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Now let us see how a blockchain based voting system would help in addressing these concerns:. The basic premise of the aforementioned solution was to keep it relatively simple and based on the current guidelines of EC. In-future if ADHAAR number is linked with voter-id then, adhaar based authentication can also be added which would help in weeding out the ghost voters.
Being a game changer in the field of electronic voting, India can also lead the world into next level of secure and transparent voting. Being one of the successful democracies of the world it would ensure that the collective voices of all are heard in a free and fair way.
Blockchain Technology in Logistics Software Development for Supply Chain Management Nowadays, experts connected to the finance and supply chain industries…. This is an efficient way of handling…. Blockchain based voting. In democracy, the choice of majority would be more prudent than the Home Offerings Blockchain Blockchain based voting.
By Harekrushna Rath Blockchain December 18, Then how do we address trust issues? Just to refresh your thought- Blockchain is a digitized and decentralized ledger of transactions happening over a network. Before understanding how block-chain can be used in voting, let us list out the key problems, highlighted by different stakeholders, in our existing system: Political parties- EVMs can be tampered to facilitate a certain political out-fit Election Commission- Making the voting record web-based will make it vulnerable to security threats.
It would increase the counting time and lastly it would bring back the horrors of booth capturing. Now let us see how a blockchain based voting system would help in addressing these concerns: In this system, each state election commission would be the consortium owner for the state.
Each constituency will be nodes and the data entry point or the users would be the EVMs in each booths All the political parties within the state will be also nodes but with limited read access only.
The infrastructural changes that would be needed are: Each EVM would be connected to the web instead of being the current standalone systems. The control unit would have the option of entering the voter-id number. Mobile app would be provided to voters wherein they can register themselves with their voter-ids. Data would be recorded into the data centers within India. Political parties would set-up nodes within the state wherein the copy of ledger would be stored.
The election process: The voter goes to the poll booth and gets his Voter-I card validated by the polling officer with the voting register manually. The vote is recorded and stored internally in the EVMs and it is transmitted to the block-chain ledger and recorded. Each vote would be a transaction and they would be grouped and converted into blocks in the digital ledger. The identity of the voter, booth and locality would be encrypted and would not be visible to anyone.
The ledger entries would get updated in the nodes of political parties as well. They would be able to view the votes polled in the constituency after the polling is over. During the counting process: Election commission can validate the cumulative number of votes cast in the EVMs with the total number in the blockchain ledger. Voters can access their mobile apps and validate whether the votes cast by them are recorded for the intended candidate.
Advantages: It will make the voting process more transparent. Immutability of ledger entries will help in countering the security threats associated with networked EVMs. It will ease the process of validating the results as compared to current VVPAT system or the old-paper ballots. More posts by Harekrushna Rath. The linked blocks form a chain.
Sometimes separate blocks can be produced concurrently, creating a temporary fork. In addition to a secure hash-based history, any blockchain has a specified algorithm for scoring different versions of the history so that one with a higher score can be selected over others. Blocks not selected for inclusion in the chain are called orphan blocks. They keep only the highest-scoring version of the database known to them. Whenever a peer receives a higher-scoring version usually the old version with a single new block added they extend or overwrite their own database and retransmit the improvement to their peers.
There is never an absolute guarantee that any particular entry will remain in the best version of the history forever. Blockchains are typically built to add the score of new blocks onto old blocks and are given incentives to extend with new blocks rather than overwrite old blocks. Therefore, the probability of an entry becoming superseded decreases exponentially [22] as more blocks are built on top of it, eventually becoming very low. There are a number of methods that can be used to demonstrate a sufficient level of computation.
Within a blockchain the computation is carried out redundantly rather than in the traditional segregated and parallel manner. The block time is the average time it takes for the network to generate one extra block in the blockchain.
Some blockchains create a new block as frequently as every five seconds. In cryptocurrency, this is practically when the transaction takes place, so a shorter block time means faster transactions.
The block time for Ethereum is set to between 14 and 15 seconds, while for bitcoin it is on average 10 minutes. A hard fork is a rule change such that the software validating according to the old rules will see the blocks produced according to the new rules as invalid.
