Blockchain-based Smart Contracts Research Articles

Smart Contract-based Gamification Scheme for College in Higher Education

The Financial Scheme that plays an important role in helping students is the Gamification Scholarship Scheme. The Gamification scholarship scheme helps human life in the world of education. Gamification is an approach that uses elements in games or video games with the aim of motivating students in the learning process and maximizing feelings of enjoyment and engagement in the learning process. To encourage higher education, the government has done various things. However, there are several things that make it difficult for students to use it, such as distributing scholarships to students belonging to underprivileged families. The Gamification scholarship scheme is one of the most financially instrumental schemes in helping students, but it has not been verified which results in a lack of transparency between students and their respective Education Offices, then there is still a lack of tracking of application forms in this study, we propose a Smart Contract which addresses the lack of Scheme Scholarships for Colleges and Universities outlined above. It has four entities: Board of Education, Students, College and Bank. This Blockchain based smart contract has been developed to provide a user-friendly and transparent and constant environment between students and the education board. Blockchain platform has developed many applications but none can overcome the government scholarship scheme.

Технология блокчейн в сфере авторского права

Introduction: the paper examines the potential of blockchain technology and blockchain-based smart contracts in respect of copyright. Copyright has long been secured through technical means, in particular, through digital rights management. With the advent of blockchain technology, a new era is expected in the field of administration and enforcement of copyright using computer code, therefore, the author sets the goal of investigating the essence and capabilities of blockchain technology. Methods: the methodological framework for the study is a set of methods of scientific cognition, among which the main ones are the methods of consistency and analysis. Results: based on the analysis of the experience of foreign countries, the essence of blockchain technology and the smart contract is investigated. The paper presents the recommendations on the use of blockchain technology as a form of regulatory ordering, which can express public and private goals. Conclusions: as a result of the study, the role of blockchain as one of the methods of copyright protection and its potential is identified, and also how blockchain technology can affect the ways of distributing copyrighted content in the digital world is considered. It is established that such a technology can provide an unprecedented level of access to copyright information, transparency, and traceability of its subsequent changes. The instant receipt of remuneration and the availability of the technical possibility of sovereign ownership of the produced digital content are attractive to copyright holders. Blockchain technology has gained universal attention as a developing information security system and over the years will become a powerful component of protecting the results of intellectual activity.

Blockchain insisted resilience enhancement of power electricity markets using distributed energy trading

Abstract The resilience of the power grid is taking a vital role in the energy supply and distribution process. But due to the rapid growth of integration of renewable distributed energy sources to the traditional power grid, the nature of the trading system is shifted from the centralized to decentralized or distributed manner. Blockchain is one of the most emerging security technologies that change the dimension of the financial and energy sector with openness and complete freedom. Blockchain implemented distributed energy trading promotes decentralized electricity markets. The physical system consists of the planning of the routing of energy from one place to another. A user can not send power to another customer in any severe outage or natural disaster in a traditional system. The user cannot participate in the trade globally. So in this proposed methodology, the connections of each customer to the central grid through several microgrids have been shown. In this work, an innovative approach in trading and finding a solution to a payment method is proposed. Ethereum blockchain-based smart contracts completed the entire trading system in automation mode in our proposed system. Any power outage at one place can be compensated by routing a new path of energy inflow from another active source, which enhances the system’s resiliency to a certain degree. While trading, no third parties will be engaged so that the transaction is efficient and fast.

Blockchain-based privacy preserving e-health system for healthcare data in cloud

Cloud-assisted electronic health (e-health) system has played an important role in the management of healthcare data, which can provide efficient and convenient storage services for the patients to store their electronic health records (EHRs). However, there are the security challenges in the existing e-health system, where the malicious doctors may collude with cloud storage service provider (CSP) to tamper with the patients’ EHRs, or directly reveal the content of EHRs to other adversaries for profit. In this paper, we propose a blockchain-based privacy preserving e-health system to ensure the security and confidentiality of the patients’ EHRs. In the system, we introduce the pairing-based cryptography to generate the tamper-proof records of the EHRs and allow the patients to integrate them into the transactions deployed on the blockchain, which can make the patients’ EHRs verifiable and protect them from illegal modification. Moreover, we will design secure payment protocols by performing blockchain-based smart contracts, which can enable the patients and hospital to reliably pay for the diagnostic and storage service, respectively. Security analysis and the performance evaluation demonstrate that our proposed scheme is secure and efficient with a limited computation overhead.

