Filipe Pinto , Catarina Ferreira da Silva , Sergio Moro , Pedro Aquino
{"title":"Consumer-controlled digital twin architecture: How blockchain technology gives consumers control over their smart devices’ digital twins and data","authors":"Filipe Pinto , Catarina Ferreira da Silva , Sergio Moro , Pedro Aquino","doi":"10.1016/j.bcra.2025.100342","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.bcra.2025.100342","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This article presents Consumer-Controlled Digital Twin Architecture (C2DTA), a novel architecture that aims to empower consumers in the Personal Data Ecosystem (PDE). The hallmark of the architecture is the transfer of the smart device Digital Twin (DT) to the consumer domain, granting consumers <em>de facto</em> control over their data. This paradigm shift hinges on multiple decentralized technologies, chiefly Self-Sovereign Identity (SSI). C2DTA leverages blockchain to manage ecosystem transactions, assets, Decentralized Identifiers (DIDs), and Verifiable Credentials (VCs) while enabling decentralized storage. The evolved PDE allows stakeholders to engage in trustworthy and secure peer-to-peer transactions atop DIDs. We present a literature review on the convergence of DT and SSI, including GAIA-X. We provide a comprehensive architecture analysis detailing the integrated technologies and present informed predictions for the market dynamics poised to facilitate the adoption of C2DTA and its impacts on the PDE. The architecture is implemented using Eclipse Ditto and Eclipse Mosquitto as the DT platform, Hyperledger Fabric as the transaction ledger, Hyperledger Indy as the identity ledger, Hyperledger Aries to build decentralized identity software agents, and the InterPlanetary File System for decentralized storage, showcasing a business scenario that tracks the lifecycle of a smartwatch equipped with a heartbeat sensor, from manufacture to purchase, twinning, and resale. Feasibility testing confirms that C2DTA effectively empowers consumers to manage their smart device DTs and associated data. Our evaluation, although limited by the scale of our tests, suggests that the performance impacts of the decentralized infrastructure are within acceptable parameters. Finally, we discuss future research areas.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":53141,"journal":{"name":"Blockchain-Research and Applications","volume":"7 3","pages":"Article 100342"},"PeriodicalIF":5.6,"publicationDate":"2026-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148181064","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"计算机科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Hosny Abbas, Ibrahim El Sayed, Hamada Esmaiel, Bassem Abd El-Atty
{"title":"Blockchain-enabled framework for cross-sector integration in smart cities facilitating risk assessment and interdependency analysis","authors":"Hosny Abbas, Ibrahim El Sayed, Hamada Esmaiel, Bassem Abd El-Atty","doi":"10.1016/j.bcra.2025.100343","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.bcra.2025.100343","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The Smart City (SC) paradigm has been proposed to address the problem of fast urbanization and the worldwide motivation toward the realization of a set of globally agreed-upon sustainable development goals. However, the actual implementation of SCs faces several significant challenges: (1) managing the complex structures of interdependency that arise from cross-sector integration is a major challenge; (2) ensuring that sensitive data shared within an SC are safe and private; and (3) the availability of real-time risk and interdependency analysis instead of traditional offline modeling and simulation methods against the propagation of run-time failures such as cascade and feedback effects. To the best of our knowledge, there is a lack of research that focuses on cyber cross-sector integration and its mentioned consequences. To fill these research gaps, we suggest a blockchain-based framework called SCADA-NET for integrating different sectors within SCs. This is an important part of making SCs reliable and sustainably long-lasting on the basis of well-known algorithms from the Complex Networks Theory (CNT). A preliminary prototype for SCADA-NET was developed, and the details of its design, implementation, performance evaluation, and future improvements are provided and discussed in this paper. A consortium blockchain allows people to share data in a safe and open way, and CNT models complicated CI networks. This study revealed that these two tools can work effectively together to make cross-sector integration into SCs easy and long-lasting. We also discuss future enhancements for SCADA-NET, including scalability and applicability in the context of urban metaverses.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":53141,"journal":{"name":"Blockchain-Research and Applications","volume":"7 3","pages":"Article 100343"},"PeriodicalIF":6.5,"publicationDate":"2026-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148554199","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"计算机科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Alisa Kalacheva , Pavel Kuznetsov , Igor Vodolazov , Yury Yanovich