In case of a hard fork, all nodes meant to work in accordance with the new rules need to upgrade their software. By storing data across its peer-to-peer network , the blockchain eliminates a number of risks that come with data being held centrally. Peer-to-peer blockchain networks lack centralized points of vulnerability that computer crackers can exploit; likewise, it has no central point of failure.
Blockchain security methods include the use of public-key cryptography. Value tokens sent across the network are recorded as belonging to that address. A private key is like a password that gives its owner access to their digital assets or the means to otherwise interact with the various capabilities that blockchains now support.
Data stored on the blockchain is generally considered incorruptible. Every node in a decentralized system has a copy of the blockchain. Data quality is maintained by massive database replication [29] and computational trust.
No centralized "official" copy exists and no user is "trusted" more than any other. Messages are delivered on a best-effort basis. Mining nodes validate transactions, [21] add them to the block they are building, and then broadcast the completed block to other nodes.
Open blockchains are more user-friendly than some traditional ownership records, which, while open to the public, still require physical access to view. Because all early blockchains were permissionless, controversy has arisen over the blockchain definition. An issue in this ongoing debate is whether a private system with verifiers tasked and authorized permissioned by a central authority should be considered a blockchain.
These blockchains serve as a distributed version of multiversion concurrency control MVCC in databases. The great advantage to an open, permissionless, or public, blockchain network is that guarding against bad actors is not required and no access control is needed. Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies currently secure their blockchain by requiring new entries to include a proof of work. To prolong the blockchain, bitcoin uses Hashcash puzzles.
In , venture capital investment for blockchain-related projects was weakening in the USA but increasing in China. Permissioned blockchains use an access control layer to govern who has access to the network. They do not rely on anonymous nodes to validate transactions nor do they benefit from the network effect. Nikolai Hampton pointed out in Computerworld that "There is also no need for a '51 percent' attack on a private blockchain, as the private blockchain most likely already controls percent of all block creation resources.
If you could attack or damage the blockchain creation tools on a private corporate server, you could effectively control percent of their network and alter transactions however you wished. It's unlikely that any private blockchain will try to protect records using gigawatts of computing power — it's time consuming and expensive.
This means that many in-house blockchain solutions will be nothing more than cumbersome databases. The analysis of public blockchains has become increasingly important with the popularity of bitcoin , Ethereum , litecoin and other cryptocurrencies. The process of understanding and accessing the flow of crypto has been an issue for many cryptocurrencies, crypto-exchanges and banks.
This is changing and now specialised tech-companies provide blockchain tracking services, making crypto exchanges, law-enforcement and banks more aware of what is happening with crypto funds and fiat crypto exchanges.
The development, some argue, has led criminals to prioritise use of new cryptos such as Monero. It is a key debate in cryptocurrency and ultimately in blockchain. Blockchain technology can be integrated into multiple areas. The primary use of blockchains today is as a distributed ledger for cryptocurrencies , most notably bitcoin. There are a few operational products maturing from proof of concept by late Most cryptocurrencies use blockchain technology to record transactions. For example, the bitcoin network and Ethereum network are both based on blockchain.
On 8 May Facebook confirmed that it would open a new blockchain group [53] which would be headed by David Marcus , who previously was in charge of Messenger. Facebook's planned cryptocurrency platform, Libra now known as Diem , was formally announced on June 18, Blockchain-based smart contracts are proposed contracts that can be partially or fully executed or enforced without human interaction.
A key feature of smart contracts is that they do not need a trusted third party such as a trustee to act as an intermediary between contracting entities -the blockchain network executes the contract on its own. This may reduce friction between entities when transferring value and could subsequently open the door to a higher level of transaction automation.
But "no viable smart contract systems have yet emerged. Major portions of the financial industry are implementing distributed ledgers for use in banking , [60] [61] [62] and according to a September IBM study, this is occurring faster than expected. Banks are interested in this technology because it has potential to speed up back office settlement systems. Banks such as UBS are opening new research labs dedicated to blockchain technology in order to explore how blockchain can be used in financial services to increase efficiency and reduce costs.
Berenberg , a German bank, believes that blockchain is an "overhyped technology" that has had a large number of "proofs of concept", but still has major challenges, and very few success stories. In December , Bitwala launched Europe's first regulated blockchain banking solution that enables users to manage both their bitcoin and euro deposits in one place with the safety and convenience of a German bank account.
