMC), named ESBMC-Solidity, which provides a way of verifying such contracts with its framework. A benchmark suite with vulnerable smart contracts was also developed for evaluation and comparison with other verification tools. The experiments performed here showed that ESBMC-Solidity detected all vulnerabilities, was the fastest tool, and provided a counterexample for each benchmark. A demonstration is available at https://youtu.be/3UH8_1QAVN0.

Fernando Gomes Papi, Jomi Fred Hübner, Maiquel de Brito

No abstract is available for this record.

Paolo Bottoni, Anna Labella, Remo Pareschi

A key component of blockchain technology is the ledger, viz., a database that, unlike standard databases, keeps in memory the complete history of past transactions as in a notarial archive for the benefit of any future test. In second-generation blockchains such as Ethereum the ledger is coupled with smart contracts, which enable the automation of transactions associated with agreements between the parties of a financial or commercial nature. The coupling of smart contracts and ledgers provides the technological background for very innovative application areas, such as Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs), Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs) and Decentralized Finance (DeFi), which propelled blockchains beyond cryptocurrencies that were the only focus of first generation blockchains such as the Bitcoin. However, the currently used implementation of smart contracts as arbitrary programming constructs has made them susceptible to dangerous bugs that can be exploited maliciously and has moved their semantics away from that of legal contracts. We propose here to recompose the split and recover the reliability of databases by formalizing a notion of contract modelled as a finite-state automaton with well-defined computational characteristics derived from an encoding in terms of allocations of resources to actors, as an alternative to the approach based on programming. To complete the work, we use temporal logic as the basis for an abstract query language that is effectively suited to the historical nature of the information kept in the ledger.

Giampaolo Bella, Domenico Cantone, Cristiano Longo, Marianna Nicolosi Asmundo · 5 authors

Blockchains are gaining momentum due to the interest of industries and people in \emph{decentralized applications} (Dapps), particularly in those for trading assets through digital certificates secured on blockchain, called tokens. As a consequence, providing a clear unambiguous description of any activities carried out on blockchains has become crucial, and we feel the urgency to achieve that description at least for trading. This paper reports on how to leverage the \emph{Ontology for Agents, Systems, and Integration of Services} ("\ONT{}") as a general means for the semantic representation of smart contracts stored on blockchain as software agents. Special attention is paid to non-fungible tokens (NFTs), whose management through the ERC721 standard is presented as a case study.

Giampaolo Bella, Domenico Cantone, Cristiano Longo, Marianna Nicolosi Asmundo · 5 authors

Blockchains are gaining momentum due to the interest of industries and people in \emph{decentralized applications} (Dapps), particularly in those for trading assets through digital certificates secured on blockchain, called tokens. As a consequence, providing a clear unambiguous description of any activities carried out on blockchains has become crucial, and we feel the urgency to achieve that description at least for trading. This paper reports on how to leverage the \emph{Ontology for Agents, Systems, and Integration of Services} ("\ONT{}") as a general means for the semantic representation of smart contracts stored on blockchain as software agents. Special attention is paid to non-fungible tokens (NFTs), whose management through the ERC721 standard is presented as a case study.