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Security token offerings (STOs), based on blockchain technology, are attracting increasing attention as an innovative alternative means of venture financing. Information about specific STOs is generally provided in white papers. This study analyses the content of white papers using a unique sample of 188 STOs from 2017 to 2021 to identify which topic is related to campaign success. We leverage latent Dirichlet allocation (LDA) topic modelling to identify the topics and themes in white papers. Nine topics are identified through LDA: company description, distributed ledger technology components, energy and green issues, financial and legal issues, artificial intelligence, and tech applications in different industries—specifically, healthcare, manufacturing and construction, education, and financial services. We find that energy and green issues represent one of the most prominent topics among all types of projects and that their disclosure is positively related to the probability of campaign success and the amount of funding raised. Another prominent topic that affects campaign outcomes is technology in the healthcare industry, reflecting wider investment trends in this sector. Our results may help entrepreneurs to improve their campaign disclosures and present new issues for policymakers regarding investments in digital tokens. • An integrated framework of STOs success is proposed by combining topic modelling with other campaigns' indicators. • Company's energy consumption and green impact is one of the most dealt topics among all types of projects. • The technological components in the healthcare field is a topic related to the campaign success • Energy consumption and green issues must be adequately disclosed to affect campaign success. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research paper presents an innovative approach to address the challenges associated with platitudinous paper certificates and electronic certificates. These challenges include issues such as preservation, management, verification inconvenience, poor reliability, and susceptibility to counterfeiting and tampering. The suggested approach involves an autonomous certificate system leveraging blockchain technology and smart contracts. Tailored for university students engaged in innovation and entrepreneurship competitions, this platform is intended to offer blockchain-based certification services. Within this system, various functions related to certificates, such as management, issuance, verification, and revocation, are executed through smart contracts. Structured data within these contracts stores information about signers, certificate templates, and certificate details. This structure simplifies the process of querying and validating certificates, all the while maintaining their security and authenticity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• The characteristics that can revolutionize Blockchain technology are thoroughly described. • The WoS literature is being explored with a systematic review on Blockchain. • The current state of Blockchain technology is thoroughly investigated. • Findings of the study highlight some significant implications to the Blockchain community. • A mapping of the major open issues for Blockchain to possible solutions is tabulated. At present times, Blockchain technology is gaining more attraction with every passing day, as it has revolutionized the traditional trade due to its distributed ledger feature, every record in this ledger is secured by rules of cryptography which makes it more secure and tamper-free. This naturally led to the emergence of various types of cryptocurrency, such as Bitcoin, which builds on a technology commonly known as Blockchain. The rapid evolution of research on Blockchain calls for more research studies for investigating and analyzing the current knowledge in this field through a systematic technical study that shows the impact and significance of the related literature since the inception of the technology in 2013. From this point, in this paper, a state-of-the-art review is conducted on the most influential articles, conference papers, and review papers related to Blockchain published from 2013 to 2020 and indexed by the Web of Science Core CollectionTM (WoS) world's literature database. To attain the desired objective, after presenting an inevitable, brief overview of Blockchain technology, the collected papers have closely been analyzed along seven key research questions. Subsequently, vital valuable findings, such as the top 10 influential papers, yearly publications and citation trends, the favorite publication venues, the hottest research areas, and the most supportive funding bodies are reported, which may offer several implications about the status quo and emerging trends and frontiers of Blockchain, to guide towards establishing a baseline for both fresh and experienced researchers and practitioners before initiating a future research project on Blockchain. Furthermore, a rigorous discussion is provided on Blockchain application in diversified domains, along with different versatile use cases. Lastly, a brief insight is presented into open challenges and potential future advancements in the field of Blockchain. Summing up, this paper is meant to assist newbies in exploring and designing new Blockchain solutions, bearing in mind existing demands and challenges. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• ICOs democratise entrepreneurial finance by allowing small investors to participate. • Key information about an Initial Coin Offering (ICO) is outlined in a white paper. • White paper is an important source of information for ICO investors. • There is no standard form or legal requirement for white papers. • The white paper's length and text complexity are correlated with the ICO success. Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs) are a new form of venture capital financing that raised more than 30 billion US dollars between 2016 and 2019. ICOs opened up the venture capital market to a more diverse investor base previously limited to "sophisticated" investors. This study analyses 1,258 white papers and finds that the length is positively correlated with the amount raised during the ICO and the likelihood of successfully completing the ICO. In contrast, the readability grade of the white paper is only positively correlated with the amount raised. The study highlights the role of voluntary disclosure in the ICO market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The application of blockchain technology is growing rapidly, which has aroused great attention in the academic and industrial fields. Based on blockchain 2.0, Ethereum is a mainstream smart contract development and operation platform. The trading process of Ethereum users is facing a serious threat of financial fraud. In particular, the Ponzi scheme is a classic form of fraud. Relevant works have investigated the issue of Ponzi schemes smart contract detection on Ethereum based on machine learning approaches. Nevertheless, the detection approaches still fall short in dealing with the big data-space Ponzi scheme smart contract detection application based on the class-imbalanced training data. We propose PSD-OL, a Ponzi schemes detection approach based on oversampling-based Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) for smart contracts in this paper. PSD-OL takes the contract account features and the contract code features together into consideration. Oversampling technique is utilized to fill the class-imbalanced Ponzi scheme smart contracts' sample feature data. An LSTM model is trained by learning from the feature data for future Ponzi scheme detection. Experimental results conducted on the well-known XBlock dataset demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• A novel agent marketplace is built on top of blockchain-based Smart Contracts. • The agent marketplace is integrated into an agent composition framework, to support automated agent selection and payment. The chemical industry is increasingly relying on agents for data acquisition, optimization, and simulation. In order to enable efficient management of agents, Knowledge Graphs (KG) together with agent composition frameworks are therefore applied. However, a method to assess the reliability of agents for such systems is absent. Therefore, this paper proposes a Smart Contract-based agent marketplace for composition frameworks to estimate the reliability of agents. In this agent marketplace, we improved the feedback-based reputation system by leveraging Smart Contracts to eliminate fraudulent ratings and to enable automation. The marketplace incorporates a rating-dependent payment mechanism as well, to further enhance trust. The paper also illustrates how this marketplace is integrated into the J-Park Simulator (JPS) agent composition framework for the automated agent selection and transaction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the use of Internet of Things (IoT) and smart bin technologies to automate the recycling waste collection process and ensure the reliability of the entire system through the incorporation of security measures and blockchain technology. With the increasing global concern for waste management and sustainable practices, the integration of IoT and smart bins brings forth a multitude of benefits. These include heightened efficiencies, reduced costs, and improved accuracy in waste collection. By integrating IoT sensors into traditional waste bins, these smart bins can gather data regarding the fill levels of waste. This enables waste collectors to optimize their routes and collection schedules, resulting in a more streamlined process. The collected data is securely transmitted to the relevant stakeholders and it is recorded on a blockchain-based platform to enhance transparency and accountability. The incorporation of security measures ensures the privacy and integrity of the collected data throughout the entire data transmission process. This paper emphasizes the immense potential of utilizing IoT and smart bin technologies to revolutionize waste collection practices, thereby contributing to a more efficient and sustainable recycling ecosystem. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The progression in quantum computing and the rapid development of quantum computation hardware has raised expectations for its application to commercially relevant use cases in the future. However, the need for high-level quantum programming abstractions and targeted use cases paired with vertical applications, which can directly benefit from quantum computing, remains an open challenge. This paper presents our vision for a decentralized architecture for swarm based IoT systems that leverages a high-level continuous development and integration quantum programming suite to support edge processing capabilities for different use cases across the edge-fog-cloud continuum. The planned Quantum DevKit provides the necessary abstractions and low-level backend interfaces for quantum computing infrastructure, enabling edge computation using quantum processing, with extensions to efficient management of Service Level Agreements (SLAs). The paper focuses on the presentation of the development kit and its coupling swarm-based architecture that automates the orchestration of the cloud-to-edge continuum, showcasing the potential of quantum technology in edge processing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Internet of Things (IoT) is an innovative technology used in manufacturing, environmental monitoring, home automation, human health applications, and other fields. IoT devices, however, are susceptible to various security risks. Cyber-attacks on IoT systems can halt the entire system, resulting in data loss. Intrusion Detection Systems (IDS) can quickly identify malicious activity that could have compromised the network's performance. Effective IDS and Intrusion Prevention System (IPS) are necessary to protect IoT systems. Blockchain technology presents another innovative method to strengthen security systems against the latest attacks. This paper focuses on conducting a Systematic Literature Review (SLR) on Blockchain-based Intrusion Detection/Prevention Systems in IoT Networks. We reviewed several relevant blockchain-based IDS and IPS proposed for IoT networks and their mechanisms. The most recent research articles, published between 2017 and 2022, were selected from several databases. Consequently, a comprehensive review of these selected papers sheds light on their techniques, advantages, and drawbacks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Blockchain technology has become a reality and its experimentation promises a future of innovative and beneficial technology. In almost all fields, this technology has seduced the actors because of its potentialities, namely traceability, transparency, security, immutability, etc. However, setting up such a technology adapted to one's needs is far from being a classic project. Indeed, a technical and organizational decision support is very important during a blockchain project to measure its actions and anticipate the risks. In this paper, we will focus on the choice of the public or private blockchain according to technical, functional criteria, and a decision aid module based on the Fuzzy method is proposed to do so. The results obtained prove the effectiveness of our approach used in this paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Updated review paper on blockchain-based smart contract adoption in agriculture and food industry globally by the Governments and the private entities. • Comprehensive listing of the most popular smart contract platforms among the developer community and their notable features. • Overview of current obstacles and emerging trends of blockchain technology in the agriculture and food sector. Blockchain Technology has been finding industry-wide applications over the decade ranging from supply chain traceability to tamper-proof land registrations; facilitated by smart contracts and non-fungible tokens. The inherent immutability, transparency, and security of blockchain networks can transform the agriculture and food industry. Although several reviews have already been written, a complete in-depth analysis covering the popular smart contract platforms, current research progress concerning the agriculture and food industry, and applications of blockchain technology other than supply chain traceability has not been well documented. This paper discusses smart contracts-the computer programs that run on the blockchain, the smart contract life cycle, some of the most popular smart contract platforms among the developer community, and smart contact applications in the agriculture and food industry which includes a gist of recent developments in the Government and private sector across continents and the challenges and future trends associated with the use of this rapidly evolving technology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The evolution of mobile technology has produced new methods and policies for organisations to process data and communicate. Bring your own device (BYOD), which allows employees to bring their own personal devices to work and access organisational resources for work purposes, is one such new policy. However, as this practice poses significant risks, organisations must implement commensurate security measures to protect their integrity. This paper aimed to mitigate these risks by proposing a decentralized and unassailable security control solution tailored to the BYOD environment. The proposed architecture leveraged business blockchain with smart contracts (SCs) to automate policy compliance and strictly adhere to organisational rules and regulations. The research demonstrated that this approach effectively reduces access control (AC) threats and enhances security policies and management. The findings highlighted that the implementation of SCs within a blockchain framework significantly improves the security of the BYOD environment by minimising the risks of unauthorised access, data breaches, and insider threats. Additionally, SCs enable organisations to establish decentralised and tamper-proof security control systems, reducing the dependence on centralised authorities and bolstering overall system integrity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There are many papers and tools regarding the detection of unsafe contracts, but few ways for detection results to practically benefit contract users and owners. This paper presents a Blockchain Safe Browsing (BSB) platform to safely disseminate those detection results. An encrypted blacklist will be generated to provide privacy preserving user warning before they make transactions with unsafe contracts. Contract owners will be notified that there are vulnerabilities in their contracts, and they can purchase related reports which record how to exploit the vulnerabilities. The profits inspire the researchers to contribute their update-to-date lists of unsafe contracts. An effective encryption scheme is developed to guarantee that only contract owners can decrypt the encrypted reports. Extensive evaluations demonstrate that our prototype can function as intended without sacrificing user experience. • A Blockchain Safe Browsing platform is presented to safely disseminate smart contract detection results. • The researchers are inspired to contribute their update-to-date lists of unsafe contracts to generate an integrated contract blacklist. • The blacklist can be used to warn users before they make transactions with unsafe contracts. • Contract owners can safely obtain knowledge about how to exploit the vulnerabilities in their contracts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ludwig von Mises produced an impossibility