The bank account is hosted by the Berlin-based solarisBank. Mojaloop is designed to deliver financial support to people living in areas underserved by banks. It of use to migrants sending remittances [69]. A number of companies are active in this space providing services for compliant tokenization, private STOs, and public STOs. A blockchain game CryptoKitties , launched in November CryptoKitties also demonstrated how blockchains can be used to catalog game assets digital assets.
Blockchain is also being used in peer-to-peer energy trading. There are a number of efforts and industry organizations working to employ blockchains in supply chain management. Blockchain could be used in detecting counterfeits by associating unique identifiers to products, documents and shipments, and storing records associated to transactions that cannot be forged or altered. Hospitals and vendors also utilized a blockchain for needed medical equipment.
Additionally, blockchain technology was being used in China to speed up the time it takes for health insurance payments to be paid to health-care providers and patients. Blockchain domain names are another use of blockchain on the rise. Unlike regular domain names, blockchain domain names are entirely an asset of the domain owner and can only be controlled by the owner through a private key.
Organizations providing blockchain domain name services include Unstoppable Domains, Namecoin and Ethereum Name Services. Blockchain technology can be used to create a permanent, public, transparent ledger system for compiling data on sales, tracking digital use and payments to content creators, such as wireless users [98] or musicians.
New distribution methods are available for the insurance industry such as peer-to-peer insurance , parametric insurance and microinsurance following the adoption of blockchain. Institute of Museum and Library Services. Currently, there are at least four types of blockchain networks — public blockchains, private blockchains, consortium blockchains and hybrid blockchains. A public blockchain has absolutely no access restrictions.
Anyone with an Internet connection can send transactions to it as well as become a validator i. Some of the largest, most known public blockchains are the bitcoin blockchain and the Ethereum blockchain.
A private blockchain is permissioned. Participant and validator access is restricted. To distinguish between open blockchains and other peer-to-peer decentralized database applications that are not open ad-hoc compute clusters, the terminology Distributed Ledger DLT is normally used for private blockchains.
A hybrid blockchain has a combination of centralized and decentralized features. A sidechain is a designation for a blockchain ledger that runs in parallel to a primary blockchain. With the increasing number of blockchain systems appearing, even only those that support cryptocurrencies, blockchain interoperability is becoming a topic of major importance. The objective is to support transferring assets from one blockchain system to another blockchain system. Wegner [] stated that "interoperability is the ability of two or more software components to cooperate despite differences in language, interface, and execution platform".
The objective of blockchain interoperability is therefore to support such cooperation among blockchain systems, despite those kinds of differences. There are already several blockchain interoperability solutions available.
The IETF has a recent Blockchain-interop working group that already produced the draft of a blockchain interoperability architecture. The adoption rates, as studied by Catalini and Tucker , revealed that when people who typically adopt technologies early are given delayed access, they tend to reject the technology.
Motivations for adopting blockchain technology have been investigated by researchers. Janssen et al. Scholars in business and management have started studying the role of blockchains to support collaboration.
Thanks to reliability, transparency, traceability of records, and information immutability, blockchains facilitate collaboration in a way that differs both from the traditional use of contracts and from relational norms. In addition, contrary to the use of relational norms, blockchains do not require trust or direct connections between collaborators. The need for internal audit to provide effective oversight of organizational efficiency will require a change in the way that information is accessed in new formats.
The Institute of Internal Auditors has identified the need for internal auditors to address this transformational technology. New methods are required to develop audit plans that identify threats and risks. The Bank for International Settlements has criticized the public proof-of-work blockchains for high energy consumption.
In September , the first peer-reviewed academic journal dedicated to cryptocurrency and blockchain technology research, Ledger , was announced. The inaugural issue was published in December The journal encourages authors to digitally sign a file hash of submitted papers, which are then timestamped into the bitcoin blockchain. Authors are also asked to include a personal bitcoin address in the first page of their papers for non-repudiation purposes. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Redirected from Block chain database.
For other uses, see Block chain disambiguation. If one group of nodes continues to use the old software while the other nodes use the new software, a permanent split can occur. For example, Ethereum has hard-forked to "make whole" the investors in The DAO , which had been hacked by exploiting a vulnerability in its code. In this case, the fork resulted in a split creating Ethereum and Ethereum Classic chains.
