Blockchain Platform Research Articles

ZGridBC: Zero-Knowledge Proof Based Scalable and Privacy-Enhanced Blockchain Platform for Electricity Tracking

ZGridBC: Zero-Knowledge Proof Based Scalable and Privacy-Enhanced Blockchain Platform for Electricity Tracking

Performance Evaluation of a Multi Organizations Secure Internet of Vehicles Based on Hyperledger Fabric Blockchain Platform

Performance Evaluation of a Multi Organizations Secure Internet of Vehicles Based on Hyperledger Fabric Blockchain Platform

Modernizing the Legacy Healthcare System to Decentralize Platform Using Blockchain Technology

The use of blockchain technology is expanding in various industries, including finance, supply chain management, food, energy, IoT, and healthcare. The article aims to address the challenges of complex medical procedures, large-scale medical data management, and cost optimization in the healthcare industry. By employing blockchain technology, the article aims to enhance data security and privacy while ensuring the integrity and efficiency of the healthcare system. This article focuses on the application of blockchain technology in the healthcare system by reviewing the existing literature and proposing multiple workflows for better data management. These workflows were implemented using the Ethereum blockchain platform and involve complex medical procedures such as surgery and clinical trials, as well as managing a large amount of medical data. The feasibility of the proposed system is analyzed in terms of associated costs, and a model-driven engineering approach is used to recover the architecture of traditional healthcare systems. The aim is to provide stakeholders in the healthcare system with better healthcare services and cost optimization. The solution being proposed automates interactions between different parties involved. Smart contracts were created using Solidity language, and their functions were tested using the Remix IDE. This paper illustrates that our smart contract code was designed to avoid common security vulnerabilities and attacks. To test the framework, a prototype of the smart contract was deployed on an Ethereum TESTNET blockchain in a Windows environment. This study found that the proposed approach is both practical and efficient.

A Trusted Reputation Management Scheme for Cross-Chain Transactions

Blockchain has become a well-known, secured, decentralized datastore in many domains, including medical, industrial, and especially the financial field. However, to meet the requirements of different fields, platforms that are built on blockchain technology must provide functions and characteristics with a wide variety of options. Although they may share similar technology at the fundamental level, the differences among them make data or transaction exchange challenging. Cross-chain transactions have become a commonly utilized function, while at the same time, some have pointed out its security loopholes. It is evident that a secure transaction scheme is desperately needed. However, what about those nodes that do not behave? It is clear that not only a secure transaction scheme is necessary, but also a system that can gradually eliminate malicious players is of dire need. At the same time, integrating different blockchain systems can be difficult due to their independent architectures, and cross-chain transactions can be at risk if malicious attackers try to control the nodes in the cross-chain system. In this paper, we propose a dynamic reputation management scheme based on the past transaction behaviors of nodes. These behaviors serve as the basis for evaluating a node’s reputation to support the decision on malicious behavior and enable the system to intercept it in a timely manner. Furthermore, to establish a reputation index with high precision and flexibility, we integrate Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) into our proposed scheme. This allows our system to meet the needs of a wide variety of blockchain platforms. Overall, the article highlights the importance of securing cross-chain transactions and proposes a method to prevent misbehavior by evaluating and managing node reputation.

IoT Based Blockchains and IPFS

Block chain, the underlying technology of crypto currency networks like Bitcoin, is designed to realize the vision of a decentralized, secure and open Internet of Things (IoT) revolution with a centralized data access model. Essential. It may be so. This article proposes a distributed access model for IoT data using a network architecture called the IoT and Blockchain Modular Consortium Architecture. The proposed architecture facilitates IoT communication via a blockchain software stack and a peer-to-peer data storage mechanism. This architecture is intended to provide privacy and be adaptable to various IoT use cases. To implement the proposed architecture, we conduct a performance analysis of existing blockchain development platforms, Ethereum and Monax.

Why blockchain needs graph: A survey on studies, scenarios, and solutions

The popularity of blockchain platforms and their applications in industry and academia keeps rising. The multifarious requirements stimulate another technique, graph data and algorithms, to join the blockchains; thus, studies, scenarios, and solutions about graph-related blockchains have emerged. This paper aims to see whether the state-of-the-art studies satisfy the applications through a comprehensive survey on graph-related blockchains. To answer why a blockchain needs graphs in general, we analyze literature about blockchain and graph, as well as use cases on the application-oriented and graph-related scenarios collected from practical blockchain projects. The paper summarizes three graph-related blockchain studies: graph algorithms for blockchains, graph data in blockchains, and graph applications on blockchains. Based on these summarization, it figures out the gaps between the studies and the applications, that is, few of studies natively integrate graph computing into a blockchain. Here, the “graph integration” means processing on-chain graph data, which contains blockchain information, in a real-time, distributed, and consensual manner. We propose the prospect of the Graph-integrated Blockchain Platform (GiBP for short), and explain why a GiBP is inevitable, the challenges of a GiBP, and the GiBPs' main functions and features people expect for future research.

