Blockchain Capabilities Research Articles

A critical investigation into identifying key focus areas for the implementation of blockchain applications in the mining industry

Digital information and data are crucial drivers of progress in various industries, including mining, where data-driven decision making optimizes resource extraction, enhances safety, and ensures sustainability. The adoption of digital technologies like artificial intelligence (AI) and the Internet of Things has amplified the importance of digital information. However, the integrity and security of this information are paramount, leading to the exploration of blockchain technology as a potential solution for secure digital value exchange in mining. This research examines blockchain's capabilities, drawing insights from its applications in sectors like banking, government, healthcare, and entertainment, and evaluates their relevance to mining's core value chain processes. The study identifies blockchain's distributed ledger technology, cryptographic security, and decentralization as unique advantages that can revolutionize mining by enhancing transaction speed, reducing costs, and improving supply chain transparency and compliance with sustainability standards. Blockchain's transparent and auditable records can enhance business transparency, fostering trust among stakeholders, including investors and regulatory bodies. The technology's consensus mechanisms and smart contracts further promote trust in collaborative ventures. This research provides a foundational understanding for decision-makers in the mining industry to evaluate blockchain's feasibility and potential return on investment, guiding strategic planning and resource allocation for blockchain applications. By leveraging blockchain, mining companies can optimize operations, improve sustainability practices, and establish a robust foundation for future growth, positioning blockchain as a transformative technology in the sector.

BLOCKCHAIN TECHNOLOGY'S ROLE IN SECURING DATA AND PREVENTING CYBERATTACKS: A DETAILED REVIEW

This systematic review examines the role of blockchain technology in enhancing data security and preventing cyberattacks across various sectors. Blockchain's decentralized and immutable ledger system, secured through cryptographic mechanisms like cryptographic hashes and asymmetric encryption, offers robust protection against unauthorized access and data tampering. The study highlights blockchain's ability to maintain data integrity and immutability, essential for applications requiring high levels of trust, such as financial transactions and healthcare records. The review also emphasizes the significance of smart contracts, which automate and enforce contract terms, thereby reducing human error and fraud. Sector-specific applications in finance, healthcare, supply chain management, and the Internet of Things demonstrate blockchain's versatility in addressing diverse security challenges. However, significant challenges, including scalability issues, high energy consumption, and regulatory and legal hurdles, impede the widespread adoption of blockchain technology. Addressing these challenges is crucial for realizing blockchain's full potential in cybersecurity. This review underscores the need for continued research and development to overcome these obstacles and fully harness blockchain's capabilities in securing data and preventing cyberattacks.

A three-stage digital maturity model to assess readiness for blockchain implementation in the maritime logistics industry

Interesting opportunities lie in digital technologies, such as blockchain, as enablers of further digital development in maritime logistics processes. Marine companies must assess their digital maturity using appropriate models to gain a competitive advantage through digital transformation. Therefore, it is crucial to present a novel and empirical maturity model for assessing blockchain implementation in maritime logistic organizations. This paper proposes a three-stage digital maturity model that effectively measures digital readiness in maritime logistics industries. The model consists of 5 criteria, 10 dimensions, 45 maturity items, and 5 maturity levels. To exemplify the maturity level within its operations, the model is applied to a case study of Shahid Rajaee Port in Iran. The fuzzy theory and decision-making approaches are used to calculate digital readiness and test the proposed model. The research findings reveal a significant gap in digital maturity studies in the field of shipping and ports. By integrating organizational aspects, our model provides a comprehensive approach to understanding and improving blockchain capabilities within the maritime logistics sector, given that there is no comprehensive maturity model to evaluate the readiness of maritime logistics to adopt blockchain practices.