In the Nxt community was asked to consider a hard fork that would have led to a rollback of the blockchain records to mitigate the effects of a theft of 50 million NXT from a major cryptocurrency exchange. The hard fork proposal was rejected, and some of the funds were recovered after negotiations and ransom payment. Alternatively, to prevent a permanent split, a majority of nodes using the new software may return to the old rules, as was the case of bitcoin split on 12 March See also: Distributed ledger.
Main article: Cryptocurrency. Main article: Smart contract. Main article: Ledger journal. Economics portal. The Economist. Archived from the original on 3 July Retrieved 18 June The technology behind bitcoin lets people who do not know or trust each other build a dependable ledger.
This has implications far beyond the crypto currency. Archived from the original on 21 May Retrieved 23 May The New York Times. Archived from the original on 22 May Archived PDF from the original on 21 September Retrieved 22 October Archived from the original on 17 April Bitcoin and cryptocurrency technologies: a comprehensive introduction. Princeton: Princeton University Press. January Harvard Business Review. Harvard University. Archived from the original on 18 January Retrieved 17 January The technology at the heart of bitcoin and other virtual currencies, blockchain is an open, distributed ledger that can record transactions between two parties efficiently and in a verifiable and permanent way.
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In the absence of generally accepted security standards and regulations, the state of blockchain application development is clearly nascent. From a security assurance standpoint, blockchain business network ecosystems that are nearing implementation require a comprehensive risk management approach that leverages cybersecurity risk frameworks, best practices, and cybersecurity assurance services to effectively mitigate risks.
In the previous sections, you saw that in order to build a secure blockchain solution it is important to assess the risks and threats, and derive the security controls. Using the security controls in a blockchain architecture leads to the blockchain security reference model, which can be applied across all blockchain solutions. The key takeaways for this article are summarized in the blockchain security model shown in Figure 3, which highlights the most important parts of securing a blockchain solution.
These include:. This article has explained the essential components needed to secure a blockchain solution. Going forward, we strongly recommend that you review the solutions that you are designing and architecting against this blockchain security reference architecture and blockchain security model to ensure the security of your blockchain solutions.
For more blockchain security resources, see the Related Content links below and the Resources links in the right-hand column.
Acknowledgements: The authors would like to thank the following colleagues for their contributions to this article: Adewale Omoniyi, Dmitriy Beryoza, Kapil Singh, Jeff Tennenbaum, and Alessandro Sorniotti. Get involved Close outline. Close Close. Article Secure your blockchain solutions What are the key threats and what can you do about them? Favorite this Save Thumbs up Like. Category Risk Risk description and examples Business and governance Decision making A blockchain solution has a decentralized governance process that creates risks around lack of control over policy compliance and decision making.
Access controls Lack of centralized governance can also cause reduced control over who can access the platform and the level of access provided to every user. This can be a larger issue if members have different ways of categorizing users in their respective organizations. Financial Financial risks in a blockchain solution come primarily from risk of fraud transactions and critical data loss due to potential security breaches.
Audit, legal, and compliance risks Certain operations on the platform may rely on data that is stored on-chain or validated by data on-chain. This can cause challenges with compliance regulations and compliance with system and application audits.
It can also introduce legal risks that define the liability of the data in question. Process Identity and access management IAM Unauthorized access to the platform can result in dire consequences for members with critical data loss, suspension of operations, and denied access. Lack of IAM can also cause incorrect invocation of certain smart contract functions. Secure communications Insecure communications between different nodes within the solution or between the solution and external components may result in misdirection, which in turn can lead to transport-level security issues.
This can also raise challenges related to access permissions and threats from insider attacks. Vulnerable solution untested codes Untested codes or solutions that come through non-DLT-certified processes or methodologies can be vulnerable to hacking and may impact the overall business and operability of the solution.
Blockchain identity keys on hardware security module HSM When using a shared HSM for storing blockchain identity keys, a set of keys for one organization can potentially be mixed up with those of another organization. Infrastructure security The underlying infrastructure that is deployed for architecting a blockchain solution can have numerous issues, including unnecessary access and unwanted packets trying to get into the network.
Technology Storage, expiration, and malfunctioning of keys Blockchain identity keys and transaction tokens are an important component of the solution. Challenges with certificate and key expiration, renewal, archive, and revocation can bring huge risks to the functioning of the platform.
