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The Bottleneck of Blockchain Techniques: Scalability, Security and Privacy Protection

Submission Deadline: 20 September 2023 (closed)

Guest Editors

Prof. Shen Su, Guangzhou University, China
Prof. Daojing He, Harbin Institute of Technology (Shenzhen), China
Prof. Neeraj Kumar, Thapar Institute of Engineering and Technology, India

Summary

Blockchain technique has been widely investigated for the last decade as the foundation of a decentralized information-sharing platform because of its promising application prospect. In spite of the success of the existing blockchain architectures such as Bitcoin, Ethereum, Filecoin, Hyperledger Fabric, BCOS, BCS, etc., the current blockchain-based application scenarios are still very limited. With the restriction on the consensus efficiency, blockchain fails to adapt to the scenarios which require high-speed transaction (e.g. online markets) or a large amount of data storage (e.g. video services); with the restriction on the security protection, investors of blockchain-based economic system (e.g. DeFi) are taking the risk of asset loss, which scares off the existing (and potential) investors; with the restriction on the privacy protection, involving sensitive data in the blockchain-based applications turns out to be a big challenge.


On the objective of solving the bottleneck problems of the blockchain techniques, blockchain architectures need to provide better scalability, security and privacy protection schemes. For better transaction performance, current research directions include improving the consensus mechanism, sharding the blockchain network and transaction system, proposing transactions with batches (layer-2) or in parallel, and promoting the interoperability. For better data storage capability, researchers mainly focus on the on-chain and off-chain collaboration storage, and storage provability. For better security protection, researchers reinforce the theory foundation of cryptographic technology; monitor and detect the potential attacking threats in real-time; and conduct code audit and vulnerability mining on smart contracts. For better privacy protection, researchers involved homomorphic encryption, zero-knowledge proof, MPC, and federated learning techniques into the blockchain architecture.


This special issue aims at collecting original research to provide better understanding and problem solving capabilities on the current performance of blockchain architectures. We solicit the following topics, but not limited to

• Cryptography theory and application technology

• Scalable and provable consensus algorithm

• Blockchain-based decentralized storage mechanisms

• Rollup and cross-chain protocols

• Parallel transaction architecture for blockchain

• Blockchain performance evaluation and measurement techniques

• Privacy protection schemes for blockchain

• Blockchain transaction supervision, regulation technology

• Dapp ecosystem security supervision and governance schemes

• Reliable and decentralized Oracle techniques for blockchain

• Transaction auditing and tracking algorithms

• Smart contract vulnerability detection and response techniques

• Smart contract language and compiling techniques

• Blockchain-based credible information sharing systems

• Blockchain-based social governance systems



Published Papers


  • Open Access

    ARTICLE

    A Sharding Scheme Based on Graph Partitioning Algorithm for Public Blockchain

    Shujiang Xu, Ziye Wang, Lianhai Wang, Miodrag J. Mihaljević, Shuhui Zhang, Wei Shao, Qizheng Wang
    CMES-Computer Modeling in Engineering & Sciences, Vol.139, No.3, pp. 3311-3327, 2024, DOI:10.32604/cmes.2023.046164
    (This article belongs to this Special Issue: The Bottleneck of Blockchain Techniques: Scalability, Security and Privacy Protection)
    Abstract Blockchain technology, with its attributes of decentralization, immutability, and traceability, has emerged as a powerful catalyst for enhancing traditional industries in terms of optimizing business processes. However, transaction performance and scalability has become the main challenges hindering the widespread adoption of blockchain. Due to its inability to meet the demands of high-frequency trading, blockchain cannot be adopted in many scenarios. To improve the transaction capacity, researchers have proposed some on-chain scaling technologies, including lightning networks, directed acyclic graph technology, state channels, and sharding mechanisms, in which sharding emerges as a potential scaling technology. Nevertheless, excessive cross-shard transactions and uneven shard… More >

    Graphic Abstract

    A Sharding Scheme Based on Graph Partitioning Algorithm for Public Blockchain

  • Open Access

    ARTICLE

    NFT Security Matrix: Towards Modeling NFT Ecosystem Threat

    Peng Liao, Chaoge Liu, Jie Yin, Zhi Wang, Xiang Cui
    CMES-Computer Modeling in Engineering & Sciences, Vol.139, No.3, pp. 3255-3285, 2024, DOI:10.32604/cmes.2024.043855
    (This article belongs to this Special Issue: The Bottleneck of Blockchain Techniques: Scalability, Security and Privacy Protection)
    Abstract Digital assets have boomed over the past few years with the emergence of Non-fungible Tokens (NFTs). To be specific, the total trading volume of digital assets reached an astounding $55.5 billion in 2022. Nevertheless, numerous security concerns have been raised by the rapid expansion of the NFT ecosystem. NFT holders are exposed to a plethora of scams and traps, putting their digital assets at risk of being lost. However, academic research on NFT security is scarce, and the security issues have aroused rare attention. In this study, the NFT ecological process is comprehensively explored. This process falls into five different… More >