Addressing Counterfeiting and Fraud Concerns in Healthcare Packaging and Labeling with Blockchain: Opportunities and Challenges

Blockchain technology (BT), originally developed to facilitate secure digital monetary transactions, has recently gained significant traction in various healthcare sectors. Characterized by the exponential growth of sensitive data, the healthcare sector is poised to witness the emergence of BT. This emergence is primarily driven by the pressing need to globally expose, protect against threats, ensure confidentiality, and establish traceability for the plethora of sensitive data continuously generated by the healthcare industry. The healthcare supply chain focuses on traceability due to the prevalence of counterfeit and recalled drugs. Managing operational constraints such as temperature, humidity, and air quality within specified parameters is paramount. The various processes involved in international trade transactions contribute to the creation of numerous records, each of which is meticulously entered into the systems of the companies involved. Therefore, the problem set for this study was: What are the challenges and prospects for BT in the healthcare sector? To answer this question, the following objective was set: describe and examine the challenges and prospects of BT in the healthcare sector. In addition, a key research objective was to identify specific applications and use cases that can benefit the most from this technological advancement. In line with the research objective, a systematic review of all studies BT for traceability, anti-counterfeiting, and fraud detection was conducted from January 2023 to September 2023. Using robust tools such as VosViewer, we used bibliometric metrics from the renowned medical repository PubMed to construct and visually represent data analysis networks. BT shows remarkable potential to improve traceability and optimize supply chain management within healthcare organizations. The study includes a deep analysis of blockchain capabilities, including smart contracts, identity management, access control, and zero-knowledge proofing.

Role of Blockchain Technology in Enhancing Supplychain Traceability, Transparency and Efficiency

The conventional traceability system faces challenges such as centralized control, lack of transparency, unreliable data, and the frequent creation of information silos. To address these issues, this paper introduces a blockchain-based traceability system tailored for the storage and retrieval of product information in the agricultural supply chain. Utilizing blockchain's inherent properties of decentralization, immutability, and traceability, this system enhances the transparency and trustworthiness of traceability data. Furthermore, the integration of blockchain technology with cryptography is suggested to enable the secure exchange of private information within the blockchain network. Additionally, we have developed a reputation-based smart contract system to motivate network participants to contribute traceability data actively. This approach aims to leverage blockchain's capabilities to overcome the limitations of traditional traceability systems in the agricultural sector. This research paper explores the role of blockchain technology in enhancing supply chain transparency and efficiency, focused on food and agriculture sector. It underscores the growing consumer demand for authentic product and the challenges of maintaining transparency is increasingly becoming difficult in global and complex markets. Findings reveal that blockchain has significant capabilities to increases transparency, traceability, and security, while potentially reducing costs and errors. However, the study also identifies challenges, such as technological complexities, scalability issues, regulatory uncertainties, and integration hurdles. A strategic framework for adopting blockchain in retail supply chains is proposed, offering insights for practitioners and policy considerations. The paper also designs a novel traceability system for agricultural product supply chains, employing blockchain technology to address issues such as centralized management, opaque information, and data unreliability. The study concludes that while blockchain technology presents significant opportunities for transforming supply chains, realizing its full potential necessitates careful strategizing and sector-wide collaboration. The research offers recommendations for practitioners and outlines directions for future research, highlighting that the successful application of blockchain hinges on organizational adjustments and meeting specific boundary conditions.

Techniques to alleviate blockchain bloat: Potentials, challenges, and recommendations

Blockchain (BC) bloat, characterized by excessive data growth on BC networks, presents a pressing challenge. The need for a comprehensive study addressing BC bloat solutions arises due to the scarcity of knowledge in this emerging area. This study advances knowledge along with practical insights and inspires innovative approaches to address BC bloat. This research explores various techniques proposed to combat BC bloat. Two technique themes are identified: on-chain and off-chain techniques. On-chain techniques focus on updating the consensus mechanism, block size, or database partition. This study identified five on-chain techniques: structural modification, pruning, sharding, ephemeral BC, and zk-SNARKs. Off-chain techniques focus on processing in parallel, bundling transactions, or handling transactions off-chain. Further, three off-chain techniques identified are off-chain storage, historical data storage, and light clients’ techniques. These recommendations aim to optimize resources use, enhance scalability, and maintain data integrity. However, these may compromise several BC capabilities, such as security, privacy, and data loss. The applicability of these techniques for resource-constrained devices is also explored. Future research should include further investigation into the performance and applicability of these techniques, especially in resource-constrained environments like IoT and fog computing.