Application security The blockchain itself is immutable and tamper-proof, but the applications that leverage the network pose challenges at every level. Validation and authentication of shared ledger It is important to understand the validity and the authenticity of the shared ledger. This is also an emerging technology and associated risks are sometimes unknown. Risks in smart contracts Smart contracts are an important component of a blockchain solution, and any logical flaws in the implementation of these contracts or their transactions can result in validation of incorrect contracts or transactions.
This lack of trust is arising out of uninformed judgments, lack of transparency in communication, centralization of knowledge. Some intellectuals are now advocating that we should be moving towards true democracy instead of representative democracy.
Where the head of the state would be chosen directly by the citizens and all the key policies would be adopted through consensus among citizens. Switzerland is an example of it. The idea itself is very good but its bit difficult to implement in bigger countries like India which still have one-fifth of its people below the poverty line.
Going for a referendum with a crore population for each policy decision would involve huge cost and man-power mobilization.
Political outfits raising fingers on the very process of democracy i. India was one of the firsts in the world to conduct elections through EVMs. Instead of being proud of such achievement, people want to move back to ballot papers. Really is that a solution for addressing trust issues?
Being a progressive society, we should be in the quest for improving the existing technology by plugging the inherent loopholes rather than discarding the technology and moving back to the medieval period.
The answer to the problem rests on a technology that has been there for a decade and is taking the world by storm. Blockchain is a digitized and decentralized ledger of transactions happening over a network.
Off-late the key concept within Bitcoin i. There have been some pilot implementations as well but on a smaller scale. Before understanding how block-chain can be used in voting, let us list out the key problems, highlighted by different stakeholders, in our existing system:.
Now let us see how a blockchain based voting system would help in addressing these concerns:. The basic premise of the aforementioned solution was to keep it relatively simple and based on the current guidelines of EC. In-future if ADHAAR number is linked with voter-id then, adhaar based authentication can also be added which would help in weeding out the ghost voters. Being a game changer in the field of electronic voting, India can also lead the world into next level of secure and transparent voting.
Being one of the successful democracies of the world it would ensure that the collective voices of all are heard in a free and fair way. Blockchain Technology in Logistics Software Development for Supply Chain Management Nowadays, experts connected to the finance and supply chain industries….
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The New Yorker. Archived from the original on 31 December Retrieved 30 December The network's 'nodes' — users running the bitcoin software on their computers — collectively check the integrity of other nodes to ensure that no one spends the same coins twice.
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Australia Financial Review. Retrieved 7 July Blockchain networks can be either public or private. Public blockchains have many users and there are no controls over who can read, upload or delete the data and there are an unknown number of pseudonymous participants.
In comparison, private blockchains also have multiple data sets, but there are controls in place over who can edit data and there are a known number of participants. PostBox Communications. PostBox Communications Blog. Archived from the original on 17 March Banks preferably have a notable interest in utilizing Blockchain Technology because it is a great source to avoid fraudulent transactions.
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Create proposals to explain the parameters of the project. After completing the theoretical build-up and receiving feedback from every involved stakeholder, you should come up with a prototype containing sketches, information architecture, mockups, designs, and tested product. Once the stakeholders approve the PoC, start focusing on preparing the visual and technical designs for the application.
Now that you have planned everything, start creating user interfaces for every component of the software. Also, design APIs you need to integrate with user interfaces to run the application at the back-end.
While preparing the visual and technical design, it is also essential to document the technical GDPR compliance requirement to understand in which components it should be applied. GDPR has become a crucial part of the design process which should never be ignored. After designing the user-interfaces and admin console for the application, you are ready for the development process. Development is the core stage of the blockchain development process where you should be prepared for building the application.
In this particular stage, you are required to build APIs for distinct use cases of the application. But do you know why do we need APIs? The application is developed under different phases. First of all, the application developed that does not undergo formal testing is said to be in pre-alpha phase. Then, the application jumps to the next stage, i.
After the alpha release of an application, it is prepared for the beta release. During Beta Phase, the software contains the complete feature set, but it might have unknown bugs. Once the beta version is ready, the application gets prepared for Release Candidate version.
