Integration of Blockchain and Auction Models: A Survey, Some Applications, and Challenges

In recent years, blockchain has gained widespread attention as an emerging technology for decentralization, transparency, and immutability in advancing online activities over public networks. As an essential market process, auctions have been well studied and applied in many business fields due to their efficiency and contributions to fair trade. Complementary features between blockchain and auction models trigger a great potential for research and innovation. On the one hand, the decentralized nature of blockchain can provide a trustworthy, secure, and cost-effective mechanism to manage the auction process; on the other hand, auction models can be utilized to design incentive and consensus protocols in blockchain architectures. These opportunities have attracted enormous research and innovation activities in both academia and industry; however, there is a lack of an in-depth review of existing solutions and achievements. In this paper, we conduct a comprehensive state-of-the-art survey of these two research topics. We review the existing solutions for integrating blockchain and auction models, with some application-oriented taxonomies generated. Additionally, we highlight some open research challenges and future directions towards integrated blockchain-auction models

When energy trading meets blockchain in electrical power system: The state of the art

With the rapid growth of renewable energy resources, energy trading has been shifting from the centralized manner to distributed manner. Blockchain, as a distributed public ledger technology, has been widely adopted in the design of new energy trading schemes. However, there are many challenging issues in blockchain-based energy trading, e.g., low efficiency, high transaction cost, and security and privacy issues. To tackle these challenges, many solutions have been proposed. In this survey, the blockchain-based energy trading in the electrical power system is thoroughly investigated. Firstly, the challenges in blockchain-based energy trading are identified and summarized. Then, the existing energy trading schemes are studied and classified into three categories based on their main focuses: energy transaction, consensus mechanism, and system optimization. Blockchain-based energy trading has been a popular research topic, new blockchain architectures, models and products are continually emerging to overcome the limitations of existing solutions, forming a virtuous circle. The internal combination of different blockchain types and the combination of blockchain with other technologies improve the blockchain-based energy trading system to better satisfy the practical requirements of modern power systems. However, there are still some problems to be solved, for example, the lack of regulatory system, environmental challenges and so on. In the future, we will strive for a better optimized structure and establish a comprehensive security assessment model for blockchain-based energy trading system.This research was funded by Beijing Natural Science Foundation (grant number 4182060).Scopu

Blockchain Technology Changing Resource Management: A Case Study on How Even Botswana Can Improve their Level of Accountability in Diamonds

The African continent is rich in resources yet still lags behind, in terms of economic development, in relation to a large portion of the world. There are mines all over the continent yet mineral ores leave the countries without a trace and nothing to show for the hard work it took to retrieve them. There are many factors that have led African countries to where they are now, but what if an improvement in; resource management, the ability to track property ownership, value added or environmental externalities at each step could help change things around. The countries would be able to avoid expropriation, theft, exploitation, degradation, slavery, war pillages etc. So how does one tackle this decades long problem, how about through something that has only surpassed a decade, blockchain technology. Blockchains are a form of distributed ledger technology (DLT) that is part of an ever growing phenomenon, a distrust of big governments, big business, big finance and big tech. This paper hopes to propose a way in which blockchain technology and resource management can go hand in hand, looking at Africa’s gem, Botswana, as a case study. Botswana is a perfect example of how resources can improve the country for the better. The mining of diamonds has been a pivotal part of the history of Botswana. Diamonds were able to transform Botswana from one of the least developed nations at its independence to being one of Africa’s few middle income countries. With the resource curse averted and with steady economic growth it is still worrying that Botswana ranks within the top 10 most unequal countries. .“In 2010, for instance, when the stated export value of diamonds is compared to the production value at mine-gate, over $438 million vanishes—an undervaluation of$19 per carat. ”(Sharife, 2016, p.81). This proposal shows how even Botswana could improve on their resource management to help the entire country progress into a more equally distributed society. This paper argues that the centralized private-public partnership of the Botswana diamond mining sector can be seen as being the root cause of the problem. While most remedies to the commodity curse have been government controls or industrial consolidation, which often lead to private or public sector monopolies, as these monopolies can withstand price volatility. They also lead to the expropriation of the surplus, lack transparency, result in bureaucratic kickbacks and corruption, are undemocratic, and most of the surplus is siphoned off into international tax havens rather than returning to the original owners of the buried treasure. Blockchain is a new technology and governance structure that gives hope for indigenous property rights, allows for decentralized coordination, offers the potential for a fairer distribution of the surplus, gives greater transparency to the process, can incorporate fines and records for environmental damage. It overall offers a way for the management of primary resources and their supply chain which has previously been left up to those in power. The centralized nature of the mining sector allows such a proposal to exist. By utilizing blockchain technology, Botswana can improve the value added on their diamonds through the transparency of blockchain, as well as the government and private sector being held accountable for any monetary loss that occurs through unmonitored agreements