Blockchain for finance: A survey

AbstractAs an innovative technology for enhancing authenticity, security, and risk management, blockchain is being widely adopted in trade and finance systems. The unique capabilities of blockchain, such as immutability and transparency, enable new business models of distributed data storage, point‐to‐point transactions, and decentralized autonomous organizations. Here, the authors focus on blockchain‐based securities trading, in which blockchain technology plays a vital role in financial services as it ultimately lifts trust and frees the need for third‐party verification by using consensus‐based verification. The 12 most popular blockchain platforms are investigated and 6 platforms that are related to finance are elaborated on, seeking to provide a panorama of securities trading practices. Meanwhile, this survey provides a comprehensive summary of blockchain‐based securities trading applications. Numerous practical applications of blockchain‐based securities trading are gathered and they are categorized into four distinct categories. For each category, a typical example is introduced and how blockchain contributes to solving the key problems faced by FinTech companies and researchers explained. Finally, interesting observations are provided ranging from mainstream blockchain‐based financial institutions to security issues of decentralized finance applications, aiming to picture the current blockchain ecosystem in finance.

Practical Implementation of a Blockchain-Enabled SDN for Large-Scale Infrastructure Networks

The network function virtualization (NFV) feature lies at the core of modern networking, and it allows on-demand real-time integration of new network functions, which is a great benefit for large-scale infrastructure networks. In contrast to the functional benefits, NFV introduces software complexity and computational overhead through additional abstraction layers. The current article addresses the function validation problem in large-scale infrastructure networks of Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and proposes the utilization of blockchain as a validation technology, as opposed to implementing a custom validation solution. The current work showcases a practical architecture implementation to address the service validation in service provider large-scale networks. The POX-based solution to control software-defined networks (SDN) for NFV is extended to offer additional blockchain capabilities. Thus, a blockchain node is integrated and executed in the POX SDN controller. Transaction experiments are performed between two endpoints located in remote locations on the Internet, and the detailed results are presented to validate the utilization of the blockchain technology used on SDNs’ control plane.

Do blockchain capabilities help overcome supply and operational risks: Insights from firm market returns during COVID-19

Uncertainty and risk have become increasingly prominent issues in firm operating environments. Addressing uncertainties and risks brought by the historically disruptive COVID-19 pandemic crisis requires organizations to establish reliable, visible, and traceable information processing and sharing capabilities. Blockchain is a disruptive technology that can build capabilities to support operational resilience where uncertainty may manifest as risk or opportunity. Using an event study, we examine the COVID-19 pandemic relationship to stock returns for 217 blockchain-related firms—those that develop or apply blockchain technology—over five major pandemic life cycle periods. Our results indicate firms with blockchain capabilities have less mean negative stock price reaction—on average, a reduced 8.24 % shareholder value loss across crisis stages. Different blockchain application fields exhibit varied shareholder value effects—in general, production blockchain applications can help firms reduce more negative impact while financial blockchain applications show no significant mitigation effects. We further demonstrate how blockchain operational characteristics affect stock returns. Overall, blockchain technology provides effective risk buffer capabilities and can help manage shifting institutional fields—which the market views as building resilient capabilities resulting in competitive advantage to overcome known and unknown uncertainties and risks.

An introduction of transaction session‐induced security scheme using blockchain technology: Understanding the features of Internet of Things–based financial security systems

AbstractInternet of Things (IoT)–based financial systems leverage the capabilities of blockchain and artificial intelligence (AI) to enable seamless transactions and data exchange between devices. IoT‐based financial systems involve interconnected devices and services, such as payment terminals, wearables, and smart appliances, which collect, transmit, and process sensitive financial information. The study explores security methods incorporated in the financial systems designed using IoT and blockchain technologies to improve the background features. The study data were gathered from Complaint Data from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau 2018–2022, and data‐based analysis is used in this study for detecting illegitimate interrupted transactions. Propensity Score Matching (PSM) is used for the robustness and endogeneity test; descriptive statistics is utilized in this study. Financial security systems are introduced to reduce the forging and breaching of intruders amid transactions. This study offers a novel contribution to the field of blockchain technology by furnishing a comprehensive analysis of the features of IoT‐based financial security systems from the perspective of the transaction, broadening the understanding of the feature focusing on financial security, and providing practical recommendations to address the features of IoT‐based financial security systems in blockchain technology. The study highlights how IoT devices can securely record and verify financial transactions by leveraging the blockchain's distributed ledger, preventing tampering or unauthorized access. The results of the study identify that the TS3 program relies on the transaction gaps between financial sessions, security requests between successive transactions, and sessions saved depending on the time delay. The study finds that sessions were analyzed for violations and fraud using information stored on the blockchain. The study suggests the design and building of devices and sensors in an IoT in financial security systems. Transparency should contribute to setting data privacy and safety problems in financial security systems.