{"title":"Detecting rug pulls in decentralized exchanges: The rise of meme coins","authors":"Alisa Kalacheva , Pavel Kuznetsov , Igor Vodolazov , Yury Yanovich","doi":"10.1016/j.bcra.2025.100336","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.bcra.2025.100336","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The rise in cryptoasset valuations and the ease of creating new tokens have spurred an increase in illicit activities within the market. Decentralized exchanges (DEX) facilitate the trading of a vast array of tokens, including those with minimal liquidity, amplifying the risk of fraudulent schemes. Fraudulent practices take various forms, including counterfeit tokens, rug pulls, and pump-and-dump schemes, all lacking functional innovation and relying heavily on aggressive social media marketing. This study contributes to the identification and profiling of deceitful tokens on DEX platforms. Our approach involved compiling new tokens with an active trading start and attracted competition to buy them in the first blocks spanning multiple years from the Ethereum blockchain, tracking all associated purchase and sale transactions. Our analysis revealed that Uniswap V2 predominantly hosts the trading of new tokens, with an alarming discovery that over 98% of tokens minted daily exhibit fraudulent characteristics. Subsequently, a machine learning model was developed to predict the likelihood of a rug pull occurring shortly after trading commencement. Although the dataset labeling methodology and detection problem statement are exploratory, we demonstrate the economic significance of the proposed approach within a trading pipeline. The findings highlight the importance of identifying fraudulent activities and emphasize the need for collaboration between DEX and regulatory bodies to mitigate financial losses for investors.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":53141,"journal":{"name":"Blockchain-Research and Applications","volume":"7 2","pages":"Article 100336"},"PeriodicalIF":5.6,"publicationDate":"2026-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147750763","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"计算机科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Resolving the token loss vulnerability in the Ethereum ERC-20 standard","authors":"Nattawat Songsom, Jakapan Suaboot, Warodom Werapun","doi":"10.1016/j.bcra.2025.100329","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.bcra.2025.100329","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Custom tokens are fundamental in decentralized Applications (dApps) operating on Ethereum and other Blockchain platforms. Ethereum, in particular, relies on the ERC-20 standard as a widely accepted token interface, facilitating seamless integration with numerous pre-existing dApps, user interface platforms, and popular web applications like exchange services. A notable security challenge within the ERC-20 framework is the “lost token problem”. This problem arises because users occasionally send tokens to the wrong addresses, and it has caused more than $27 million in damage. In this paper, we evaluate three existing solutions to this issue. Through the utilization of formal modeling, property specification, and the Temporal Logic of Actions (TLA). Most importantly, we propose a novel double-layer solution to remedy the ERC-20 vulnerability. Our formal verification and experimental results indicate our approach encompasses the protection of the already deployed smart contracts, which is a critical aspect that has never been addressed in the existing mitigation techniques.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":53141,"journal":{"name":"Blockchain-Research and Applications","volume":"7 2","pages":"Article 100329"},"PeriodicalIF":5.6,"publicationDate":"2026-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147658148","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"计算机科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Zero-knowledge Bitcoin mixer with reversible unlinkability","authors":"Daniel Morales, Isaac Agudo, Javier Lopez","doi":"10.1016/j.bcra.2025.100323","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.bcra.2025.100323","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Cryptocurrencies, particularly Bitcoin, continue to be the most prevalent use case within the blockchain ecosystem. One of the inherent limitations of blockchain is that it can create a false sense of privacy. All transaction history and the amount of cryptocurrency held are publicly available, and this information can be easily associated with specific individuals. Many works have proposed fully private solutions, which are ideal but not realistic in many scenarios.</div><div>This paper proposes a technical solution that enables private Bitcoin payments by default, but with the option to conditionally disclose payment data. To do so, this solution relies on unlinkability by a decentralized mixer, which can be reversed by a conditional discloser using a trapdoor unlinkability function. The conditional discloser, which also provides accountability of requests, obeys the payer's policies regarding who can access payment data.</div><div>To ensure compliance, we propose a mixer that does not learn anything about the payment link, but is guaranteed by zero-knowledge proofs that the payment can be relinked by a specific conditional discloser.</div><div>Furthermore, we provide a proof-of-concept implementation of the proofs, using Circom and SnarkJS. We also present a benchmark that demonstrates the feasibility of this solution. It incurs only one additional parameter per on-chain transaction, while the remainder of the verification data is managed off-chain.