Beyond Bitcoin: Issues in Regulating Blockchain Transactions

The buzz surrounding Bitcoin has reached a fever pitch. Yet in academic legal discussions, disproportionate emphasis is placed on bitcoins (that is, virtual currency), and little mention is made of blockchain technology—the true innovation behind the Bitcoin protocol. Simply, blockchain technology solves an elusive networking problem by enabling “trustless” transactions: value exchanges over computer networks that can be verified, monitored, and enforced without central institutions (for example, banks). This has broad implications for how we transact over electronic networks. This Note integrates current research from leading computer scientists and cryptographers to elevate the legal community’s understanding of blockchain technology and, ultimately, to inform policymakers and practitioners as they consider different regulatory schemes. An examination of the economic properties of a blockchain-based currency suggests the technology’s true value lies in its potential to facilitate more efficient digital-asset transfers. For example, applications of special interest to the legal community include more efficient document and authorship verification, title transfers, and contract enforcement. Though a regulatory patchwork around virtual currencies has begun to form, its careful analysis reveals much uncertainty with respect to these alternative applications

Modelling Business Processes on a Blockchain Eco-System (BPMN)

Plokiahela tehnoloogiat on järjest enam vaadeldud kui paljutõotavat tehnoloogiat äriprotsesside muutmiseks. Selle potentsiaal on äratanud paljude ettevõtete tähelepanu uurimaks, kuidas plokiahel saab ettevõtetele kasuks olla. Sellist kasu saab siiski saavutada ainult äriprotsesse uuendades, mitte lihtsalt olemasolevat tehnoloogiat asendades. Protsessimudelid mängivad olulist rolli äriprotsesside uuendamisel, kuna nad analüüsivad neid protsesse ja vajadusel kujundavad ümber. Selles lõputöös uuritakse, kuidas plokiahelale orienteeritud protsesse saab modelleerida BPMN tegevuskeskse modelleerimise paradigma abil. Selle saavutamiseks viiakse läbi uurimistöö mittetulundusühingute auditeerimisprotsesside ümberkujundamise kohta. Äriprotsesse modelleeritakse praeguses vormis ja kujundatakse BPMN abil ümber. Lõputöös uuritakse BPMN sobivust, võttes arvesse harjumuspäraselt esinevaid plokiahela spetsiifilisi mustreid. Lõputöö näitab, et plokiahelale orienteeritud protsesse saab BPMN-iga piisavalt modelleerida. Siiski, BPMN-il puuduvad teatud elemendid, mis võiksid täpsemini kajastada korduma kippuvaid mustreid.Blockchain technology is more and more positioned as a promising technology for changing business processes. This potential has attracted companies to investigate how blockchain can be enable significant benefit gains for companies. However, such gains can only be realized by innovating business processes and not by merely replacing existing technology. Process models play an important role when engaged in innovating business processes because of process analysis and process redesign. This thesis investigates how blockchain-oriented processes can be modelled with the activity-centric modeling paradigm of BPMN. To achieve this, a case study on redesigning the auditing process of a non-profit organization is conducted. The business process is modelled as-is and redesigned by using BPMN. The thesis examines the suitability of BPMN by considering commonly occurring blockchain specific patterns. The thesis shows that blockchain-oriented processes can sufficiently be modeled with BPMN. However, BPMN lack certain elements that could represent commonly occurring patterns more accurately

ID-based user-centric data usage auditing scheme for distributed environments

Recent years have witnessed the trend of increasingly relying on remote and distributed infrastructures, mainly owned and managed by third parties. This increased the number of reported incidents of security breaches compromising users' personal data, where involved entities may massively collect and process massive amounts of such data. Toward these challenges, this paper combines hierarchical Identity Based Cryptographic (IBC) mechanisms with emerging blockchain technologies and introduces a blockchain-based data usage auditing architecture ensuring availability and accountability in a personal data-preserving fashion. The proposed approach relies on smart auditable contracts deployed in blockchain infrastructures. Thus, it offers transparent and controlled data access, sharing and processing, so that unauthorized entities cannot process data without data subjects' consent. Moreover, thanks to the usage of hierarchical ID-based encryption and signature schemes, the proposed solution protects and ensures the confidentiality of users' personal data shared with multiple data controllers and processors. It also provides auditing capacities with tamper-proof evidences for data usage compliance, supported by the intrinsic properties of the blockchain technology

A Blockchain-Based Solution for Enabling Log-Based Resolution of Disputes in Multi-party Transactions

We are witnessing an ongoing global trend towards the automation of almost any transaction through the employment of some Internet-based mean. Furthermore, the large spread of cloud computing and the massive emergence of the software as a service (Saas) paradigm have unveiled many opportunities to combine distinct services, provided by different parties, to establish higher level and more advanced services, that can be offered to end users and enterprises. Business-to-business (B2B) integration and third-party authorization (i.e. using standards like OAuth) are examples of processes requiring more parties to interact with each other to deliver some desired functionality. These kinds of interactions mostly consist of transactions and are usually regulated by some agreement which defines the obligations that involved parties have to comply with. In case one of the parties claims a violation of some clause of such agreement, disputes can occur if the party accused of the infraction refuses to recognize its fault. Moreover, in case of auditing, for convenience reasons a party may deny to have taken part in a given transaction, or may forge historical records related to that transaction. Solutions based on a trusted third party (TTP) have drawbacks: high overhead due to the involvement of an additional party, possible fees to pay for each transaction, and the risks stemming from having to blindly trust another party. If it were possible to only base on transaction logs to sort disputes out, then it would be feasible to get rid of any TTP and related shortcomings. In this paper we propose SLAVE, a blockchain-based solution which does not require any TTP. Storing transactions in a public blockchain like Bitcoin’s or Ethereum’s provides strong guarantees on transactions’ integrity, hence they can be actually used as proofs when controversies arise. The solution we propose defines how to embed transaction logs in a public blockchain, so that each involved party can verify the identity of the others while keeping confident the content of transactions