A Toolbox for Migrating the Blockchain-Based Application From Ethereum to Hyperledger Fabric

Abstract The low transaction capacity, high transaction cost and long-term privacy concerns of the current Ethereum platform are notorious. Developers are seeking alternative blockchain platforms to migrate their blockchain-based applications to reduce their applications’ use-cost and improve their applications’ user experience. The Hyperledger Fabric (HLF) platform with resiliency, flexibility, scalability and confidentiality is preferred for developers to migrate their Ethereum blockchain-based applications. However, it is laborious for developers to migrate blockchain-based applications from the Ethereum platform to the HLF platform. In this paper, we first propose a complete and secure migration solution to ease the migration process. The main idea of our solution is to design a toolbox to help developers automatically eliminate the adverse effects that the differences between Ethereum and HLF may bring to the migrated application. Developers with the toolbox can migrate the application with little time and minimal modification. It is theoretically proved that the migrated application with the toolbox is secure. Besides, a prototype of the toolbox is implemented. The extensive experiments demonstrate that the time for the migration process is acceptable, and the toolbox has little impact on the migrated application’s performance.

Permissioned Blockchain-Based Secure and Privacy-Preserving Data Sharing Protocol

In this Internet of Things era, privacy-preserving are one of the most vital barriers for personal data sharing. In this paper, we present a secure and privacy-preserving data sharing protocol over the permissioned blockchains which require to certificate the users before they submit the transactions. We use the structure-preserving Groth signature to construct the anonymous credentials for satisfying the requirement of permissioned blockchains, and the anonymous credentials does not disclose the real identities of data owners. We prove that the anonymous credential in our protocol achieves the ideal functionality. For the secure access control and privacy-protection of the data accessors, we propose an efficiently anonymous authentication scheme which utilizes the ElGamal commitment and the one-out-of-many proof to ensure a data accessor is authorized, but any unauthorized entities cannot learn the real identity of the data accessor, and even the data owner does not know who (although in the access control list) and when downloads his/her data. The blockchain platform is used to record the data storing, access control list, and the storage addresses, which helps to enhance the security level of the protocol. We implement our protocol over the ThinkPad, the RaspBerry Pi, the Huawei cloud and the Hyperledger Fabric, and the experiments show the good performances.

Traceability strategy choice in competing supply chains based on blockchain technology

AbstractBlockchain can help reduce fraud and improve visibility and traceability in supply chains. It has attracted significant investments in commercial practices, especially in the luxury industry. With the recent upgradation of consumption worldwide, consumers care more about the source of information and the value of products. Will tracing products using blockchain technology help competing luxury brands gain consumer trust and cultivate new competitive advantages? This paper proposes a supply chain model comprising two competing manufacturers selling online through retail or direct channels. It also explores whether and how manufacturers implement traceability strategies, including building traceability systems or joining third‐party blockchain platforms, considering blockchain's traceability. The results show that, when only one party adopts the traceability strategy, being the first mover to join a third‐party blockchain platform with high traceability is always beneficial for improving the profits of all parties. In this scenario, the blockchain platform should adopt as high traceability as possible. When both parties choose to trace the product source, a win–win strategy for them is to join third‐party blockchain platforms with low traceability. In this scenario, the untraced party is motivated to implement a traceability strategy. Furthermore, if consumer perceptions of traceability are high, an untraced manufacturer can obtain higher profits using the traceability strategy. Otherwise, low consumer perception of traceability leads to low‐price competition, which is harmful to luxury brands.

Study of Government Subsidies and Manufacturers' Decision to Join the Blockchain

Based on the increase of people's environmental awareness and the application of blockchain technology in various fields, this paper combines blockchain and green supply chain, establishes a secondary supply chain led by manufacturers and followed by retailers, explores the pricing strategy and blockchain platform adoption conditions of the traditional green supply chain compared with the green supply chain that joins the blockchain platform, and considers the pricing strategy of government-subsidized manufacturers and blockchain platform adoption The paper also considers the pricing strategies and blockchain platform adoption conditions of government-subsidised manufacturers. Firstly, the paper finds that green supply chain companies do not join blockchain platforms in all cases. Manufacturers and retailers are motivated to join blockchain platforms when the cost of operating the platform is low and consumer trust in the value of the product is low. This is because the benefits of increased demand due to increased consumer trust in green products more than compensate for the cost of operating a blockchain platform. However, when companies join the blockchain platform, the retail price of green products will rise and consumers will not benefit from the blockchain platform. When the government subsidises manufacturers, manufacturers, retailers and consumers all benefit from the blockchain platform when green supply chain companies join the blockchain platform. Furthermore, demand for green products does not always increase when there are government subsidies.