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":53141,"journal":{"name":"Blockchain-Research and Applications","volume":"7 2","pages":"Article 100323"},"PeriodicalIF":5.6,"publicationDate":"2026-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147750761","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"计算机科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Blockchain and knowledge representation for service-oriented smart mobility platforms","authors":"Michele Ruta , Floriano Scioscia , Saverio Ieva , Giuseppe Loseto , Agnese Pinto , Arnaldo Tomasino","doi":"10.1016/j.bcra.2025.100335","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.bcra.2025.100335","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The smart mobility vision calls for dynamic resource and service discovery to cope with the intrinsic topology volatility of Internet of Things (IoT) platforms without sacrificing the required business continuity and service flexibility. For an extended automation of collaboration within and across enterprise boundaries, trust management is equally important, granting security, reliability, and scalability at the same time. To tackle the above challenges, this paper proposes the integration of a semantic-based service management layer in an IoT infrastructure grounded on the Hyperledger Sawtooth blockchain. Every service in the outlined framework is annotated with reference to a domain ontology, so that smart contracts can exploit knowledge representation and non-standard reasoning for service registration, discovery, outcomes explanation, and service selection. A case study on power management of plug-in electric vehicles is proposed to clarify the benefits of the proposal. Early performance evaluation results support the feasibility and sustainability of the approach.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":53141,"journal":{"name":"Blockchain-Research and Applications","volume":"7 2","pages":"Article 100335"},"PeriodicalIF":5.6,"publicationDate":"2026-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147750764","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"计算机科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The optimization of batch processing and micro-payment systems in account-based anonymous blockchain systems","authors":"Yichen Tan , Yuyang Cheng , Lu Ding , Yong Zhao","doi":"10.1016/j.bcra.2025.100334","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.bcra.2025.100334","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Account-based anonymous blockchain systems can provide robust privacy protection for users. However, they become highly inefficient when handling high-frequency micro-payment scenarios. This paper presents systematic optimizations for batch processing and micro-payment transactions in account-based anonymous blockchain systems to enhance both privacy and efficiency. Building on BlockMaze, the first account-based anonymous blockchain system fully protecting transaction privacy, we propose innovations in batch transfers, batch receipts, and micro-payment handling. By reducing redundant data, improving circuit design, and optimizing zk-SNARK proof generation, we achieve up to 55.90% and 23.00% reductions in overall time consumption for batch transfers and receipts, respectively, significantly cutting the computational cost and memory use. For micro-payments, a solution encapsulating the payment deadline reduces transaction delays and fund freezing. Experimental results show only slight increases in proof generation time—1.41 s for transfers and 1.02 s for payments—while maintaining privacy protection. This research lays a foundation for practical applications of account-based anonymous blockchain systems, enhancing privacy, processing efficiency, and transferability to other systems.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":53141,"journal":{"name":"Blockchain-Research and Applications","volume":"7 2","pages":"Article 100334"},"PeriodicalIF":5.6,"publicationDate":"2026-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147748744","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"计算机科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Extending ERC721: Design and implementation of a novel secure NFT framework for IoT asset authentication in cyber-physical systems","authors":"Usman Khalil , Mueen Uddin , Maha Abdelhaq , Homam ElTaj , Hashem Alaidaros , Abdulhalim Dandoush , Raed Alsaqour","doi":"10.1016/j.bcra.2026.100456","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.bcra.2026.100456","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This research presents the design and implementation of the Decentralized Smart City of Things (DSCoT), a novel framework leveraging Web3 architecture to enhance the security and authentication of assets in cyber-physical systems (CPSs) for smart cities on a private blockchain. Unlike traditional non-fungible tokens that primarily identify and distinguish financial assets, existing approaches lack robust mechanisms for attributing and authenticating CPS assets such as owners, users, and IoT-enabled smart devices. DSCoT addresses this gap by introducing an extended ERC721 protocol, enabling IoT-enabled devices to have unique blockchain identities similar to user accounts, which enhances device management and tracking. Novel smart contract modules facilitate secure identification and authentication of CPS assets. Evaluated results on a private Hyperledger Besu blockchain show that DSCoT achieves significant performance improvements, including sub-second latency (∼0.1–0.5 s for application programming interface (API) calls), minimal transaction costs (∼0.01–0.05 USD), and a high processing capacity (∼1000 transactions per second (TPS)). These results, along with improved security through immutable authentication records, demonstrate DSCoT’s effectiveness as a scalable and secure solution for smart city CPSs.