EFFECTIVENESS OF BLOCKCHAIN LOGGING AND SSO IN CYBER SECURITY MECHANISMS

With the rise of cyber threats in the era of digital transformation, protecting information systems becomes crucial for ensuring data reliability and security. This is especially true for authentication and logging systems, which are key elements in identifying and countering unauthorized access. The use of identical credentials and traditional authentication methods opens up wide opportunities for cybercriminals. This article explores the use of blockchain technology as a means to combat cyber threats through the implementation of immutable, decentralized logging and authentication systems. Blockchain offers unique advantages, such as data immutability and distributed storage, which can significantly complicate unauthorized interference in security systems. Current trends in the field of cybersecurity are examined, particularly the challenges associated with data compromise and ineffective information exchange between systems. An important part of the article is the analysis of recent research focused on the capabilities of blockchain in the development of identification and authentication systems based on decentralized identifiers and the integration of consensus technologies. The main goal of the research is to identify and develop technological solutions aimed at enhancing the security, resilience, and efficiency of logging and authentication systems through the application of blockchain. Additionally, innovative approaches to identification and authentication that can strengthen protection against cyber threats are considered.

Blockchain Technology and Its Relationship With Supply Chain Resilience: A Dynamic Capability Perspective

Blockchain technology (BCT) as a disruptive innovation has chains (SCs) to effectively deal with severe disruptions, such as those accompanied by COVID-19. To this end, this study explores BCT's role in minimizing the negative impact of such SC disruptions and improving SC resilience. Our study employs semistructured interviews interwoven with thematic analysis to identify the capabilities deployable by BCT at each stage of disruption. Our study reveals key issues associated with contemporary SC networks and the capabilities that can be enhanced by blockchain-enabled SCs to mitigate such issues. Our study further proposes a conceptual framework highlighting the relationships among various phases of disruption, blockchain capabilities, and SC resilience capabilities through the theoretical lens of the dynamic capabilities view. The proposed framework underscores that for a firm operating in a dynamic and rapidly changing environment, BCT can enhance the ability to sense, ability to seize, and ability to maintain.

Blockchain-Capabilities, Supply Chain Resilience, and Company Performance:

Alignment and agility are essential supply chain capabilities required to maintain and enhance performance, particularly in the current era of disruption. The research aimed to examine the impact of blockchain capabilities on supply chain resilience and company performance using quantitative and cross-sectional survey methods. Logistics service providers (LSP) were selected as the units of analysis, and individuals such as logisticians in Indonesia and Switzerland served as units of observation. Data were collected through an electronic questionnaire (Google Forms) using a quota sampling technique and analyzed using Smart-PLS software. The sample size included 60 respondents, comprising 45 and 15 from Indonesia and Switzerland based on the 10-times rule. The results show that supply chain resilience partially and fully mediated the impact of blockchain capabilities (supply chain alignment and agility) on LSPPerformance. LSP could also enhance performance and resilience by implementing blockchain technology to enhance supply chain alignment and agility. In theoretical terms, the results have implications contributing to dynamic capability theory. In practical applications, the research serves as valuable insights for government authorities and IT consultants when formulating effective plans and strategies to analyze the adoption of blockchain technology among LSP. Additionally, directors and owners of these companies are persuaded that blockchain has the potential to create and enhance supply chain capabilities, as well as increasing competitive advantage.

