360 research outputs found
Social Welfare Maximization Auction in Edge Computing Resource Allocation for Mobile Blockchain
Blockchain, an emerging decentralized security system, has been applied in
many applications, such as bitcoin, smart grid, and Internet-of-Things.
However, running the mining process may cost too much energy consumption and
computing resource usage on handheld devices, which restricts the use of
blockchain in mobile environments. In this paper, we consider deploying edge
computing service to support the mobile blockchain. We propose an auction-based
edge computing resource market of the edge computing service provider. Since
there is competition among miners, the allocative externalities (positive and
negative) are taken into account in the model. In our auction mechanism, we
maximize the social welfare while guaranteeing the truthfulness, individual
rationality and computational efficiency. Based on blockchain mining experiment
results, we define a hash power function that characterizes the probability of
successfully mining a block. Through extensive simulations, we evaluate the
performance of our auction mechanism which shows that our edge computing
resources market model can efficiently solve the social welfare maximization
problem for the edge computing service provider
A Hierarchical Game with Strategy Evolution for Mobile Sponsored Content and Service Markets
In sponsored content and service markets, the content and service providers
are able to subsidize their target mobile users through directly paying the
mobile network operator, to lower the price of the data/service access charged
by the network operator to the mobile users. The sponsoring mechanism leads to
a surge in mobile data and service demand, which in return compensates for the
sponsoring cost and benefits the content/service providers. In this paper, we
study the interactions among the three parties in the market, namely, the
mobile users, the content/service providers and the network operator, as a
two-level game with multiple Stackelberg (i.e., leader) players. Our study is
featured by the consideration of global network effects owning to consumers'
grouping. Since the mobile users may have bounded rationality, we model the
service-selection process among them as an evolutionary-population follower
sub-game. Meanwhile, we model the pricing-then-sponsoring process between the
content/service providers and the network operator as a non-cooperative
equilibrium searching problem. By investigating the structure of the proposed
game, we reveal a few important properties regarding the equilibrium existence,
and propose a distributed, projection-based algorithm for iterative equilibrium
searching. Simulation results validate the convergence of the proposed
algorithm, and demonstrate how sponsoring helps improve both the providers'
profits and the users' experience
On Cyber Risk Management of Blockchain Networks: A Game Theoretic Approach
Open-access blockchains based on proof-of-work protocols have gained
tremendous popularity for their capabilities of providing decentralized
tamper-proof ledgers and platforms for data-driven autonomous organization.
Nevertheless, the proof-of-work based consensus protocols are vulnerable to
cyber-attacks such as double-spending. In this paper, we propose a novel
approach of cyber risk management for blockchain-based service. In particular,
we adopt the cyber-insurance as an economic tool for neutralizing cyber risks
due to attacks in blockchain networks. We consider a blockchain service market,
which is composed of the infrastructure provider, the blockchain provider, the
cyber-insurer, and the users. The blockchain provider purchases from the
infrastructure provider, e.g., a cloud, the computing resources to maintain the
blockchain consensus, and then offers blockchain services to the users. The
blockchain provider strategizes its investment in the infrastructure and the
service price charged to the users, in order to improve the security of the
blockchain and thus optimize its profit. Meanwhile, the blockchain provider
also purchases a cyber-insurance from the cyber-insurer to protect itself from
the potential damage due to the attacks. In return, the cyber-insurer adjusts
the insurance premium according to the perceived risk level of the blockchain
service. Based on the assumption of rationality for the market entities, we
model the interaction among the blockchain provider, the users, and the
cyber-insurer as a two-level Stackelberg game. Namely, the blockchain provider
and the cyber-insurer lead to set their pricing/investment strategies, and then
the users follow to determine their demand of the blockchain service.
Specifically, we consider the scenario of double-spending attacks and provide a
series of analytical results about the Stackelberg equilibrium in the market
game
Cloud/fog computing resource management and pricing for blockchain networks
The mining process in blockchain requires solving a proof-of-work puzzle,
which is resource expensive to implement in mobile devices due to the high
computing power and energy needed. In this paper, we, for the first time,
consider edge computing as an enabler for mobile blockchain. In particular, we
study edge computing resource management and pricing to support mobile
blockchain applications in which the mining process of miners can be offloaded
to an edge computing service provider. We formulate a two-stage Stackelberg
game to jointly maximize the profit of the edge computing service provider and
the individual utilities of the miners. In the first stage, the service
provider sets the price of edge computing nodes. In the second stage, the
miners decide on the service demand to purchase based on the observed prices.
