Abstract
Recently, technology startups have leveraged the potential of blockchain-based technologies to govern institutions or interpersonal trust by enforcing signed treaties among different individuals in a decentralized environment. However, it is going to be hard enough convincing that the blockchain technology could completely replace the trust among trading partners in the sharing economy as sharing services always operate in a highly dynamic environment. With the rapid expanding of the rental market, the sharing economy faces more and more severe challenges in the form of regulatory uncertainty and concerns about abuses. This paper proposes an enhanced decentralized sharing economy service using the service level agreement (SLA), which documents the services the provider will furnish and defines the service standards the provider is obligated to meet. The SLA specifications are defined as the smart contract, which facilitates multi-user collaboration and automates the process with no involvement of the third party. To demonstrate the usability of the proposed solution in the sharing economy, a notebook sharing case study is implemented using the Hyperledger Fabric. The functionalities of the smart contract are tested using the Hyperledger Composer. Moreover, the efficiency of the designed approach is demonstrated through a series of experimental tests using different performance metrics.
Highlights
Due to the popularity of peer-to-peer (P2P) platforms, the business dealings among private individuals on a large scale are increasingly frequent
The approach presented is based on smart contracts for the automated management of service level agreement (SLA) in the field of the sharing economy
It automatically enforces the payment of the defined subscription fee or the monetary compensation in the case of an SLA violation
Summary
Due to the popularity of peer-to-peer (P2P) platforms, the business dealings among private individuals on a large scale are increasingly frequent. The sharing economy is a P2P-based economic model, which provides access to goods and services that are often facilitated by a community-based online platform [1] This new Internet-based rental market allows individuals to get an extra benefit by renting out their unused goods and services to others. Mobike [2] is a fully station-less bicycle sharing system, which enables consumers to pick up and leave a bike at any time or any parking area. Another typical example is Airbnb [3], in which the individuals are allowed to rent out their spare rooms, apartments, or entire homes. With reduced social ties compared to other common sharing platforms, providers, and consumers in the sharing
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