A release candidate is an advanced beta version which is now ready to be a final product. When the application is tested thoroughly, it is moved to the production phase to get ready to be delivered.
Deployment is the process of putting an application onto a prepared application server. Before an app goes live, it should be deployed on the test network to test its functionalities. While deploying an application, administrators can also control which versions of the app should be deployed to different resources using provisioning.
After provisioning an application, it should be hosted on the main chain. For example, if you have built an application on the public blockchain, it should be released on the main network.
If your application has both off-chain and on-chain business entities, i. The application should have the potential to upgrade according to the new business requirements and prioritization.
For example, if you have to upgrade the smart contract, later on, you should be able to deploy the new contracts seamlessly. Design and develop the application in a way that adding or upgrading components does not affect the existing application.
From identifying the goals to gathering the requirements, choosing the right blockchain platform, preparing designs for the software, building and deploying the application, this article would help you to understand the step-by-step blockchain development process.
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It is mandatory to procure user consent prior to running these cookies on your website. Talk to our Consultant. Table of Content. Chapter 1 — What is Blockchain? Developing a proof-of-concept. What is Blockchain? There have been some pilot implementations as well but on a smaller scale. Before understanding how block-chain can be used in voting, let us list out the key problems, highlighted by different stakeholders, in our existing system:.
Now let us see how a blockchain based voting system would help in addressing these concerns:. The basic premise of the aforementioned solution was to keep it relatively simple and based on the current guidelines of EC.
In-future if ADHAAR number is linked with voter-id then, adhaar based authentication can also be added which would help in weeding out the ghost voters. Being a game changer in the field of electronic voting, India can also lead the world into next level of secure and transparent voting. Being one of the successful democracies of the world it would ensure that the collective voices of all are heard in a free and fair way.
Blockchain Technology in Logistics Software Development for Supply Chain Management Nowadays, experts connected to the finance and supply chain industries…. This is an efficient way of handling….
Blockchain based voting. In democracy, the choice of majority would be more prudent than the Home Offerings Blockchain Blockchain based voting.
By Harekrushna Rath Blockchain December 18, Then how do we address trust issues? Just to refresh your thought- Blockchain is a digitized and decentralized ledger of transactions happening over a network. Before understanding how block-chain can be used in voting, let us list out the key problems, highlighted by different stakeholders, in our existing system: Political parties- EVMs can be tampered to facilitate a certain political out-fit Election Commission- Making the voting record web-based will make it vulnerable to security threats.
It would increase the counting time and lastly it would bring back the horrors of booth capturing. Now let us see how a blockchain based voting system would help in addressing these concerns: In this system, each state election commission would be the consortium owner for the state. Each constituency will be nodes and the data entry point or the users would be the EVMs in each booths All the political parties within the state will be also nodes but with limited read access only.
The infrastructural changes that would be needed are: Each EVM would be connected to the web instead of being the current standalone systems. The control unit would have the option of entering the voter-id number. Mobile app would be provided to voters wherein they can register themselves with their voter-ids. On the other hand, even though blockchain databases are slow, they are far more secure than the centralized system.
There could be many reasons why a third party should handle some authorizations and authentications, as it can sometimes be desirable. But, third-party authorities can always create trust issues due to a lack of transparency. On the other hand, multiple parties manage blockchain data, and information is validated via an agreed-upon consensus algorithm. If you have privacy concerns, it can become possible to provide read-only and write-only permissions to a specific party using blockchain.
No dependency on a central authority will reduce:. Trusting other parties is essential when doing business, especially in a partnership situation. We have to trust banks to keep our money secure and business associates to maintain agreements. What if the trust gets broken? Now, the question is, how would you know when to use blockchain. Though blockchain is a trustless environment, parties can work simultaneously without worrying as they have an updated ledger at all times.
It uses various consensus algorithms to validate all transactions without giving more attention to any particular party. Hence, it brings fairness to the system. Everyone considers blockchain as an immutable system as it does not allow you to change rules on the system once they are written.
When estimating the cost to build a blockchain-based platform or application, you need to consider the following scenarios:. Here is our analysis of the estimated cost of blockchain development for a minimum viable product when using different development resources. Working with an in-house team of developers is quite expensive, but it can provide you more control over blockchain development.
