Blockchain Gaps

This book analyzes the fundamental issues faced when blockchain technology is applied to real-life applications. These concerns, not only in the realm of computer science, are caused by the nature of technological design. Blockchain is considered the foundation of a wide range of flexible ecosystems; its technology is an excellent mixture of mathematics, cryptography, incentive mechanisms, economics, and pertinent regulations. The book provides an essential understanding of why such fundamental issues arise, by revising the underlying theories. Blockchain theory is thus presented in an easy-to-understand, useful manner. Also explained is the reason why blockchain is hard to adopt for real-life problems but is valuable as a foundation for flexible ecosystems. Included are directions for solving those problems and finding suitable areas for blockchain applications in the future. The authors of this work are experts from a wide range of backgrounds such as cryptography, distributed computing, computer science, trust, identity, regulation, and standardization. Their contributions collected here will appeal to all who are interested in blockchain and the elements surrounding it.

How do we break the chains of poverty caused by the corrupt financial systems around the world? How do we close the wealth gap that has over 80% of Americans living paycheck to paycheck? The very short answer is blockchain technology. This book is designed to teach the reader about the history of the wealth gap and how blockchain technology can help close that gap. The financial system only plays chess; it's time we stop playing checkers. Let's even the playing field by learning financial literacy and investing in cryptocurrency.

Blockchain: A Hype or a Hoax? fills a gap in the book market to provide material that is not only technical but also caters to business readers. This book was written to keep in mind various stakeholders and the current gap in blockchain education as well as use case implementation. This book reviews blockchain technology, discusses why proof of concept fails, offers examples of use cases that have been successful and that have failed and articulates a framework that should be used before deciding whether blockchain is the right technology for transformation. It uses strategic models and frameworks to assist organisations to see a fit score for their specific use cases. This book provides guidance on how to create a blockchain strategy and a business case to pitch for the budget. It also includes a case study to apply the knowledge on practical use cases for blockchain and a technical overview of most of the blockchain use cases in the market including crypto, non-fungible tokens, decentralised finance, and decentralised autonomous organisations, as well as financial and non-financial industry use cases. This book also provides a detailed overview of most of the mainstream blockchain products currently available in the market. It also offers guidance on how readers can best educate themselves on blockchain technology that is available through commercial and free resources. It concludes with a clear direction on selecting blockchain to solve real-life use cases that are best fit. A financial and non-financial value-adding framework is discussed throughout this book to assist business leaders, programme managers, product managers and information technology leaders to make strategic choices, and business cases and develop strategies for digital transformation through the use of blockchain. The distinctive feature of this book is the critical analysis of blockchain from a technology and business perspective. This is the first book to focus on business, technology and blockchain selection framework. The most unique feature of this book would be to apply Michael Porter’s competitive advantage strategy theory on blockchain use cases and their impact on companies. This book is aimed at technology students, technology professionals, blockchain and fintech consultant and business leaders. It will also be useful for readers who are building a business case to adopt blockchain into an organisation or are seeking to grow their knowledge of blockchain and improve their fintech strategy.

This book focuses on conducting a comprehensive analysis of blockchain scalability serving large-scale application scenarios, from the “what, why, how” three perspectives, layer by layer. Gathering the latest state-of-the-art research advances in the area of key issues and technologies for blockchain scalability, it also presents some special and exciting insights on the existing and future blockchain scalability. Despite blockchain’s merits of decentralization, immutability, non-repudiation, and traceability, the current blockchain has faced a serious scalability bottleneck. The scalability bottleneck problem is mainly manifested in two aspects: low-performance efficiency and difficulty in functional extension. First, the security and reliability of the blockchain system come from the fact that most nodes of the whole network participate in a distributed consensus to maintain the ledger. The high-cost consensus mechanism makes limited performance of blockchain, and there is a big gap between the actual large-scale application system. In addition, in order to ensure the security of a single blockchain system, data between different blockchain systems are relatively isolated, making it difficult for assets and data to interact. This book explores the scalability of blockchain in depth, proposes meaningful approaches to the problems mentioned above, and builds an original theoretical system of blockchain scalability. It describes the root of blockchain scalability problems, mainstream blockchain performance, the classification of existing scalability problem solutions, and some exciting sharding-based approaches. It also includes open issues and future directions to scale blockchain for complex practical application scenarios. As such, this book will be a valuable resource for students, researchers, engineers, and policymakers working in various areas related to blockchain scalability, which is also of great significance for understanding and solving the bottleneck of blockchain scalability and realizing the practical large-scale commercial application of blockchain.

Handbook of Digital Finance and Financial Inclusion: Cryptocurrency, FinTech, InsurTech, Regulation, ChinaTech, Mobile Security, and Distributed Ledger explores recent advances in digital banking and cryptocurrency, emphasizing mobile technology and evolving uses of cryptocurrencies as financial assets. Contributors go beyond summaries of standard models to describe new banking business models that will be sustainable and likely to dictate the future of finance. The book not only emphasizes the financial opportunities made possible by digital banking, such as financial inclusion and impact investing, but also looks at engineering theories and developments that encourage innovation. Its ability to illuminate present potential and future possibilities make it a unique contribution to the literature. A companion Volume Two of The Handbook of Digital Banking and Financial Inclusion: ChinaTech, Mobile Security, Distributed Ledger, and Blockchain emphasizes technological developments that introduce the future of finance. Descriptions of recent innovations lay the foundations for explorations of feasible solutions for banks and startups to grow. The combination of studies on blockchain technologies and applications, regional financial inclusion movements, advances in Chinese finance, and security issues delivers a grand perspective on both changing industries and lifestyles. Written for students and practitioners, it helps lead the way to future possibilities. Explains the practical consequences of both technologies and economics to readers who want to learn about subjects related to their specialties Encompasses alternative finance, financial inclusion, impact investing, decentralized consensus ledger and applied cryptography Provides the only advanced methodical summary of these subjects available today

The Cyber-Physical System (CPS) relates to many other popularized technologies such as Internet of Things (IoT, IIoT), Machine-to-Machine (M2M), Industry 4.0, which describe a vision of connected creations that deeply unite the physical and information domains. As a revolutionary technology, Blockchain (BC) provides a practical solution to enable a secure and decentralized public ledger that a huge plethora of exciting new technology applications in several areas, such as the Internet of Things (IoT), Cyber-Physical Systems, Manufacturing, Supply-Chain, etc. Blockchain technology has infiltrated all areas of our lives, from manufacturing to healthcare and beyond. In this context, this book helps discover the various potential applications that could be fruitful for cyber-physical system applications. It provides a sampling of recent advances and ideas on research progress and the practical usage of blockchain technologies in addressing cyber-physical systems challenges and issues. It provides a sampling of recent advances and views on research progress and the practical usage of blockchain technologies in addressing cyber-physical systems challenges and issues.

The rise of technology has proven to be a threat to personal data, cyberspace protection, and organizational security. However, these technologies can be used to enhance the effectiveness of institutional security. Through the use of blockchain and the internet of things (IoT), organizations may combat cybercriminals and better protect their privacy. The Research Anthology on Convergence of Blockchain, Internet of Things, and Security describes the implementation of blockchain and IoT technologies to better protect personal and organizational data as well as enhance overall security. It also explains the tools, applications, and emerging innovations in security and the ways in which they are enhanced by blockchain and IoT. Covering topics such as electronic health records, intrusion detection, and software engineering, this major reference work is an essential resource for business leaders and executives, IT managers, computer scientists, hospital administrators, security professionals, law enforcement, students and faculty of higher education, librarians, researchers, and academicians.