Shockwavelike Behavior across Social Media.

Online communities featuring "anti-X" hate and extremism, somehow thrive online despite moderator pressure. We present a first-principles theory of their dynamics, which accounts for the fact that the online population comprises diverse individuals and evolves in time. The resulting equation represents a novel generalization of nonlinear fluid physics and explains the observed behavior across scales. Its shockwavelike solutions explain how, why, and when such activity rises from "out-of-nowhere," and show how it can be delayed, reshaped, and even prevented by adjusting the online collective chemistry. This theory and findings should also be applicable to anti-X activity in next-generation ecosystems featuring blockchain platforms and Metaverses.

The construction of blockchain platform for engineering museums based on vectorized image processing technology

Abstract The characteristics of blockchain such as tamper-evident and distributed can effectively solve the increasingly prominent security and privacy issues in engineering pavilions, however, the current throughput of mainstream blockchain platforms is far from meeting the demand for rapid chain-up of massive data in engineering pavilions, and the high redundancy storage mechanism adopted by traditional blockchain cannot be applied to engineering pavilion scenarios. To address the above problems, based on vectorized image processing technology, a hierarchical blockchain architecture is first proposed to store block data in multiple distributed cloud servers and edge servers in a hierarchical manner to cope with the growing data volume in the industrial Internet. Then based on the topology between edge servers, a blockchain network slicing algorithm is designed based on an improved complex network association partitioning algorithm, which improves the blockchain network throughput while shortening the slicing time. Finally, the impact of block broadcast time on throughput is demonstrated by formalizing the block broadcast process as a spanning tree, based on which a spanning tree-based intra-slice master node selection algorithm is proposed to further improve the throughput of the blockchain network. The analysis and experimental results show that the proposed scheme effectively reduces the partitioning time of the blockchain network and the broadcast time of the blocks within each partition. Compared with the classical association partitioning algorithm, this paper's partitioning algorithm can reduce the partitioning time by about 36% without sacrificing the quality of partitioning when partitioning a large-scale network.

Blockchain technology and the potential of waqf (Islamic endowment) sector revival

The waqf (Islamic endowment) sector encompasses significant untapped wealth that can contribute to socioeconomic and sustainable development. The sector suffers, however, from prevailing trust issues that have weakened its role and impaired its effective utilisation. As a trust-building technology, blockchain emerges as a potential solution to overcome waqf challenges. To demonstrate the prospects of blockchain technology in waqf revival, this paper presents the challenges faced by the waqf sector and the value that blockchain technology can bring to the sector, the challenges facing the adoption of the technology considering the prevalent governance and management structures and the current operating models. It also overviews blockchain in practice. This paper argues that the value of blockchain technology in waqf lies primarily in the development and management of waqf assets. This value, however, may only be reaped once existing waqf challenges have been resolved and a carefully architectured governance structure is developed. The waqf development and management model warrants close coordination with government agencies and waqf authorities as the current custodians of waqf assets. This renders some features of blockchain, namely decentralisation, irrelevant. Challenges related to legal and Sharia uncertainties surrounding blockchain technology and cryptocurrencies pose risks that must be carefully considered to ensure that blockchain waqf platforms are not pursued as a venture driven solely by blockchain hype.

Application of Blockchain Technology for Microgrid Restoration

In this paper, a novel microgrid (MG) restoration framework is proposed based on Blockchain Technology (BCT). The proposed method consists of a two-stage restoration process. In the first stage, stable Blockchain (BC) links are formulated with the grid-forming Distributed Energy Resources (DERs). In the second stage, load assignment is carried out based on the priority level of the load. The miners run through the consensus mechanism to accommodate the priority-based loads to their corresponding BC links. The consensus mechanism provides the value of an index, known as Combined Stability Measurement (CSM). The BC link, with the higher CSM value, is declared as the winner of the consensus mechanism. Subsequently, the targeted priority load is assigned to that winner BC link. The proposed BCT-based restoration framework is tested with the modified IEEE-33 and IEEE-69 bus test systems using the Ethereum blockchain platform.