However, you should take this path if software development is your core business. On the other hand, hiring freelance blockchain developers could be less expensive but very risky.
Working with a third-party company could be a viable option if your project is enormous. Blockchain companies are experienced and can help you at every step of the development process.
When compared to an in-house development team, the cost of blockchain companies is lower. Every business requires a digital solution to run their business operations efficiently. Building a blockchain app can build trust and offer transparency while removing additional intermediaries.
Before implementing blockchain technology and estimating its cost, it is essential to understand the type of blockchain app you need. Whether you need a permissioned blockchain app or a permissionless blockchain app, you need to consider which application can suit your business needs.
Also, the cost of a blockchain application varies from industry to industry. For example, you may need an app for supply chain management, healthcare, real estate, education, and many other business domains. The cost of an app will depend on the complexity of the project. The cost of blockchain app development also depends on the number of resources required to develop an application. Salaries of blockchain experts are the significant expenses you should not miss when calculating the cost to build an app.
While investing in blockchain developers, ensure you have hired the best ones and added their salaries to the total expense. Companies might use agile methodology tools such as Jira, Confluence, and Trello to manage blockchain projects.
They use such tools to test an app, track timelines, and deliverables. Therefore, the price of project management tools is also added to the cost of blockchain implementation. Your blockchain app might require a subscription to third-party subscription tools such as bug tracking tools, notification services, amazon web services, software monitoring services, and data analytics tools.
The cost of subscription tools also contributes to the cost of blockchain app development. In this section, we have explained the process of building a blockchain-based application. First of all, it is essential to develop a problem statement and understand all of the issues you want to solve with a proposed solution. Ensure that the blockchain solution will benefit your business abilities.
Analyze whether you need to migrate your current solution to the blockchain, or you require a new application to be developed from scratch. For example, suppose you are a healthcare provider who wants to develop a blockchain-based health record exchange app.
In that case, you should know various use cases of the applications and what benefits it will offer to users. Once you decide that you need a blockchain solution for your business operations, the next step is to select the right blockchain platform and blockchain development tools for your project.
As mentioned above in the article, building a blockchain from scratch requires thorough research and takes months to years to develop it successfully. Therefore, you should build a blockchain app on top of a blockchain platform that meets your business requirements. You should identify the right blockchain platform for your application based on the factors like consensus mechanism and problems you want to solve.
For example, you can build an Ethereum-based application to develop a decentralized public application with smart contracts. When the blockchain platform is identified, you must do brainstorming and understand the exact business needs.
Once you identify the blockchain platform for developing a blockchain application, you should focus on drafting business requirements and brainstorming ideas.
Find what technology components should be added as off-chain or on-chain entities on the blockchain ecosystem. Create a roadmap of the product that will help you to build an application within a decided deadline. You should come up with a blockchain model and conceptual workflow of the blockchain application. Also, decide if the application needs to be developed on a permissioned or permissionless blockchain network.
It would help if you also decided on front-end programming languages to be used, servers, and external databases in this stage. A proof of concept is done to represent the practical applicability of a blockchain project. It can be either a design prototype or a theoretical build-up. In Theoretical Build-up, each project requires theoretical cases so that users could understand the applicability and viability of the product. After creating theoretical build-up and receiving feedback, a prototype is designed, which includes:.
When the client approves the PoC, the next step is to prepare technical and visual designs for the application. Since you have planned an entire application at this stage, start creating UIs for each software component. Designs APIs that will be integrated with user interfaces to run an application at the back-end. Once the admin consoles and user interfaces are designed, the application gets ready for development.
Development is the significant phase of the blockchain development process, where you should be ready to build the blockchain app. In this specific stage, you either have to develop or integrate APIs for particular use cases of the application. The application is built under multiple versions. Once the client approves it, the application moves to the next stage, i. But, the software might not comprise all the features at this stage. After the alpha version is released, the app is prepared for the beta version.
During Beta Phase, the software application has the complete feature set but with some unknown bugs. Developers share the beta version with a particular group of people outside the organization to test its functionality. Once the beta version is approved and tested, the application moves to the Release Candidate version, which is an advanced beta version that is ready to be a final application and can be launched.