Blockchain-Based Smart Contracts to Provide Crop Insurance for Smallholder Farmers in Developing Countries

Agricultural insurance can help smallholder farmers in developing countries deal with risks that are too large for them to manage on their own. Thus, significant welfare gains can be achieved by increasing smallholder farmers’ access to such insurance. Estimates also suggest that by removing farming risks through crop insurance, it is possible to increase smallholder farmers’ investments and income by 20%–30%.1

A blockchain-based approach to smart cargo transportation using UHF RFID

Today, the continuous growth of electronic commerce volume increases the importance of point-to-point shipment transportation. For this reason, it is extremely important that shipment management systems provide effective, efficient and fast service. A study of the literature shows that the improvements made in the field of transportation have been generally aimed at global logistics networks. In this study, unlike the existing literature, a blockchain-based solution is developed for local cargo networks. With this approach using Ultra High Radio Frequency (UHF-RFID), Internet of Things (IoT) sensors and blockchain-based smart contracts, a fast shipping management architecture that ensures security between the parties is provided. In this context, an automatic payment and approval mechanism is established between the parties using ethereum-based smart contracts. In addition, shipments equipped with RFID tags are automatically tracked and traceable using UHF-RFID antennas. The IoT data collected in the study are stored on a cloud-based server, which is a cost-effective solution. Smart contracts that enable communication between the parties are written in the Solidity language using the Ganache, Truffle and Metamask platforms. It was observed that the integration between the technologies is ensured and the communication between the parties works successfully in the test processes.

Design of Blockchain Based Smart Contract for Tendering

Information technology is the backbone for all 21st century organizations that are looking forward to offer better customer service and gain competitive advantage. Today, blockchain technology is being adopted by a number of organizations such as financial services, healthcare, agriculture and even government. . However, the tendering sector have not been able to take advantage of the new blockchain technology, owing to the absence of blockchain based frameworks and a model for secure tendering. This study focuses on block-chain with its BYOE (Bring Your Own Encryption) concept in the procurement sector. The research comes up with a design of a blockchain based smart contract model for organizations in Kenya following ASD approach. In addition a discussion of challenges and opportunities of Blockchain based tendering is also presented.

Regulating smart contracts: An efficient integration approach

A smart contract is a digital protocol (software code) that enables automated monitoring and executing contract’s provisions without the need for intermediaries. Blockchain technology allows implementing smart contracts through a distributed ledger, but has no reliable way of enforcing legal rules. For example, in networks such as Bitcoin, it is possible to engage in illegal activities such as money laundering and dealing in weapons. In addition, it is impossible to enforce and audit legal costs such as taxes and duties. This research has devised a plan that allows official institutions to enforce the rules and audits efficiently during automatic execution process of smart contracts. This article discusses five important challenges in applying legal rules to Blockchain: the accreditation to the contracting parties’ and the goods’ nature, collecting legal costs, enforcing territorial laws and auditing. We present “Hyper Smart Contract”, a method for regulating Blockchain-based smart contracts and assess the limitations of the current generation of smart contracts on Ethereum to ensure a proper implementation of this plan. The performance of proposed method evaluated on a motivation application.

Privacy-Preserving and Incentivized Contact Tracing for COVID-19 Using Blockchain

Many countries across the world have not been entirely successful in their attempts to contain the spread of the COVID-19 virus, which has caused, quite possibly, one of the greatest disasters of the 21st century. A rich variety of contact tracing applications, each offering its own unique set of features, are currently being used to track the spread of the virus from person to person, and isolate/quarantine suspected individuals. However, existing approaches have not been very successful since they lack incentives to motivate users to use them actively. Although each solution provides some form of privacy protection and data security, loopholes do exist, and there is scope for improvement. In this context, we explore the use of blockchain to help in advancing contact tracing applications. In this article, we describe how blockchain could offer enhanced data security and functionality without compromising users' privacy. The effectiveness of contact tracing applications improves with the user base. In this regard, we explore how blockchain-based smart contracts can be used to offer incentives to users at various stages of the contact tracing process. Next, we lay down a plan for future contact tracing frameworks that provide the advantages of blockchain and user incentives, and all the best features available in current solutions.