Phishing Node Detection in Ethereum Transaction Network Using Graph Convolutional Networks

As the use of digital currencies, such as cryptocurrencies, increases in popularity, phishing scams and other cybercriminal activities on blockchain platforms (e.g., Ethereum) have also risen. Current methods of detecting phishing in Ethereum focus mainly on the transaction features and local network structure. However, these methods fail to account for the complexity of interactions between edges and the handling of large graphs. Additionally, these methods face significant issues due to the limited number of positive labels available. Given this, we propose a scheme that we refer to as the Bagging Multiedge Graph Convolutional Network to detect phishing scams on Ethereum. First, we extract the features from transactions and transform the complex Ethereum transaction network into three simple inter-node graphs. Then, we use graph convolution to generate node embeddings that leverage the global structural information of the inter-node graphs. Further, we apply the bagging strategy to overcome the issues of data imbalance and the Positive Unlabeled (PU) problem in transaction data. Finally, to evaluate our approach’s effectiveness, we conduct experiments using actual transaction data. The results demonstrate that our Bagging Multiedge Graph Convolutional Network (0.877 AUC) outperforms all of the baseline classification methods in detecting phishing scams on Ethereum.

Process mining for artifact-centric blockchain applications

Process mining can provide valuable insights into user behavior, performance, and security for blockchain applications. In return, process mining benefits from the trustworthiness of blockchain data. One obstacle to realizing these benefits is that blockchain data is inadequate for process mining. This issue has been previously explored in literature, but mainly with regards to workflow-centric processes, leaving out the more common artifact-centric applications. This article introduces ACEL (Artifact-Centric Event Log), an extension to the OCEL (Object-Centric Event Log) standard, specifically designed for artifact-centric processes. Additionally, we present a method for extracting ACEL logs from the Ethereum blockchain platform and demonstrate its effectiveness and the perspectives of process discovery through two case studies of public Ethereum applications.

Decentralized Blockchain-Enabled Employee Authentication System

In recent years, there have been many attempts to introduce blockchain-based identity management solutions, which allow the user to take over control of his/her own identity. In this paper, the authors have reviewed in-depth existing blockchain-based identity management papers and patents published online. Based on that analysis of the literature, a system will be implemented which will come up with the current issues and try to minimize them. Being transparent, immutable, and decentralized in nature, blockchain mechanism is found to be a better technology which can reduce the corruption in the experimental scenario. The objective is to develop a decentralized system which can be used for the verification of the employees in an organization. This is done to stop or reduce the cases of identity theft and data leakage in recent time. This system will be using Ethereum blockchain platform for monitoring the information and smart contract for authentication.

Response Methods and Optimization Measures for Natural Disasters in The Context of Block Chain and E-commerce Platform Development

In recent years, the frequent occurrence of natural disasters has aroused people's attention all over the country, such as the recent rainstorm in Zhengzhou. We plan to design an emergency management mini program based on blockchain to cope with natural disasters, open up production, transportation and distribution channels of materials, achieve accurate distribution of materials, better meet people's needs, and shorten the period of post-disaster reconstruction.

State regulation of the system of blockchain technologies and cryptocurrency operations

Digital technologies are increasingly penetrating various spheres of society, including the economic one. Blockchain the technology has existed for less than 10 years, however, it has successfully established itself in the Russian and world markets. Today, many organizations prefer to invest in specific systems based on blockchain technology. In the Russian Federation, blockchain technologies are also developing rapidly, which means they require clear state and legal regulation. The object of the study is the processes of state regulation and procedures for the use of blockchain technologies in the public financial sector. The subject is managerial, legal, organizational and economic relations, manifested in the development of blockchain technologies in the financial sector of the state. The published article reveals the essence and content of the blockchain platform in the development of a modern payment system, in particular, it substantiates the need for the use of blockchain technology by financial market participants as an innovative tool to accelerate the development of the economy, and considers the interest for the state, since the amount of taxes levied on the crypto industry is a significant share in the specific volume of taxes collected. The risks of using blockchain technologies in the financial system of the state are analyzed. Special attention is paid to the state regulation of the cryptocurrency industry. The main provisions of the road map for cryptocurrencies are considered; the main provisions of the Concept of regulating the circulation of digital currencies; the main provisions of the bill of the Ministry of Finance of the Russian Federation on the regulation of cryptocurrencies. The tools of state regulation of digital currency and the sphere of cryptocurrency are given.

WASMOD: Detecting vulnerabilities in Wasm smart contracts

AbstractOver the past few years, blockchain platforms supporting WebAssembly (Wasm) smart contracts are gaining popularity. However, Wasm smart contracts are often compiled from memory‐unsafe languages (e.g. C and C++). And there is a lack of effective defense against integer overflow and stack overflow at the compiler and virtual machine (VM) layers, making Wasm smart contracts even more exploitable than native C and C++ programs. In this paper, the authors propose wasm overflow detector (WASMOD) to address the integer overflow and stack overflow vulnerabilities. The authors’ approach combines bytecode instrumentation, run‐time validation, and grey‐box fuzzing to detect these vulnerabilities. The authors applied their approach to the popular EOSIO blockchain and evaluated it on 4616 deployed Wasm smart contracts. The authors’ approach detected 13 real‐world vulnerable smart contracts.