theorem indicating that economic calculation in the absence of market prices was impossible. This gave rise to the 'socialist calculation debate' in the first half of the twentieth century. This paper makes use of the insights of that debate to shed light on other situations where decision makers are required to allocate resources in areas where there are no market prices. A pertinent example would be most corporate social responsibility programs. In the absence of market prices local information cannot be communicated to decision makers. The paper further argues that blockchain technology can create the institutional environment for markets to emerge and consequently overcome the problem of missing prices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The process of miner selection in blockchain networks plays a significant role in maintaining the efficiency and security of the net- work. In blockchain, the consensus algorithm is crucial for miner selection. Considering the downsides of the consensus algorithm (PoW, PoS) this paper employs proof of artificial intelligence (PoAI) over proof of stake and proof of work. This paper proposes an approach for miner selection using the Proof of Artificial Intelligence (PoAI) framework, which leverages Deep Neural Networks (DNNs) to predict efficient miners for blockchain networks. This paper describes the design and implementation of our PoAI that uses DNN algorithm on a bitcoin dataset, is a combination of supervised and unsupervised learning techniques to model the be- havior of miners using suitable features such as age, number of blocks mined, transaction volume and number of transactions. The proposed methodology improves the scalability of the consensus algorithm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Fast, reliable signature generation, blockchain storage, and video verification. • Our method detects video forgery on any file, anytime, anywhere, by anyone. • Insignificant additional storage requirements with respect to video size. • Withstands attacks: collisions, key substitutions, side-channels, chosen messages. • Aids real-time devices, e.g., phones, CCTV, serving legal, police, medical inquiries. Within the field of forensic science, video integrity is an essential component that ensures the validity and dependability of visual evidence that is essential for court cases. Maintaining the integrity of justice in a time when digital modification tools are easily accessible requires making sure that video recordings are unaltered. Video footage is carefully inspected by forensic analysts who use advanced tools to look for indications of manipulation or change. This paper presents a novel, lightweight approach for verifying the integrity of video data. The proposed method utilizes the blockchain and the Edwards Curve Digital Signature Algorithm, coupled with the BLAKE2b hash function. Signatures are generated for video clips with a predetermined size called video segments and stored in blocks chronologically. The signature of the previous block is stored in the current block to add another layer of security. At the time of validation, these signatures are verified. Experimental results show that the proposed method outperforms state-of-the-art methods in both speed and security. Our method is capable of identifying any type of forgery on any video file, by anyone, at any given moment, with insignificant additional storage requirements. Furthermore, our security analysis shows that our method is resilient against various types of attacks, including collision attacks, key substitution attacks, side-channel attacks, and chosen message attacks. The proposed lightweight video integrity verification method is better suited for use in resource constrained devices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Industry 4.0 technologies have become one of the main enablers for implementing Circular Economy e↵orts, creating smart and connected products, processes, and systems that can optimize resource usage, reduce waste, and improve efficiency, with a significant environmental impact. Blockchain is a technology that was initially centered on authentication and security applications. Currently, its utility has extended to solving multiple problems across industries. This paper explores the di↵erent applications of the Blockchain related to the circular economy. A systematic literature review method was applied to analyze the main objectives, advantages, disadvantages, opportunities, and challenges of implementing Blockchain in various industrial sectors. Results show a growing trend in applications with favorable impacts, especially in sectors like Manufacturing, Energy, and Automotive. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Security agencies collect evidence from whistleblowers to take action against criminals. Moreover, security agencies provide rewards to encourage whistleblowers for their services. However, sometimes, security agencies may have individuals who are not trustworthy. Such insider adversaries disclose the identities of whistleblowers and modify the order of evidence submission to provide rewards to specific whistleblowers. In this paper, we present the crime-reporting and rewarding mechanism to protect the identities of whistleblowers and reward genuine and first whistleblowers. The proposed mechanism not only protects in the presence of outsider adversaries but also in the presence of active insider adversaries. To the best of our knowledge, the proposed mechanism is reliable in identifying and rewarding genuine and first whistleblowers. We use the public ledger to timestamp and record submissions and smart contracts to automatically transfer rewards to genuine and first whistleblowers. To show the feasibility, we implemented the proposed mechanism. Security and performance analysis show that the proposed mechanism is secure against active insider and outsider adversaries, reliable, and transparent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The current model of healthcare insurance claim adjudication faces significant challenges, in particular fraudulent claims which significantly strain the economy. This paper introduces a novel approach that integrates Data Aggregation, Artificial Intelligence (AI), and Blockchain technologies to enhance the efficiency of healthcare claim adjudication. We present in this study an initial framework that integrates an AI-enhanced smart contract at the data aggregation level. A new concept that enhances the existing smart contract models commonly discussed in blockchain-related insurance literature. Our primary goal is to improve fraud detection and maximize the use of extensive data generated within the insurance ecosystem for prediction, learning, and strategic planning. The concept of an AI-data aggregation-level smart contract, introduced here, holds promise for broad application across various blockchain platforms, not limited to our discussion on healthcare claims insurance adjudication. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we mean by digital health passport a digital passport or immunity passport that stores information about an individual's personal data, health status, travel history, health conditions, and medical and drug records. The proposed innovative scheme can ease travel, ensure free movement, and minimize economic damages. However, protecting personal and digital health passport information during a crisis is challenging. Therefore, this paper aims to propose an agent-based secure decentralized innovative digital health passport protocol that is interoperable, fault-tolerant, and compatible with privacy standards. The proposed solution is known as Secure Mobile Digital Passport Agent (SMDPA), uses: (1) Private Set Intersection (PSI) to (a) protect Digital Health Passport Information (DHPA) against surveillance, especially during the crisis, (b) generate Bit Passing Coin (BPC); (2) blockchain to store serialized SMDPAs copies (3) mobile agent to disseminate DHPA autonomously; (4) Location and time attributes for data minimization. We prototype the proposed solution using the JADE agent framework. The performance measurements show that the result is acceptable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Production control is an essential component of a production system used to monitor and manage production orders. Centrally controlled production systems rely on basic data management, such as storing the bill of materials and required work schedules. Components of customer orders are added to generate the corresponding production orders. However, this type of production control can pose serious problems in case of unforeseen events such as machine failure or changing customer requirements during production. In such scenarios, costly and time-consuming re-scheduling becomes necessary, which endangers the company's competitive position and leads to data retention issues. This