Building sustainable resilient supply chain in retail sector under disruption

Blockchain technologies have played a crucial role in transforming the retail industry, leading to remarkable advancements in recent times. Its pivotal role in managing risky environments by offering preventive and proactive measures cannot be overstated. The research contribution lies in introducing a set of criteria for assessing the adoption of Blockchain technology, specifically designed to evaluate the resilience of the retail sector. This study aims to ensure the establishment of a sustainable, resilient supply chain across diverse retail categories, particularly in the face of uncertain circumstances. A hybrid decision-making approach that combines the Best-Worst Method (BWM) and Fuzzy TODIM has been employed to achieve these objectives. This study encompasses various types of retail companies to assess and compare their resilience levels by adopting Blockchain technology. The results of this study robustly suggest that speciality retailers with well-established, long-term partnerships are more predisposed to embrace and leverage the capabilities of Blockchain technologies.Conversely, discount retailers in Turkey face various challenges that impede their effective integration of Blockchain technologies. These challenges encompass collaborating with suppliers on short-term agreements and the unavailability of product tracking, among other factors. As a result, the outcomes of this study offer valuable insights for retailers in the sector, suggesting that they should consider modifying their operational strategies to better align with the adoption and integration of Blockchain technologies in the future.

Developing the framework of blockchain-enabled agri-food supply chain

Purpose The food supply chain has faced many challenges due to its complex and complicated nature. Blockchain technology is one of the mechanisms used to improve agri-food supply chain processes by evolving organization capabilities. A study is being conducted to scrutinize the adoption of blockchain technology in the agri-food supply chain through the lens of the operational capability approach. It further makes an attempt to identify the capabilities of blockchain to improve supply chain processes.Design/methodology/approach The qualitative research method with semi-structured interviews was used to gather information from experts and professionals in the food supply chain and blockchain technology. The authors have adopted a systematic approach of coding using open, axial and selective methods to depict and identify the themes that represent the blockchain-enabled agri-food supply chain. The data were collected from 32 interviews of selected participants.Findings The result shows five critical areas where blockchain can come up to enhance the agri-food supply chain performance by providing traceability, transparency, information security, transactions, and trust and quality. Further, the study reveals that blockchain will provide safety, lower the cost of transactions and can create trust among users to communicate within the whole supply chain without the intervention of a third party. This study demonstrated that the capabilities need to be considered when introducing technology into the practice.Research limitations/implications The study implies thought-provoking implications for bridging the theory-practice gap by examining the empirical data to demonstrate how the operational capabilities of blockchain technology further strengthen the agri-food supply chain. Additionally, this study provides some suggestions for utilizing the results and proposes a framework to understand more about blockchain use cases in the agri-food supply chain as well as extend the application of blockchain using an operational capability approach for future academic researchers in this area.Practical implicationsThis study presented some more important managerial implications which reveal that the majority of organisations were in the initial stages of adoption process of blockchain technology. Further, the positive influence of managers and IT experts can help the information technology companies (IT) and stakeholders for developing and promoting blockchain solutions in the agri-food supply chain. The important implication of blockchain enabled agri-food supply chain is to maintain information security and incresae supply chain performance. Originality/value The study shows the operational capabilities of agri-food supply chain using blockchain technology. Blockchain can contribute in enhancing the agri-food supply chain to increase traceability and transparency and helps to reduce the risk of disruptions.

Self-Healing Secure Blockchain Framework in Microgrids

Blockchain has recently been depicted as a secure protocol for information exchange in cyber-physical microgrids. However, it is still found vulnerable to consensus manipulation attacks. These stealth attacks are often difficult to detect as they use kernel-level access to mask their actions. In this paper, we firstly build a trusted and secured peer-to-peer network mechanism for physical DC microgrids’ validation of transactions over Distributed Ledger. Secondly, we leverage from a physics-informed approach for detecting malware-infected nodes and then recovering from stealth attacks using a self-healing recovery scheme augmented into the microgrid Blockchain network. This scheme allows compromised nodes to adapt to a reconstructed trustworthy signal in a multi-hop manner using corresponding measurements from the reliable nodes in the network. Additionally, recognizing the possible threat of denial-of-service attacks and random time delays (where information sharing via communication channels is blocked), we also integrate a model-free predictive controller with the proposed system that can locally reconstruct an expected version of the attacked/delayed signals. This supplements the capabilities of Blockchain, enabling it to detect and mitigate consensus manipulation attempts, and network latencies.