We apply the backward induction to analyze the sub-game perfect equilibrium in
each stage for both uniform and discriminatory pricing schemes. For the uniform
pricing where the same price is applied to all miners, the existence and
uniqueness of Stackelberg equilibrium are validated by identifying the best
response strategies of the miners. For the discriminatory pricing where the
different prices are applied to different miners, the Stackelberg equilibrium
is proved to exist and be unique by capitalizing on the Variational Inequality
theory. Further, the real experimental results are employed to justify our
proposed model.Comment: 16 pages, double-column version, accepted by IEEE Internet of Things
Journa
When Mobile Blockchain Meets Edge Computing
Blockchain, as the backbone technology of the current popular Bitcoin digital
currency, has become a promising decentralized data management framework.
Although blockchain has been widely adopted in many applications, e.g.,
finance, healthcare, and logistics, its application in mobile services is still
limited. This is due to the fact that blockchain users need to solve preset
proof-of-work puzzles to add new data, i.e., a block, to the blockchain.
Solving the proof-of-work, however, consumes substantial resources in terms of
CPU time and energy, which is not suitable for resource-limited mobile devices.
To facilitate blockchain applications in future mobile Internet of Things
systems, multiple access mobile edge computing appears to be an auspicious
solution to solve the proof-of-work puzzles for mobile users. We first
introduce a novel concept of edge computing for mobile blockchain. Then, we
introduce an economic approach for edge computing resource management.
Moreover, a prototype of mobile edge computing enabled blockchain systems is
presented with experimental results to justify the proposed concept.Comment: Accepted by IEEE Communications Magazin
Competition and Cooperation Analysis for Data Sponsored Market: A Network Effects Model
The data sponsored scheme allows the content provider to cover parts of the
cellular data costs for mobile users. Thus the content service becomes
appealing to more users and potentially generates more profit gain to the
content provider. In this paper, we consider a sponsored data market with a
monopoly network service provider, a single content provider, and multiple
users. In particular, we model the interactions of three entities as a
two-stage Stackelberg game, where the service provider and content provider act
as the leaders determining the pricing and sponsoring strategies, respectively,
in the first stage, and the users act as the followers deciding on their data
demand in the second stage. We investigate the mutual interaction of the
service provider and content provider in two cases: (i) competitive case, where
the content provider and service provider optimize their strategies separately
and competitively, each aiming at maximizing the profit and revenue,
respectively; and (ii) cooperative case, where the two providers jointly
optimize their strategies, with the purpose of maximizing their aggregate
profits. We analyze the sub-game perfect equilibrium in both cases. Via
extensive simulations, we demonstrate that the network effects significantly
improve the payoff of three entities in this market, i.e., utilities of users,
the profit of content provider and the revenue of service provider. In
addition, it is revealed that the cooperation between the two providers is the
best choice for all three entities.Comment: 7 pages, submitted to one conferenc
Optimal Pricing-Based Edge Computing Resource Management in Mobile Blockchain
As the core issue of blockchain, the mining requires solving a proof-of-work
puzzle, which is resource expensive to implement in mobile devices due to high
computing power needed. Thus, the development of blockchain in mobile
applications is restricted. In this paper, we consider the edge computing as
the network enabler for mobile blockchain. In particular, we study optimal
pricing-based edge computing resource management to support mobile blockchain
applications where the mining process can be offloaded to an Edge computing
Service Provider (ESP). We adopt a two-stage Stackelberg game to jointly
maximize the profit of the ESP and the individual utilities of different
miners. In Stage I, the ESP sets the price of edge computing services. In Stage
II, the miners decide on the service demand to purchase based on the observed
prices. We apply the backward induction to analyze the sub-game perfect
equilibrium in each stage for uniform and discriminatory pricing schemes.
Further, the existence and uniqueness of Stackelberg game are validated for
both pricing schemes. At last, the performance evaluation shows that the ESP
intends to set the maximum possible value as the optimal price for profit
maximization under uniform pricing. In addition, the discriminatory pricing
helps the ESP encourage higher total service demand from miners and achieve
greater profit correspondingly.Comment: 7 pages, submitted to one conference. arXiv admin note: substantial
text overlap with arXiv:1710.0156
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