paper introduces a new method of production control based on the concept of smart orders. Smart orders use smart contracts for autonomous routing based on programmed information in the source code, enabling self-control through the production system. Smart contracts are transaction programs that work with 'if-then logic", allowing for partially flexible process schedules and reducing the need for human intervention. The smart order uses the functionalities of blockchain technology, such as security, transparency, and immutability, to ensure the integrity of production data. The paper concludes by presenting the expected value propositions of smart order-based production control on the production system. Depending on the production control system used, companies can integrate the results presented in this paper into their own blockchain implementation strategy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Peer-to-peer (P2P) electricity trading has become the next generation of energy management strategies that economically benefit prosumers by trading electricity as goods and services. The P2P electricity market is expected to support the grid to minimize reserve requirements, lower investment and operational costs, reduce peak demand, and improve reliability. Nonetheless, the deployment of P2P electricity trading in the electricity networks is challenging in terms of modelling the transactions in both the physical and virtual layers of the network. The physical layer is a physical network that enables the transfer of electricity from the sellers to the buyers once financial settlements between both parties are completed over the virtual layer platform. The virtual layer facilitates a secured connection for participants to decide on their electricity trading parameters. This paper systematically reviews the current developments in the P2P electricity trading literature. Importantly, the systematic literature review brings to light six essential components in P2P electricity trading processes, namely: P2P electricity trading platforms, P2P market schemes, P2P electricity trading market clearance algorithms, policy supporting P2P electricity trading, P2P electricity trading networks and P2P ICT infrastructure, which are discussed in detail in the paper. Accordingly, for each component, state-of-the-art technologies, notable findings, and best practice insights are comprehensively reviewed, based on which directions for future research are presented. The P2P electricity market is a rapidly emerging research domain with significant opportunities and prospects globally in the industry and academia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Solid waste management is one of the problems that has gained greater prominence in recent years. This topic has been discussed with greater emphasis in conjunction with environmental issues, driven by changes in the most diverse fields provided by the recent post-pandemic scenario. However, due to traditional or inefficient waste management approaches, most trash bins placed in cities can be seen as overflowing. Therefore, a remote monitoring system is needed to alert the level of garbage in bins to the relevant authority for waste clearance. In this scenario, the Internet of Things (IoT) paradigm plays a vital role in improving smart city applications by tracking and managing city processes. This paper implements a solution based on Low-Power Wide-Area Network (LPWAN) and blockchain technologies to provide the required data available for increasing efficiency in solid waste collection. Finally, this paper provides an evaluation of the proposed architecture related to latency and throughput metrics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the most important, from the privacy point of view, interactions of patients with the healthcare system is giving access to medical information. This paper presents a proof-of-concept for a system that allows selectively sharing medical information from electronic health records using Blockchain technologies and QR codes. This is aligned to current medical paradigms that put the patient in the center of the healthcare process and pass the control of the medical data from doctors to patients. Such decentralized systems are very good candidates for Blockchain-based implementation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Big data and its analysis are crucial for other applications like the Internet of Things (IoT), data mining, cloud computing, etc. The volume of data is expanding along with the internet and other digital technologies. Traditional systems, however, cannot process this volume of data. Analyzing this much data will take a lot of work. However, there are several difficulties in assuring data security and privacy, such as safeguarding against data leakage and security breaches, flaws in open databases, and third-party data sharing, among others. This paper's goal is to analyze the benefits of blockchain in big data as well as its drawbacks and identify potential future approaches. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the ethical dilemmas propelled by a significant shift in the allocation of trust and intelligence due to blockchain technology and AI, resulting in a notable decrease in transaction costs. The ethical and political implications of democratizing the resulting productivity gains are noteworthy, and while the pie is expanding, how its slices are distributed remains an open question. Enter Worldcoin, an innovative worldwide initiative that creates an identity system based on proof of personhood and zero-knowledge proofs (ZKP) to provide everyone with a distinct and anonymous "World ID. Using the author's "cyberethics-mix" framework, this paper examines the possible implications of such a system concerning data's protection, ownership, accuracy, and accessibility, underscoring the ethical significance of a political approach emphasizing inclusivity and sustainability through digital decentralization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Supply chain management (SCM), product traceability, and product quality certification are some of the initial prominent uses of blockchain technology. This is because blockchain technology is built on trust and cannot be changed. The popularity of blockchain technology is increasing as it is trustworthy and cannot be changed; hence making traceability easier for information such as where food came from, thus essential for managing the agricultural food supply chain (SC). On the contrary, suggested SCM systems premised on smart contract technology and blockchain tend to be specifically apply to production and production processes. Through qualitative research, this paper suggests framework for adoption of smart contracts based on Ethereum in the agri-food SC, with the aim to establish means to adopt blockchain for checking food quality and origins in the agri-food supply chain. Remix IDE is utilised to build and test the smart contract. The significance of the framework is realised through ensuring the traceability of product safety and quality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Blockchain has become one of the great drivers of technological evolution of nowadays, making industries interested in the possible applications of that technology. One of the sectors that can benefit from this technology is the online betting industry. According to Statista, the total value of transactions carried out in this industry will be 92.9 billion dollars in 2023. Therefore, the need to make transactions more transparent is undoubtedly one of the main requirements of the betting industry, which promotes continuous technological development in the search for ideal solutions. This "technology" allows the creation of records that cannot be falsified. The applicability of this technology in the betting industry can be very attractive in terms of ensuring greater transparency in transactions. Furthermore, in order to decentralize the organization, it is also intended to implement a DAO governance model. This model aims to solve a centralized governance problem and, therefore, consists of governance based on the code and not on a single person/entity. In the scope of this paper, it was possible to demonstrate through a proof-of-concept solution, the applicability of Blockchain and the DAO governance model in a bookmaker. Thie solution was designed and implemented on the Ethereum Blockchain platform, using smart contracts. The results obtained in the comparison study showed that the solution is viable and presents advantages compared to traditional solutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Chit fund is a peer-to-peer saving and borrowing scheme operated among trusted groups of people. It is a reliable source of funds in emergencies with no guarantor and low-interest rate. Despite their enduring benefits, chit funds face challenges related to trust, transparency, and security. At present, unscrupulous subscribers might join chit-funds, borrow money, and make payment defaults. This leads to disruptions in contribution cycle and affects overall functioning. Additionally, non-transparent record-keeping and transaction processes, hinder participants from verifying fund activities, creating a susceptible environment for fraud and malpractice. These challenges are an obstacle to the sustainability and trustworthiness of the chit-fund system. Therefore, to overcome aforementioned challenges, this paper proposes TruChit, a blockchain-based chit fund system with creditworthiness evaluation framework. It leverages the Adaptive Neuro-Fuzzy Inference System (ANFIS) to assess the creditworthiness of subscribers, which ensures the credibility and reliability of individual participants. Further, proposes permissioned blockchain-assisted chit-fund framework with role-based access control to instill trust, security, and transparency within chit-fund operations. Moreover, the efficacy of TruChit is evaluated by analyzing credit score dataset and achieves 93.5% accuracy, which is better than other approaches. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The demand for high data throughput and security in Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) communication is rising. Efficient data transmission remains challenging due to limited wireless resources. This paper introduces a Scale Perception Compression Method that leverages compression and blockchain technology to optimize UAV communication. The method involves normalizing data into matrices, generating compression and decompression matrix codebook pairs, and selecting suitable pairs for small or large-scale matrices. Simulation results show that the error rate is associated with the distributions of the data and compression matrix. It remains relatively low when the data and compression matrix subjected to Uniform distribution compared to Gaussian distribution, regardless of the values of the number of rows m and columns r in compression matrix. Bubble method is more suitable to find out the proper matrix pair to compress and decompress transmitted data for small-scale codebook because it is stable, fast and results in lower difference between original and recovered data matrices. The same applies to Merge method for the large-scale codebook. The ER is always lower based on a small-scale codebook searching by Bubble method than that of on a large-scale codebook searching by Merge method, which indicates the former is sufficient for compression. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Blockchain is a decentralized digital ledger technology that offers transparency, security, and immutability by recording and verifying transactions across multiple computers. However, it faces limitations such as scalability issues, high energy consumption, slow transaction validation, expanding storage requirements. Understanding these limitations is crucial for evaluating blockchain's suitability for specific use cases and finding solutions to overcome these challenges. Recognizing these limitations is imperative for assessing blockchain's applicability and devising solutions. This paper introduces a hybrid mechanism, ShardedScale, designed to enhance scalability, throughput, and system performance while mitigating time, gas, and ether consumption. The proposed ShardedScale approach combines various techniques including Proof of Work (PoW), Dynamic On-demand Proof of Stake (DPOS), Inter Planetary File System (IPFS), and sharding. ShardedScale achieved a remarkable 40% reduction in transaction confirmation times, a substantial 60% improvement in throughput, and demonstrated cost-effectiveness with a 30% reduction in gas price consumption and a 25% decrease in ethers consumption. These findings signify a significant step towards addressing challenges faced by traditional blockchain systems, providing valuable insights for future designs in blockchain technology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Blockchain is an emerging technology penetrating various real-time and sensitive domains including financial products. Block chain can deal with complex system of financial transactions with focus to provide security and integrity to both the parties with reliable flow of transactions and asset securitization. Block chain is a distributed technology providing a lot of benefits such as cryptic transactions, smart contracts, distributed ledger system along with decentralization, authentication, authorization, and immutability to enhance the efficiency of the financial system. In this paper, the existing solutions for asset-backed securitization in blockchain are analysed and reviewed to highlight the requirements for change in design and ideas for enterprise applicability of blockchain for asset securitization. Also, the benefits of blockchain to reduce the risk. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

By using the PoW protocol, mining pools compete to successfully mine blocks to pursue rewards. Generally, the reward from a mined block includes the fixed block subsidies and the time-varying transaction fees. The latter are offered by the senders whose transactions are packaged into blocks and are increasing with the block size being larger. However, the larger block size brings the longer latency, resulting in a smaller probability of successfully mining. Therefore, decision on the optimal block size of a block to trade off two factors above mentioned is a complex and crucial problem for the mining pools. In this paper, we model the repeated mining competition dynamics among mining pools as an evolutionary game, in which each mining pool has two strategies: following the upper bound of block size B ¯ , or selecting a block size smaller than B ¯. Because of the bounded rationality, each mining pool pursues its evolutionary stable strategy (ESS) on block size by continuous learning and adjustments during the whole mining process. A framework is built for the general evolutionary game, based on which we then explore the existence and stability of the ESSs for a case of two mining pools. Numerical experiments using the real Bitcoin data are conducted to demonstrate the theoretical results in this paper. • A framework is built for the general evolutionary game. • Based on the analysis framework, we then explore the existence and stability of the ESSs for a case of two mining pools. • Numerical experiments using the real-world Bitcoin data are conducted to demonstrate the theoretical results in this paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Blockchain emerged as a leading technology layer for financial applications. Nevertheless, in the past years, the attention of researchers and practitioners moved to the application of the blockchain technologies in other domains. Supply chain is the topic playing more attention to the blockchain. In line with this consideration, this paper focuses on case studies of blockchain implementation targeting the supply chain context. Through a systematic literature review, we derived a list of 107 papers retrieved from the Scopus database and published in the main academic reference journals. Using these studies, this paper tracks and analyses the evolution of the research field based on publication year and journals, most prominent countries and authors and keywords' analysis. The results provide a clear picture of the existing literature to identify the research gap of the current scientific research and to propose a future research agenda. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To abate global carbon emissions, there has been an unprecedented push for carbon transparency in the manufacturing industry. However, with products becoming increasingly complex, they contain sub-assemblies with components that have sub-components supplied by different manufacturers. This creates a multi-tier supply chain that complicates the propagation of sustainability information necessary to compute the product's carbon emission due to the lack of oversight and potential loss of information from manufacturers in the multi-tier supply chain. Blockchain technology, characterized by its immutability, visibility, and traceability, is a promising medium to propagate sustainability information. Despite the fact that many papers have proposed a system that is viable for products with a multi-tier supply chain in the literature, we have not seen its proof-of-concept yet. This work first proposes a blockchain-enabled system that enables the propagation of environmental sustainability information in a multi-tier supply chain. This paper describes the architecture of the proposed blockchain system and the data structure of each block in the blockchain. Based on the defined architecture, we implemented the proposed blockchain system with Ethereum and tested it using the pseudo-multi-tier supply chain of a torchlight. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Authentication and Authorization are the base of security for all the Technologies present in this world today. Starting from your smartphone where a user authenticates himself before he could access the data inside to Entering into the White House, you must authenticate yourself, and based on that you are authorized. In this digital world where every Business, MNC, Government Body, Companies, Users, etc. needs a website to inform the world about their presence on the internet, provide services online and become a "Brand", the risk of leaking user's sensitive information increases. It could be dangerous to the users of the hacked website because their sensitive information like a credit card, bank account details, etc. could be sold in the black market of the "dark web". The role of the dark web is described in the paper and how the data is sold there and what becomes of it. The paper helps to understand how a secure website is developed that promises the user to keep the sensitive information safe, increases the bond of trust between a client and server which results in a long-term relationship. The aim behind developing an authentication system is to keep users' sensitive information safe so that hackers cannot steal and sell the information on the dark web's back market. To perform this, the developer needs to understand how to implement authentication. NodeJS, with the help of its framework expressJS and some other packages, is used to develop the authentication and authorization system of the website by the research. Previous papers on this field covered the authentication topic in general. This paper overcame that by going deeper into the field and being server-side language specific. The common types of authentication methods used in different types of websites are discussed in detail and the best methods are purposed for the developer to be implemented for a more secure website. This research put light on Artificial Intelligence and blockchain as the future of security of big data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

DeFi, or Decentralized Finance, is based on a distributed ledger called blockchain technology. Using blockchain, DeFi may customize the execution of predetermined operations between parties. The DeFi system use blockchain technology to execute user transactions, such as lending and exchanging. The total value locked in DeFi decreased from $200 billion in April 2022 to $80 billion in July 2022, indicating that security in this area remained problematic. In this paper, we address the deficiency in DeFi security studies. To our best knowledge, our paper is the first to make a systematic analysis of DeFi security. First, we summarize the DeFi-related vulnerabilities in each blockchain layer. Additionally, application-level vulnerabilities are also analyzed. Then we classify and analyze real-world DeFi attacks based on the principles that correlate to the vulnerabilities. In addition, we collect optimization strategies from the data, network, consensus, smart contract, and application layers. And then, we describe the weaknesses and technical approaches they address. On the basis of this comprehensive analysis, we summarize several challenges and possible future directions in DeFi to offer ideas for further research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Alleviating cybersecurity risks associated with centralized AI training and implementation is a burgeoning challenge in the construction industry. This paper addresses two primary questions: (1) What is the knowledge of AI security vulnerability in construction, and (2) How can AI be decentralized using blockchain? To this end, this paper proposes a blockchain-AI integrated framework (BAII), enabling AI to be trained, verified, and applied on a decentralized blockchain. The framework has been successfully validated in an excavator pose recognition scenario, demonstrating acceptable latency and high performance with 95 % accuracy, 94 % precision, and 96 % recall. This research is pivotal for construction managers and IT security professionals, enhancing the reliability and safety of AI applications in construction. The decentralized AI (DAI) approach can also inspire further research into motivating constructors to contribute to AI modeling and training through incentive mechanisms in the blockchain. • Proposed an AI lifecycle management mechanism in a decentralized environment based on ISO/IEC 23894:2023. • Proposed a blockchain-AI integrated (BAII) framework for secure artificial intelligence (AI) in excavator pose recognition. • Developed an AI-enabled smart contract structure in BAII framework for decentralized data training and classification. • Developed a reinforced signing strategy to safeguard the integrity and immutability of AI dependencies in blockchain. • AI performance in the decentralized environment is acceptable with 95 % accuracy, 94 % precision, and 96 % recall. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Industrial symbiosis has gained prominence in pursuing sustainable industrial practices, aiming to optimise resource utilisation and reduce environmental impacts. A critical aspect of this endeavour is the efficient management of energy resources within an industrial ecosystem. This paper presents a novel approach to enhance Total Site Heat Integration (TSHI) implementations by employing Blockchain as a facilitator for decentralised energy management. TSHI is an efficient and widely applied method for industrial symbiosis concerning energy flows, which employs the steam mains in site utility systems as the platform for exchanging heat between industrial processes at various temperature levels. It is shown that the synergy of Pinch Analysis and Smart Contract technologies is capable of facilitating energy integration of processes belonging to independent market actors, compared with the currently dominant integration inside a single company. The proposed framework leverages Blockchain as a distributed ledger to enable secure, transparent, and automated energy management across multiple industrial entities in an industrial symbiotic network. The integration of Pinch Analysis principles ensures that the Heat Integration process is optimised to improve the overall energy efficiency. Smart contracts enable automatic negotiation and execution of energy transactions based on predefined rules, minimising the time lag for concluding deals on energy resource exchange and conservation. This paper examines several scenarios to illustrate the implementation of the proposed Blockchain-based TSHI concept within an industrial symbiosis network. It is demonstrated that up to 16 % cost savings are possible by simply enabling transparency via Blockchain. The results could drive innovative development to revolutionise decentralised energy management in a complex industrial ecosystem, especially by synchronising energy exchanges in time. [Display omitted] • Blockchain concept for managing data of site-level industrial plants/prosumers. • Pinch-based smart contract on utility allocation with Total Site Heat Integration. • A cryptocurrency for the blockchain system can be used for utility transactions. • Bidding or selling of heat surpluses/deficits via Pinch-based smart contract. • Information transparency allows tangible cost savings up to 16 %. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study aims to assess the extent to which blockchain technology (BCT) may constitute an alternative to the conventional stock trading system and emphasize the changing roles of the key parties. It is expected that BCT would enhance the performance of the process across the three stages (i.e. trading, clearing and settlement within the stock exchange environment). A thorough literature review is conducted to understand the BCT performance modeling techniques and approaches (empirical and analytical) and to examine the theoretical potentials and capabilities of BCT in the financial markets. The case study and simulation methods are used to evaluate the impact of BCT implementation in optimizing the process of trading, clearing and settlement in Abu Dhabi Securities Exchange (ADX) stock-trading activities. This paper presents a simulation analysis comparing a blockchain system with a traditional trading system in the context of stock market. The simulation procedures involve modeling processes over different durations and transaction volumes, using metrics such as process time and cycle time to evaluate performance. The performance index combines these metrics with weights to ensure accurate and consistent measurements. Simulation results reveal that the blockchain system significantly outperforms the current trading system, especially at higher transaction volumes, highlighting its scalability and efficiency. A threshold of 30,000 transactions is identified as the point where blockchain's benefits become apparent. The