Ethereum Blockchain based Smart Contract for Secured Transactions between Founders/Entrepreneurs and Contributors under Start-up Projects

Many implementation of blockchain technology are widely available today. This Project explains how blockchain technology improves efficiency and builds faith in funding process of startup process which affect today’s business and industries. Designing Block chain based a decentralized, distributed ledger, which records transactions or events of funding process in Start-up is discussed.Start –ups facing an issue of raising a required fund. Although there are many sources are available to entrepreneurs who wish to begin new businesses or expand existing ones, like family, friends, friends of friends, bank loan, use of internet, online crowd funding platform and many more. However, to look at the proper distribution and utilization of money and to keep track of it is main problem. This proposed system may provide the solution with blockchain technology for issues related to crowdfunding contract. Through the notion of smart contract automated interaction between and existing transaction system is discussed. A solution for the issues like security, abuse of investor and illegal transactions in crowdfunding process is prompted in this project.The idea behind model is to use ethereum based smart contract for securely and effectively handling connection between fundraisers,vendors and project manager/idea person. Blockchain enabled,distributed platforms is used to avoid fraud and to view proper utilization and distribution of money raised by different contributors.

Automated Payment and Contract Management in the Construction Industry by Integrating Building Information Modeling and Blockchain-Based Smart Contracts

Construction projects usually involve signing various contracts with specific billing procedures. In practice, dealing with complex contract structures causes significant problems, especially with regard to timely payment and guaranteed cash flow. Furthermore, a lack of transparency leads to a loss of trust. As a result, late or non-payment is a common problem in the construction industry. This paper presents the concept of implementing smart contracts for automated, transparent, and traceable payment processing for construction projects. Automated billing is achieved by combining Building Information Modeling (BIM) approaches with blockchain-based smart contracts. Thereby, parts of traditional construction contracts are transferred to a smart contract. The smart contract is set up using digital BIM-based tender documents and contains all of the relevant data for financial transactions. Once the contracted construction work has been accepted by the client, payments can be made automatically via authorized financial institutions. This paper describes the framework, referred to as BIMcontracts, the container-based data exchange, and the digital contract management workflow. It discusses the industry-specific requirements for blockchain and data storage and explains which technical and software architectural decisions were made. A case study is used to demonstrate the current implementation of the concept.

Smart contracts in tourism industry: a model with blockchain integration for post pandemic economy

ABSTRACT This research aims to fill the gap in the existing methods related to the use of the Internet of Things (IoT) devices with smart contracts without a need for intermediaries for the reservations and services secured by Blockchain for the post-pandemic economy. Although there is a limited number of studies in the literature, which are mainly based on the reviews of the integration of smart contracts with the IoT devices, the questions about how to apply these methods in the tourism industry remain unanswered. Therefore, this present study contributes to the existing literature by creating a contract with a reservation system integrated with hotel services. The proposed method creates a booking system with a unique smart contract between customers and hotels. These contracts will include all kinds of services a customer may need during the stay and will be secured by a Blockchain structure. Besides, it might help eliminate commission fees and reception costs with the decentralized proof mechanism in the proposed method which combines smart services, IoT devices, decentralized proof methods, and interplanetary file systems with Blockchain-based smart contracts.

A Blockchain-Based Smart Contract Towards Developing Secured University Examination System

A smart contract (SC) is a digital negotiation protocol among two or more anonymous parties without the presence of any trusted intermediaries. It is a self-executing agreement in the form of computer code. Smart contracts run on the blockchain. Thus, the code and the agreement are stored on a distributed public database and cannot be changed. There is a broad range of prospective application scenarios for smart contracts in the digital economy, including financial services, management, healthcare, and the Internet of Things. Ethereum and Hyperledger, are two of the most widely used open-source advance cross-industry blockchain technologies. Major technical challenges such as security, privacy, correctness, and verifiability are among the issues that are yet to be matured and completely resolved for blockchain. In this work, a comprehensive survey on smart contracts is carried out. We also present a case study on a University examination system having a heterogeneous data structure. This deployment brings a comprehensive understanding of the smart contract framework and has been used to find and analyze the gaps in the state of the art in terms of smart contracts.

