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BlockChain and Smart Contracts
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BlockChain and Smart Contracts

A special issue of Information (ISSN 2078-2489). This special issue belongs to the section "Information Theory and Methodology".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 July 2018) | Viewed by 9143

Special Issue Editor

Dr. Martin White

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
School of Engineering and Informatics, Department of Informatics, University of Sussex, UK
Interests: 3D reconstructions; cultural informatics (Digital Heritage); application of Blockchain technologies

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

A blockchain is an append-only shared ledger containing recorded transactions that is implemented across a distributed business network. In the case of the Bitcoin blockchain, a transaction could be as simple as Alice paying Bob a bitcoin. Such blockchain transactions are secured by means of public-key cryptography and are validated through a consensus protocol by network participants, usually refered to as ‘miners’. The miner (or network node) that solves the transaction validation problem first appends this transaction block to the blockchain, and is rewarded for their service, e.g. with the Bitcoin blockchain a miner is currently rewarded with 12.5 bitcoins—you only have to look at the value of bitcoin (https://www.bitstamp.net/) to realise how profitable this may be. Miners validate transactions by solving a complex cryptographic puzzle, which often takes inordinate computing power (as in the case of ‘proof of work’ consensus). This is very costly in hardware and electricity, which is why most bitcoin mining is now done in large data centres with vast arrays of ASIC bitcoin miners that have access to cheap electricity, or in bitcoin mining pools—about 80% of bitcoin mining pools are concentrated in China where electricity is cheap! This does raise the question: How will such mining operations profit once all 21 million bitcoins are mined?

However, blockchain technology has applications beyond those associated with its original use as a shared ledger for recording bitcoin transactions. Blockchains, due to their key characteristic of being immutable, i.e., an append-only record system, can be used to record many different types of business transactions.  Further, when a blockchain record is coupled with a smart contract (programmed business logic) that is executed with a transaction, then the possibilities for new business opportunities that reduce costs and compexity become interesting to many different business applications, both within and beyond the financial services industry.

This Special Issue seeks high-quality contributions in theoretical, experimental and application oriented research on blockchain and smart contract technologies. We invite high-quality articles: presenting potential solutions for blockchain and smart contract challenges; and/or describing experiences in designing, implementing and using blockchain and smart contract applications to solve real world problems; and/or presenting comparisons of blockchain and smart contract solutions and technologies, e.g., Ethereum (proof of work) versus Hyperledger (proof of stake).

Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:

  • Applications of blockchain and smart contracts in financial services
  • Applications of blockchain and smart contracts beyond the financial services
  • Blockchain and smart contract business models
  • Challenges of developing blockchain and smart contract applications
  • New models for digital currencies that exploit blockchain and smart contracts
  • Socio-economic implications of blockchain and smart contract technologies
  • Political implications of blockchain and smart contract technologies
  • Cultural applications of blockchain and smart contract technologies
  • Blockchain and smart contract standards
  • Blockchain transaction graph analysis and business applications
  • Legal aspects and dispute resolution in the case of cryptocurrencies and smart contracts
  • Can blockchain and smart contract applications be created without sophisticated programming skills?
Dr. Martin White
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Information is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • Shared Ledgers
  • Cryptocurrecy (Bitcoin)
  • Blockchain
  • Smart Contracts
  • Cryptography (privacy)
  • Digital Rights Management
  • Consensus (Validation) Methods
  • Internet of Things, Blockchain and Smart Contract Use Cases

Published Papers (2 papers)

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Research

12 pages, 1004 KiB  
Article
Decentralized Transaction Mechanism Based on Smart Contract in Distributed Data Storage
by Yonggen Gu, Dingding Hou, Xiaohong Wu, Jie Tao and Yanqiong Zhang
Information 2018, 9(11), 286; https://doi.org/10.3390/info9110286 - 17 Nov 2018
Cited by 17 | Viewed by 4154
Abstract
Distributed data storage has received more attention due to its advantages in reliability, availability and scalability, and it brings both opportunities and challenges for distributed data storage transaction. The traditional transaction system of storage resources, which generally runs in a centralized mode, results [...] Read more.
Distributed data storage has received more attention due to its advantages in reliability, availability and scalability, and it brings both opportunities and challenges for distributed data storage transaction. The traditional transaction system of storage resources, which generally runs in a centralized mode, results in high cost, vendor lock-in and single point failure risk. To overcome the above shortcomings, considering the storage policy with erasure coding, in this paper we propose a decentralized transaction method for cloud storage based on a smart contract, which takes into account the resource cost for distributed data storage. First, to guarantee the availability and decrease the storing cost, a reverse Vickrey-Clarke-Groves (VCG) based auction mechanism is proposed for storage resource selection and transaction. Then we deploy and implement the proposed mechanism by designing a corresponding smart contract. Especially, we address the problem of how to implement a VCG-like mechanism in a blockchain environment. Based on the private chain of Ethereum, we make the simulation for the proposed storage transaction method. The results of simulation show that the proposed transaction model can realize competitive trading of storage resources and ensure the safe and economic operation of resource trading. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue BlockChain and Smart Contracts)
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26 pages, 1746 KiB  
Article
The CLoTH Simulator for HTLC Payment Networks with Introductory Lightning Network Performance Results
by Marco Conoscenti, Antonio Vetrò, Juan Carlos De Martin and Federico Spini
Information 2018, 9(9), 223; https://doi.org/10.3390/info9090223 - 03 Sep 2018
Cited by 22 | Viewed by 4433
Abstract
The Lightning Network (LN) is one of the most promising off-chain scaling solutions for Bitcoin, as it enables off-chain payments which are not subject to the well-known blockchain scalability limit. In this work, we introduce CLoTH, a simulator for HTLC payment networks (of [...] Read more.
The Lightning Network (LN) is one of the most promising off-chain scaling solutions for Bitcoin, as it enables off-chain payments which are not subject to the well-known blockchain scalability limit. In this work, we introduce CLoTH, a simulator for HTLC payment networks (of which LN is the best working example). It simulates input-defined payments on an input-defined HTLC network and produces performance measures in terms of payment-related statistics (such as time to complete payments and probability of payment failure). CLoTH helps to predict issues and obstacles that might emerge in the development stages of an HTLC payment network and to estimate the effects of an optimisation action before deploying it. We conducted simulations on a recent snapshot of the HTLC payment network of LN. These simulations allowed us to identify network and payments configurations for which a payment is more likely to fail than to succeed. We proposed viable solutions to avoid such configurations. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue BlockChain and Smart Contracts)
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