  • Open Access

    ARTICLE

    Blockchain-Based Certificateless Bidirectional Authenticated Searchable Encryption Scheme in Cloud Email System

    Yanzhong Sun, Xiaoni Du, Shufen Niu, Xiaodong Yang
    CMES-Computer Modeling in Engineering & Sciences, Vol.139, No.3, pp. 3287-3310, 2024, DOI:10.32604/cmes.2023.043589
    (This article belongs to this Special Issue: The Bottleneck of Blockchain Techniques: Scalability, Security and Privacy Protection)
    Abstract Traditional email systems can only achieve one-way communication, which means only the receiver is allowed to search for emails on the email server. In this paper, we propose a blockchain-based certificateless bidirectional authenticated searchable encryption model for a cloud email system named certificateless authenticated bidirectional searchable encryption (CL-BSE) by combining the storage function of cloud server with the communication function of email server. In the new model, not only can the data receiver search for the relevant content by generating its own trapdoor, but the data owner also can retrieve the content in the same way. Meanwhile, there are dual… More >

  • Open Access

    ARTICLE

    An Encode-and CRT-Based Scalability Scheme for Optimizing Transmission in Blockchain

    Qianqi Sun, Fenhua Bai
    CMES-Computer Modeling in Engineering & Sciences, Vol.139, No.2, pp. 1733-1754, 2024, DOI:10.32604/cmes.2023.044558
    (This article belongs to this Special Issue: The Bottleneck of Blockchain Techniques: Scalability, Security and Privacy Protection)
    Abstract Blockchain technology has witnessed a burgeoning integration into diverse realms of economic and societal development. Nevertheless, scalability challenges, characterized by diminished broadcast efficiency, heightened communication overhead, and escalated storage costs, have significantly constrained the broad-scale application of blockchain. This paper introduces a novel Encode-and CRT-based Scalability Scheme (ECSS), meticulously refined to enhance both block broadcasting and storage. Primarily, ECSS categorizes nodes into distinct domains, thereby reducing the network diameter and augmenting transmission efficiency. Secondly, ECSS streamlines block transmission through a compact block protocol and robust RS coding, which not only reduces the size of broadcasted blocks but also ensures transmission… More >

  • Open Access

    ARTICLE

    On Designs of Decentralized Reputation Management for Permissioned Blockchain Networks

    Jinyu Chen, Long Shi, Qisheng Huang, Taotao Wang, Daojing He
    CMES-Computer Modeling in Engineering & Sciences, Vol.139, No.2, pp. 1755-1773, 2024, DOI:10.32604/cmes.2023.046826
    (This article belongs to this Special Issue: The Bottleneck of Blockchain Techniques: Scalability, Security and Privacy Protection)
    Abstract In permissioned blockchain networks, the Proof of Authority (PoA) consensus, which uses the election of authorized nodes to validate transactions and blocks, has been widely advocated thanks to its high transaction throughput and fault tolerance. However, PoA suffers from the drawback of centralization dominated by a limited number of authorized nodes and the lack of anonymity due to the round-robin block proposal mechanism. As a result, traditional PoA is vulnerable to a single point of failure that compromises the security of the blockchain network. To address these issues, we propose a novel decentralized reputation management mechanism for permissioned blockchain networks… More >

    Graphic Abstract

    On Designs of Decentralized Reputation Management for Permissioned Blockchain Networks

  • Open Access

    ARTICLE

    A Bitcoin Address Multi-Classification Mechanism Based on Bipartite Graph-Based Maximization Consensus

    Lejun Zhang, Junjie Zhang, Kentaroh Toyoda, Yuan Liu, Jing Qiu, Zhihong Tian, Ran Guo
    CMES-Computer Modeling in Engineering & Sciences, Vol.139, No.1, pp. 783-800, 2024, DOI:10.32604/cmes.2023.043469
    (This article belongs to this Special Issue: The Bottleneck of Blockchain Techniques: Scalability, Security and Privacy Protection)
    Abstract Bitcoin is widely used as the most classic electronic currency for various electronic services such as exchanges, gambling, marketplaces, and also scams such as high-yield investment projects. Identifying the services operated by a Bitcoin address can help determine the risk level of that address and build an alert model accordingly. Feature engineering can also be used to flesh out labeled addresses and to analyze the current state of Bitcoin in a small way. In this paper, we address the problem of identifying multiple classes of Bitcoin services, and for the poor classification of individual addresses that do not have significant… More >