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":53141,"journal":{"name":"Blockchain-Research and Applications","volume":"7 2","pages":"Article 100456"},"PeriodicalIF":5.6,"publicationDate":"2026-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147945113","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"计算机科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Wenrui Cao , Peixuan Feng , Siqi Lu , Yongjuan Wang , Xiangyu Wang , Runnan Yang
{"title":"DelegateTracker: Delegatecall vulnerability detection tool based on read-write data flow capture algorithm","authors":"Wenrui Cao , Peixuan Feng , Siqi Lu , Yongjuan Wang , Xiangyu Wang , Runnan Yang","doi":"10.1016/j.bcra.2025.100338","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.bcra.2025.100338","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Delegatecall vulnerability, as one of the most cunning vulnerabilities, has caused great trouble to the development of smart contracts. Aiming at the high false-positive rate of detection results of existing smart contract vulnerability detection tools and the irrationality of delegatecall by discarding, this paper innovatively proposes a delegatecall vulnerability detection tool named DelegateTracker. It is based on the delegatecall vulnerability detection logic of the read-write data flow capture algorithm, and, through the attack path search module, it aims to determine the execution path of the function that can modify the state variables in the called contract, to prove the necessary conditions for the existence of the vulnerability, and then, through the attack path validation module, to prove the sufficient conditions for the existence of the vulnerability, so as to discover the vulnerability. The tool not only successfully corroborates the existence of delegatecall vulnerabilities in Parity Wallet, but also discovers untriggered delegatecall vulnerabilities and their trigger paths among them. We used DelegateTracker to discover for the first time a caller contract with a delegatecall vulnerability on one existing public chain, outputting three attack paths with a value of 0.19 ETH. In addition, we use DelegateTracker to analyze 12,402 smart contracts for alerts when called by delegatecall, and find that 215 contracts have delegatecall vulnerabilities and output caller warning messages.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":53141,"journal":{"name":"Blockchain-Research and Applications","volume":"7 2","pages":"Article 100338"},"PeriodicalIF":5.6,"publicationDate":"2026-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147748745","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"计算机科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"A secure authorization in multi-WSN based on Blockchain_SecAuth approach for secure data communication","authors":"Sangeetha Yempally , Sanjay Kumar Singh , Velliangiri Sarveshwaran","doi":"10.1016/j.bcra.2025.100331","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.bcra.2025.100331","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>In a wireless sensor network (WSN), data are transferred such that only intentional entities are capable of decoding and understanding them. Security is essential in the design of any data and processing-intensive schemes. Researchers have designed various models as well as security systems for providing secure data communications. Most of the developed schemes have individual nuances, benefits, and shortcomings that make choosing a superior security scheme highly challenging for model designers. In blockchain technology, secret sharing methods enhance the security performance of a system. Here, the Blockchain_SecAuth approach is presented for secure data communication in multi-WSNs. The entities of interest are base station (BS), cluster head (CH) nodes, end users, blockchain, and ordinary nodes. The phases involved are setup, CH and node registration, key generation, mutual authentication among nodes as well as among nodes and end users, authorization, access control, communication, and node logout. The designed authorization approach is based upon security functions, namely, hashing operation, encryption, X-OR function, and so forth. Moreover, the Blockchain_SecAuth approach attained minimal computation time and memory of approximately 0.463 s and 20.552 GHz, respectively, and a maximal detection rate of 87.641 %. The proposed method is useful in environmental monitoring, smart agriculture, healthcare, smart cities, and industrial automation.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":53141,"journal":{"name":"Blockchain-Research and Applications","volume":"7 2","pages":"Article 100331"},"PeriodicalIF":5.6,"publicationDate":"2026-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147602744","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"计算机科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}