analysis shows that blockchain significantly elevate the process efficiency. It reduces both cycle time and process time across varying transaction volumes, maintaining consistency and reliability. Additionally, a simple simulation using the Hyperledger Fabric platform demonstrates the practical implementation of a permissioned blockchain for clearing transactions, emphasizing the system's capability to manage high transaction volumes efficiently and securely. The use of blockchain network for handling seamless transactions using pre-defined smart contracts significantly improves the performance of the stock trading processes, specifically in the clearing phase. Interestingly, the BCT system drops the need for a "third party" (i.e. stock custodian) across the three stages. At the end of the paper, we propose a thereat mitigating model for stock trading with a new blockchain system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The rapid development of intelligent manufacturing is inseparable from collaboration among smart factories (SFs). In the real unmanned intelligent collaborative production process, each SF exists as an independent individual peer. However, due to the selfishness of SFs and intelligent manufacturing equipment (IME), they do not actively participate in data sharing, which brings serious obstacles to the collaborative development of SF. In order to solve the above problems, this paper combines blockchain technology and game theory technology to propose a high-efficiency data sharing incentive method based on the Stackelberg game. Specifically, We first take the SF as the leader and the IME as the follower, and we define the data sharing incentive problem among SFs as the master–slave game problem. Then, the lower game problem and the upper game problem are solved, respectively, and finally the Nash equilibrium is derived. Then, a high-efficiency data sharing incentive method based on the Stackelberg game is designed and implemented. Finally, we conducted simulation experiments on the method proposed in this paper. Through theoretical and simulation experiments, it has been proven that the proposed method effectively reduces the impact of the selfishness of SFs and IME and improves the efficiency of data sharing among SFs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the challenges related to the music industry's digital transformation and potential role of blockchain from the perspective of collective management organizations (CMOs). Building on desk research and primary data from semi-structured surveys conducted with C-level executives and managers, this empirical analysis identifies major projects, their state of development, and prospects for digital transformation based on blockchain in the music industry. The findings reveal that there are a limited number of blockchain projects led by and/or with the relevant participation of CMOs. However, most are just research projects, proofs of concept, or pilots, showing that blockchain is currently in an experimental phase of development on the periphery of the music industry's digital transformation. This is not very different from analysts' understanding of the current situation and perspectives on the mass adoption of blockchain in other industries. In summary, blockchain is neither at the core of the music industry's digital transformation nor a priority for CMOs leading this process from the perspective of intellectual property rights management. The limited quality of music metadata, sparsity of sound data sources, and absence of a common data governance framework among different stakeholders within the industry are the main impediments to transforming blockchain into a global solution with transformative potential. Overall, the results provide a snapshot of the current status and possible future trajectories of blockchain adoption as a paradigm for intellectual property rights exchange within the music industry. The paper aims to investigate the challenges involved in the potential deployment of blockchain technologies as a key constituent in the digital transformation of CMOs. Building on desk research and primary data from semi-structured surveys conducted with C-level executives and managers involved in digital transformation strategies within the CMOs. As main contributions, the paper identifies: • The current state of development of blockchain technologies in collective management; • How blockchain is perceived by decision makers within the CMOs; • How and why these organizations are evaluating the adoption of blockchain technologies as a solution to major issues regarding management of the intellectual property rights in the music industry [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As the renewable energy consumption responsibility weight system is gradually implemented in various provinces, there is a closer intersection between the excess consumption and green certificates trading. Existing trading platforms can only meet the needs of green certificates trading. This single-platform solution is no longer sufficient to meet the trading requirements under this system. Consequently, this paper proposes a excess consumption and green certificates trading platform based on blockchain technology. This platform utilizes the decentralized, open, and anonymous characteristics of blockchain technology and rely on its smart contract capabilities to simultaneously meet the comprehensive trading needs of surplus consumption and green certificates trading through combining user-initiated transactions with platform-intelligent recommendations. It adapts to the complex excess consumption and green certificates trading market that has emerged following the issuance of the renewable energy consumption responsibility weighting policy. To conduct simulated transactions, 16 groups of buyers simulate a total of 215,792 excess consumption vouchers and 143,861 green certificates in this paper. The transaction results all meet the expected transaction scenarios under the conditions of smart recommendation, demonstrating the platform's transaction feasibility. [Display omitted] • Design a blockchain-based smart contract solution for volume consumption trading and green certificate trading. • Build a database containing 215,792 excess consumption vouchers and 143,861 green power certificates. • Simulate the purchase of 160 buyers by establish a transaction platform. • Analyzed the application direction of the data produced by the trading platform [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Current conventional agricultural practices have exacerbated the depletion of soil, loss of biodiversity, and intensified the substantial challenges of food security including monoculture dependence, resource intensiveness, access and distribution issues. This has raised consumers awareness towards monitoring the resources of their food consumption. Nevertheless, greenwashing and deceptive food labels are prevalent leading to sales of items with misaligned labels, underpinning the need to authenticate, trace, and track the agricultural supply chain from the farm to shop. Consumers should be able to select fresh produce and verify its origin through a transparent, trustworthy, accountable, and reliable process. This paper introduces a blockchain-based solution that leverages intrinsic features of this innovative and disruptive technology to harness transparency, reliability, authenticity, and accountability within an agricultural supply chain. Additionally, our solution eliminates misleading food labels on fresh produce by enabling consumers to reliably trace and verify the origin and authenticity of the food source in a transparent manner. Through the integration of the Internet of Things (IoT), the well-being of the soil, air, and crops is consistently monitored. The sustainable solutions employed are transparent, aligning with the standards set by various sustainable food certifications and agencies, including organic, non-Genetically Modified Organisms (GMO), and Good Agricultural Practices (GAP). The paper presents detailed algorithms that represent the smart contract code, sequence diagrams along with testing results and security analysis. The smart contract code is made publicly available on GitHub. • Integration of Blockchain, IoT, & biosensors to ensure eco-friendly crop monitoring. • Ensures transparent, traceable food certification and fosters trust. • Effective anomaly handling and clear, accountable food certification. • Solution aligns with agencies (organic, non-GMO, GAP), adaptable to needs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Blockchain technology has shown potential in enhancing project performance by instilling trust in data sharing among stakeholders, thereby encouraging the stakeholders to ensure a strategic acquisition and resource management through procurement activities. However, despite the recent research efforts on blockchain in the construction