  • Open Access

    ARTICLE

    Electricity Carbon Quota Trading Scheme based on Certificateless Signature and Blockchain

    Xiaodong Yang, Runze Diao, Tao Liu, Haoqi Wen, Caifen Wang
    CMES-Computer Modeling in Engineering & Sciences, Vol.138, No.2, pp. 1695-1712, 2024, DOI:10.32604/cmes.2023.029461
    (This article belongs to this Special Issue: The Bottleneck of Blockchain Techniques: Scalability, Security and Privacy Protection)
    Abstract The carbon trading market can promote “carbon peaking” and “carbon neutrality” at low cost, but carbon emission quotas face attacks such as data forgery, tampering, counterfeiting, and replay in the electricity trading market. Certificateless signatures are a new cryptographic technology that can address traditional cryptography’s general essential certificate requirements and avoid the problem of crucial escrow based on identity cryptography. However, most certificateless signatures still suffer from various security flaws. We present a secure and efficient certificateless signing scheme by examining the security of existing certificateless signature schemes. To ensure the integrity and verifiability of electricity carbon quota trading, we… More >

  • Open Access

    ARTICLE

    “Half of the Node Records Are Forged?”: The Problem of Node Records Forgery in Ethereum Network

    Yang Liu, Zhiyuan Lin, Yuxi Zhang, Lin Jiang, Xuan Wang
    CMES-Computer Modeling in Engineering & Sciences, Vol.138, No.2, pp. 1713-1729, 2024, DOI:10.32604/cmes.2023.030468
    (This article belongs to this Special Issue: The Bottleneck of Blockchain Techniques: Scalability, Security and Privacy Protection)
    Abstract Ethereum, currently the most widely utilized smart contracts platform, anchors the security of myriad smart contracts upon its own robustness. Its foundational peer-to-peer network facilitates a dependable node connection mechanism, whereas an efficient data-sharing protocol constitutes as the bedrock of Blockchain network security. In this paper, we propose NodeHunter, an Ethereum network detector implemented through the application of simulation technology, which is capable of aggregating all node records within the network and the interconnectedness between them. Utilizing this connection information, NodeHunter can procure more comprehensive insights for network status analysis compared to preceding detection methodologies. Throughout a three-month period of… More >

  • Open Access

    ARTICLE

    Enhancing IoT Data Security with Lightweight Blockchain and Okamoto Uchiyama Homomorphic Encryption

    Mohanad A. Mohammed, Hala B. Abdul Wahab
    CMES-Computer Modeling in Engineering & Sciences, Vol.138, No.2, pp. 1731-1748, 2024, DOI:10.32604/cmes.2023.030528
    (This article belongs to this Special Issue: The Bottleneck of Blockchain Techniques: Scalability, Security and Privacy Protection)
    Abstract Blockchain technology has garnered significant attention from global organizations and researchers due to its potential as a solution for centralized system challenges. Concurrently, the Internet of Things (IoT) has revolutionized the Fourth Industrial Revolution by enabling interconnected devices to offer innovative services, ultimately enhancing human lives. This paper presents a new approach utilizing lightweight blockchain technology, effectively reducing the computational burden typically associated with conventional blockchain systems. By integrating this lightweight blockchain with IoT systems, substantial reductions in implementation time and computational complexity can be achieved. Moreover, the paper proposes the utilization of the Okamoto Uchiyama encryption algorithm, renowned for… More >

  • Open Access

    ARTICLE

    A Blockchain-Based Game Approach to Multi-Microgrid Energy Dispatch

    Zhikang Wang, Chengxuan Wang, Wendi Wu, Cheng Sun, Zhengtian Wu
    CMES-Computer Modeling in Engineering & Sciences, Vol.138, No.1, pp. 845-863, 2024, DOI:10.32604/cmes.2023.029442
    (This article belongs to this Special Issue: The Bottleneck of Blockchain Techniques: Scalability, Security and Privacy Protection)
    Abstract As the current global environment is deteriorating, distributed renewable energy is gradually becoming an important member of the energy internet. Blockchain, as a decentralized distributed ledger with decentralization, traceability and tamper-proof features, is an important way to achieve efficient consumption and multi-party supply of new energy. In this article, we establish a blockchain-based mathematical model of multiple microgrids and microgrid aggregators’ revenue, consider the degree of microgrid users’ preference for electricity thus increasing users’ reliance on the blockchain market, and apply the one-master-multiple-slave Stackelberg game theory to solve the energy dispatching strategy when each market entity pursues the maximum revenue.… More >

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