Exploiting smart contracts in PBFT-based blockchains: A case study in medical prescription system

Abstract

Smart contracts allow application developers to automate business processes through a decentralized computation architecture. Contemporary blockchain platforms such as Ethereum and Hyperledger Fabric offer support for smart contracts through consensus mechanisms such as Proof-of-Work (PoW) or other types of transaction validation and ordering services. This article exploits smart contracts in the Byzantine Fault Tolerant (BFT) blockchain platforms. In particular, we explore Tendermint and Hyperledger Besu, BFT blockchain platforms, and apply them to a decentralized e-prescription case study to evaluate their effectiveness. We adopt Hyperledger Besu and Tendermint in this research, given that both are BFT-based blockchains. Also, it is noteworthy that smart contracts in BFT blockchain platforms such as Tendermint are not well established and not widely adopted yet. Our article empirically evaluates the performance of smart contracts in Tendermint and Hyperledger Besu using a decentralized medical prescription case study and compares their results with Ethereum, a PoW blockchain. Our results demonstrate that BFT blockchain platforms are efficient for multi-stakeholder applications such as e-prescription and supply chains. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study investigating the implementation of smart contracts in BFT blockchain platforms, such as Tendermint and Hyperledger Besu.