Prototyping a Smart Contract Based Public Procurement to Fight Corruption

Corruption in public procurement is a worldwide appearance that causes immense financial and reputational damages. Especially in developing countries, corruption is a widespread issue due to secrecy and lack of transparency. An important instrument for transparency and accountability assurance is the record which is managed and controlled by recordkeeping systems. Blockchain technology and more precisely blockchain-based smart contracts are emerging technological tools that can be used as recordkeeping systems and a tool to mitigate some of the fraud involving public procurement records. Immutability, transparency, distribution and automation are some of the features of smart contracts already implemented in several applications to avoid malicious human interference. In this paper, we discuss some of the frauds in public procurement, and we propose smart contracts to automatize different stages of the public procurement procedure attempting to fix their biggest current weaknesses. The processes we have focused on include the bidding process, supplier habilitation and delivery verification. In the three subprocesses, common irregularities include human fallibility, improper information disclosure and hidden agreements which concern not only governments but also civil society. To show the feasibility and usability of our proposal, we have implemented a prototype that demonstrates the process using sample data.

Aligning the interests of newsvendors and forecasters through blockchain-based smart contracts and proper scoring rules

We consider a newsvendor setting where the newsvendor elicits a demand forecast from an expert to determine the optimal inventory level for a product. Since the interests of both parties might not be aligned, we propose a proper scoring rule to elicit the expert's forecast that is tailored to the decision problem the newsvendor faces. Under the proposed scoring rule, both the newsvendor's expected profit and the expert's expected payment increase as the expert exerts a higher effort when gathering information to formulate a forecast. Trust issues arise in this setting because the ex post payment the expert receives is contingent on the accuracy of the reported forecast, which in turn depends on a future realized outcome that might be only available to the newsvendor. We show that coding the proposed proper scoring rule as a blockchain-based smart contract allows the newsvendor to signal trustworthiness while, at the same time, inducing the expert to devote more effort in information gathering. Following the design science research framework, we conclude the paper by suggesting a design and a fully functional prototype of a blockchain-based smart contract that implements the proposed tailored proper scoring rule.

Blockchain-based smart contracts and conflict rules for business-to-business operations

espanolEn los ultimos anos, la irrupcion de la tecnologia blockchain ha incrementado la proyeccion de los smart contracts en el escenario del comercio internacional, no sin plantear algunos problemas, en particular, por lo que respecta al Derecho internacional privado. Este articulo, por lo tanto, aborda tales problemas en el ambito del conflicto de leyes desde una perspectiva business-to-business, dejando de lado los problemas planteados por las normas de conflicto orientadas a proteger a la parte debil del contrato. El analisis, sin embargo, empieza con una aproximacion general a los dos conceptos objeto de este articulo: los smart contracts y la tecnologia blockchain. Englishn recent years, the irruption of blockchain technology has enhanced the impact of smart contracts in the international trade scenario, although not without raising some problems, particularly, in terms of Private International Law. This paper, thus, addresses such problems when it comes to determining the applicable law from a business-to-business perspective leaving aside the particular problems raised by the conflict-of-law rules oriented to protect the weaker party to a contract. The analysis, however, starts with a general approach to the two concepts which are the object of this paper: smart contracts and blockchain technology.

Smart contracts for automated control system in Blockchain based smart cities

Nowadays, smart applications are increasing day by day to improve the standard of living in smart cities. A modern-day smart city is characterized by the presence of numerous smart Information and Communication Technology (ICT)-enabled services such as automated healthcare, automatic building monitoring, home automation, smart parking, traffic management, data security, among others. Such cities employ multitudes of Internet of Things (IoT) devices to collect and share data between trusted users by means of a centralized intermediary for monitoring and control of the myriad automatic activities. However, a centralized intermediary is plagued by issues such as single point of failure, risk of data loss, man-in-the-middle attack, and so forth. Blockchain-based smart contracts for automated control in smart cities provide a decentralized and secure alternative. In this paper, an Ethereum based system design for decentralized applications in smart cities has been proposed that enables systems to share data without an intermediary between trusted and non-trusted stakeholders using Ethereum based self-executing contracts. Such contracts allow automated multi-step workflows for smart applications. Two use cases, have been considered namely smart healthcare and smart building monitoring, as proof of stake of the proposed Ethereum based contract. The performance of the proposed scheme for these use cases has been presented with Keccack 256 transaction hash, the total number of transactions, gas consumed by each contract. Such an attempt is a worthwhile addition to state of the art as evident from the results presented herein. The modeling simulation and analysis of hashing power shows that for hashing power greater than 55% the probability of double spending attack reaches to 42% maximum. So it is concluded that the probability of double spending increases with the increase of transaction values.