sector, there is a lack of knowledge of the status quo in that barely any research investigated the synergy of blockchain and procurement by recognizing the inextricable linkage between procurement management and project delivery system. This paper conducts a systematic review of 54 articles to assess blockchain's potential in addressing issues inherent in the current organizational structures and collaborative efforts. Findings offer profound insight into the current landscape of procurement-specific blockchain research, highlighting areas needing attention. This paper identified opportunities in construction procurement by investigating the extent to which the technology is integrated into the current project management context emphasizing integration and collaboration. [Display omitted] • This paper evaluates the potential of blockchain within the realm of procurement processes and methods. • This paper assesses whether blockchain is employed to coordinate the workflow and promote integration. • This paper presents specific facets of construction procurement that need attention. • This paper offers profound insight into the current landscape of blockchain research in procurement [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Engineering design review, which is a time-consuming task in the building permit process, faces challenges such as a scarcity of design review specialists, vulnerability to manipulation and corruption, and a lack of traceability and transparency. This paper explores the integration of blockchain and online service trading in addressing these challenges. This paper proposes a platform-based design review service trading scheme, engaging a distributed network of experts to overcome resource limitations and integrates blockchain technology to improve process traceability. The system model is presented, an access control model and a design version management method are proposed. A prototype system is developed, and a real-world project is used to illustrate the online design review process. Security, function, and performance evaluations show that the scheme is secure and efficient. This study highlights blockchain's potential in digital building permits. Future work can explore advanced service matching algorithms in online design review service trading platforms. • This study proposes a platform-based design review service trading scheme to engage a distributed network of design experts, aiming to overcome resource limitations. • The proposed scheme integrates blockchain technology to enhance immutability and traceability in the digital building permit process. • An access control model and design version management method are developed to achieve secure data transmission and trace design modifications in the design review process. • A real-world project is used as an example to simulated the proposed scheme. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

[Display omitted] • Blockchain and AI integration enhances healthcare security and efficiency. • Synergy aims for a secure healthcare metaverse via blockchain–AI. • Addressing technical and privacy issues is vital for integration success. • Future focus on setting interoperability standards and privacy investments. • Joint research and teamwork are essential for blockchain–AI advancements. This perspective paper explores the synergistic potential of blockchain and artificial intelligence (AI) in transforming healthcare. It begins with an overview of blockchain's role in healthcare data management, security, the pharmaceutical supply chain, clinical trials, and health insurance. The discussion then shifts to the impact of AI on healthcare, followed by an examination of integrated AI–blockchain platforms and their benefits. Technical challenges, limitations, and solutions related to these technologies are scrutinized. The paper addresses regulatory compliance and ethical considerations, and proposes future directions for their implementation. It concludes with research and implementation guidelines, offering a roadmap for harnessing blockchain and AI to enhance healthcare outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• This paper addresses a list of existing research gaps involving the blockchain private permissioned consensus that require experts more consideration. • The focus of this paper is to propose a middleware lightweight PoET consensus of permissioned private blockchains for futuristic SMEs. • Smart contracts are created and deployed for the purpose to verify and validate requests of a new enterprise, participating in stakeholder transaction initiation lists, adding, and updating new transactional logs and deliverance records. A private permissioned chain is typically considered a fully protected authorized blockchain. The concept of a permissioned chain has become better single-entity control operation over the network and allows entry only to selected nodes, which most probably supports different small-medium enterprises and government officials. It is one of the prominent features of blockchain technology that maintains transaction integrity and security throughout the deliverance. This paper initially highlights the benefits of a permissioned private chain. Present the current issues of the Proof-of-Elapsed Time consensus mechanism for the distributed applicational environment. In order to make blockchain systems more adaptive for private chains, this paper proposes a middleware lightweight consensus based on PoET, named "B-LPoET". Objecting to being improved as a lightweight PoET from the predefined PoET in terms of verifying transactions and creating more blocks, to decide the mining right, and participants allows to acknowledge their identities before joining. The design of B-LPoET reduces the cost of multi-node efficiency by establishing a lightweight topology for selecting and waiting time of winning node using multithreading, which affects positively by increasing systems scalability. The experimental results of the B-LPoET illustrate that it performs better as compared with the existing PoET and other state-of-the-art consensus. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Voting is a fundamental democratic activity. Many experts believe that paper balloting is the only appropriate method to ensure everyone's right to vote. But this method is prone to errors and abuse. Many nations utilize digital voting methods to solve the difficulties of paper balloting. A single flaw in digital voting may lead to massive vote-rigging. Election voting methods must be legal, accurate, safe, and convenient. However, issues with digital voting methods may restrict acceptance. Due to its end-to-end verification capabilities, blockchain technology was developed to address these problems. To guarantee We have used blockchain technology anonymity, privacy, verifiability, mobility, integrity, security, and fairness in voting. By using blockchain our proposed system ensures security, privacy, and integrity. This system provides voter anonymity by keeping the voter information as a hash in the blockchain. It also provides fairness by keeping the casted vote encrypted till the ending time of the election. After ending time, the voter can verify their casted vote, ensuring verifiability. To test our protocol, we put it on Ethereum 2.0, a blockchain platform that uses Solidity as a programming language to create smart contracts. The adoption of smart contracts provides a safe means for performing voter verification, ensuring the correctness of voting results, making the counting system public, and protecting against fraudulent activities. We analyzed the system's performance based on security and gas costs. It improves in terms of security characteristics and the related cost for the necessary infrastructure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Blockchain is a chain of blocks where each block contains a set of transactions that are digitally signed by its verifier and stored across the distributed network so that all the legitimate stakeholders can access/verify them. Due to the attributes of Blockchain such as decentralization, immutability, auditability, transparency, and cryptographic security, it offers various benefits to different domains such as cryptocurrency, financial sectors, private/public segments, insurance, healthcare, supply chain management, Internet of Things, etc. However, the technology is in its early stage and still, there is a range of concerns that are yet to be addressed before its wide adoption. Through this paper, we intend to cover extensive study on the Blockchain that includes taxonomy, application/use-cases, consensus mechanisms, prospective research, future directions, and related technologies. This paper also aims to discuss the opportunities, benefits, and challenges of Blockchain technology and to assist the research community in understanding the same. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]