ZeroTrustBlock: Enhancing Security, Privacy, and Interoperability of Sensitive Data through ZeroTrust Permissioned Blockchain

With the digitization of healthcare, an immense amount of sensitive medical data are generated and shared between various healthcare stakeholders—however, traditional health data management mechanisms present interoperability, security, and privacy challenges. The centralized nature of current health information systems leads to single points of failure, making the data vulnerable to cyberattacks. Patients also have little control over their medical records, raising privacy concerns. Blockchain technology presents a promising solution to these challenges through its decentralized, transparent, and immutable properties. This research proposes ZeroTrustBlock, a comprehensive blockchain framework for secure and private health information exchange. The decentralized ledger enhances integrity, while permissioned access and smart contracts enable patient-centric control over medical data sharing. A hybrid on-chain and off-chain storage model balances transparency with confidentiality. Integration gateways bridge ZeroTrustBlock protocols with existing systems like EHRs. Implemented on Hyperledger Fabric, ZeroTrustBlock demonstrates substantial security improvements over mainstream databases via cryptographic mechanisms, formal privacy-preserving protocols, and access policies enacting patient consent. Results validate the architecture’s effectiveness in achieving 14,200 TPS average throughput, 480 ms average latency for 100,000 concurrent transactions, and linear scalability up to 20 nodes. However, enhancements around performance, advanced cryptography, and real-world pilots are future work. Overall, ZeroTrustBlock provides a robust application of blockchain capabilities to transform security, privacy, interoperability, and patient agency in health data management.

From Hype to Reality: Unveiling the Promises, Challenges and Opportunities of Blockchain in Supply Chain Systems

Blockchain is a groundbreaking technology widely adopted in industrial applications for improving supply chain management (SCM). The SCM and logistics communities have paid close attention to the development of blockchain technology. The primary purpose of employing a blockchain for SCM is to lower production costs while enhancing the system’s security. In recent years, blockchain-related SCM research has drawn much interest, and it is fair to state that this technology is now the most promising option for delivering reliable services/goods in supply chain networks. This study uses rigorous methods to review the technical implementation aspects of SCM systems driven by Blockchain. To ensure the security of industrial applications, we primarily concentrated on developing SCM solutions with blockchain capabilities. In this study, the unique qualities of blockchain technology have been exploited to analyze the main effects of leveraging it in the SCM. Several security metrics are utilized to validate and compare the blockchain methodologies’ effectiveness in SCM. The blockchain may alter the supply chain to make it more transparent and efficient by creating a useful tool for strategic planning and enhancing connections among the customers, suppliers, and accelerators. Moreover, the performance of traditional and blockchain-enabled SCM systems is compared in this study based on the parameters of efficiency, execution time, security level, and latency.

Federated Learning Meets Blockchain: State Channel-Based Distributed Data-Sharing Trust Supervision Mechanism

With the rapid development of 5G and 6G technology, it has become an inevitable trend to share the cross-domain scattered data and enhance data value transmission. As a new data sharing technology with intelligence and privacy computing, federated learning receives wide attention. It can realize data value delivery and data privacy protection at the same time, however, it lacks supervision in the application process, and the reliability of calculation process and result transmission cannot be guaranteed. As a distributed ledger technology, blockchain has the trust property but lacks computing power. Therefore, we propose to extend the computing and supervision capabilities of blockchain with state channel, using state channel to create sandboxes and instantiate federated learning tasks in order to realize the trust supervision mechanism based on sandboxes. In this paper, we establish a federated learning based distributed data sharing architecture and on the basis of the architecture we design a state channel based distributed data sharing trust supervision mechanism. Through theoretical analysis and experimental verification, the supervision mechanism we designed has excellent performance in improving system security, resisting malicious attacks and improving data model quality.

Integrating blockchain capabilities in an omnichannel healthcare system: A dual theoretical perspective

AbstractThe COVID‐19 pandemic opened a market for omnichannel healthcare. While some patients trusted the hybrid mode of consultancy, others lacked trust in the online mode of consultancy. The purpose of the study is to understand the extent to which blockchain can influence the swift trust of stakeholders and the usage intention of omnichannel healthcare systems (OHS). We used a quantitative approach by surveying 250 patients that rendered services from OHS by drawing upon the lens of organizational information processing theory (OIPT) and swift trust theory (STT). We test the hypotheses using the PLS‐SEM technique. The results show blockchain technology can significantly affect the adoption of omnichannel healthcare by reinforcing swift trust in OHS and its continued usage.