Smart contract: from definition to certainty

The purpose of the present article is to gain an understanding of the opportunities and difficulties created by the introduction and development of the practice of network (smart) contracts. Our research methodology is based on a holistic set of principles and methods of scholarly analysis employed by modern legal science. It uses a dialectical method involving both general approaches (structural system method, formal logical method, analysis and synthesis of individual elements, individual features of concepts, abstraction, generalization, etc.) and particular methods (legal technical, systematic, comparative, historical, and grammatical methods, method of the unity of theory and practice, etc.). We analyze the views of lawyers and other specialists from Russia and abroad, legislative innovations in the field of digital technologies, the practice of blockchain-based smart contracts, and the main risks (whether legal, technological, operational, or criminogenic) of smart contracts for economic activities with a study of their causes. In the present-day situation, it is necessary to move from the legal definition of the smart contract and its legal and technological characteristics, advantages and disadvantages to the implementation of startups in a wide range of areas, especially business, public regulation, and social relations. Scholarly and information support for such processes will contribute to the development of industry, public administration and digital technology applications to improve the life of individual citizens and society as a whole. The introduction of smart contracts does not require the adoption of new laws or regulations. Instead, one should adapt and, possibly, modify existing legal principles at the legislative and judicial levels to pave the way for the use of smart contracts and other new technologies. The system of contract law provides a sufficient framework for regulating transactions without the introduction of any new legal categories. We propose approaches to the legal definition of the smart contract and identify a set of problems that must be solved at the legislative and technical legal levels in order to implement smart contracts effectively in different spheres of life.

User authentication using Blockchain based smart contract in role-based access control

Since the last few decades, information security has become a significant challenge for organizations’ system administrators. However, the Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) model has emerged as a viable solution for organizations to meet the security requirement due to its less administrative overhead. Blockchain technology is distributive and can be used effectively in user authentication and authorization challenges. This paper proposes an RBAC model using a blockchain-based smart contract for managing user-role permissions in the organization. We design a threat and security model to resist attacks such as man-in-the-middle attacks in an organization scenario. The proposed approach uses the Ethereum blockchain platform and its smart contract functionalities to model user-resource communications. The proposed method is tested on Ropsten Ethereum Test Network and evaluated to analyze user authentication, verification, cost, and security.

Blockchain-based smart contract for international business – a framework

PurposeCross border trade, involving different business environments between the sellers’ and buyers’ countries, may result in conflicts because of asymmetry in the information structure across the borders. The International Chambers of Commerce (ICC) has laid down ground rules on terms of shipment and payment, enabling harmonization and standardization of business process, and fixing of responsibilities for international trade. The international commercial (INCO) terms by ICC define the duties, obligations and cost borne by the exporter and the importer. An exporter’s uncertainty looms once the goods cross his/her border. Therefore, there is a need for a smart contract that is secured, transparent, legitimate and trustworthy. The authors propose a blockchain technology-based smart global contract (BTGC) framework for international trade.Design/methodology/approachIn this paper, the authors develop the framework based on value chain analysis (VCA) of international trade and an ontology-driven-blockchain-design approach. The paper analyzes the sequence of activities in the value chain of global trade, the terms of the contract, the data structure templates, the validation rules and the points-of-failure, and proposes the smart contract blockchain structure.FindingsThis paper proposes the BTGC framework considering the INCO terms 2020; it provides the validation rules and the probability of failures; and identifies the elements that cause the halting of contracts and conditions of creation of side blockchains. The framework also includes the governance of the BTGC system.Research limitations/implicationsThe proposed framework not only has implications at the firm level as it automates and secures a global sale contract but also is expected to harmonize the global-trade process as well. The developers may use the attributes, data structure templates and the rules identified in this paper for developing the GC software. Future research may consider using case analysis, class diagrams and the related steps for developing the blockchain software.Originality/valueThis paper proposes a complete value chain of global contract (GC) concerning exports, an ontology of GC and a blockchain-based smart-contract framework based on global standards. Besides, it specifies the elements of fraud (such as the non-integration of side chains) and uncertainty, i.e. the probability of failures. Such a framework will harmonize the global-trade process and build an international standards for smart GC based on blockchain technology (ISSGCBT), which is not yet done.