After thorough testing, the application moves to the production phase and gets ready for delivery. Before an app goes live, you should deploy it on the test network to carefully test its functionalities. When deploying an application, administrators can also manage which versions of the app need to be deployed to various resources with provisioning. Once an application is provisioned, it needs to be hosted on the main chain. If your blockchain app is a hybrid solution, i.
The application should be able to upgrade according to any new business needs and prioritization. For instance, if you need to upgrade the smart contract, later on, you should be able to deploy the new contracts without any difficulty.
Developing and deploying an app does not mean you are done.
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Decentralized networks of IoT devices. Secure information exchange and smart devices working together. To learn more about the blockchain, read this article. Before we go deeper into the blockchain development process, firstly it is essential to define a problem statement. At this step, you should know what all problems a proposed solution is expected to solve.
Make sure investing time and efforts in blockchain would benefit your business capabilities or not. You can also migrate your current application to the blockchain network without building it from scratch.
Identify a blockchain use-case for your application and ensure if your idea requires blockchain or not. For example, if you are a food supplier and looking to build a blockchain based supply chain application, you should understand the multiple use-cases of the application and how it is going to benefit your business and the consumer.
Once you have identified that your business requires a blockchain based solution, the next step is to choose the right blockchain platform for your project.
You require a blockchain platform to build a decentralized application without having to create a blockchain from scratch. The blockchain platform you need depends on the consensus mechanism and the problems you are going to solve.
Designed as a general programming platform, Ethereum is an open-source and public blockchain based distributed computing platform, featuring the functionality of smart contracts. Build your application on Ethereum if you want to develop a decentralized public application with smart contracts. Smart contracts in Ethereum are written in Solidity programming language, which is a subset of Javascript. Use Remix IDE, an open-source tool provided by Ethereum organization to create smart contracts straight from the browser.
Hyperledger Fabric is open-source blockchain platform suitable for building the enterprise applications. It supports distributed ledger solutions on permissioned networks where all participants have known and authorized identities. Built on the modular architecture, Hyperledger Fabric has the potential to maximize the flexibility and resilience of blockchain applications. The pluggable architecture components include encryption or consensus.
If you want to build a decentralized solution for your enterprise which should not be available to the public, choose Hyperledger Fabric for your project. Similar to Hyperledger Fabric, Hyperledger Sawtooth is also designed for building applications on permissioned blockchain networks.
This consensus mechanism needs to meet the two requirements to work fairly. Firstly, did the lottery winner choose a wait time randomly? Else, a member could intentionally choose a shorter time to win the leadership. It is the crucial stage of blockchain development process as the entire project depends on the platform you are going to choose.
After choosing the blockchain platform based on their consensus mechanism, the next step is to undergo a blockchain ideation process to analyze the technical components and the roadmap for the product.
Once you have identified the problem and blockchain platform to build the application, it is the right time to brainstorm ideas and business requirements. In this step of the blockchain development process, you need to evaluate, formulate, and prioritize use cases for blockchain experimentation. Decide what components should be added as on-chain and off-chain business entities. Prepare a roadmap of the product, i.
The primary deliverable of the blockchain ideation is to design a conceptual workflow and blockchain model of the application. Decide if the application needs to be built within the permissioned network or permissionless network. While formulating ideas, you also have to make decisions related to the front-end programming language, external database, and servers for your application. After developing the ideas, you should prepare a proof-of-concept to reveal viability of the product. A proof-of-concept is a way to demonstrate the practical potential of a blockchain project and it can either be a theoretical build-up or a prototype.
Every project needs theoretical cases so that the end-users can understand the viability and productivity of the product. Create proposals to explain the parameters of the project.
After completing the theoretical build-up and receiving feedback from every involved stakeholder, you should come up with a prototype containing sketches, information architecture, mockups, designs, and tested product. Once the stakeholders approve the PoC, start focusing on preparing the visual and technical designs for the application. Now that you have planned everything, start creating user interfaces for every component of the software. Also, design APIs you need to integrate with user interfaces to run the application at the back-end.
While preparing the visual and technical design, it is also essential to document the technical GDPR compliance requirement to understand in which components it should be applied. GDPR has become a crucial part of the design process which should never be ignored. After designing the user-interfaces and admin console for the application, you are ready for the development process. Development is the core stage of the blockchain development process where you should be prepared for building the application.
In this particular stage, you are required to build APIs for distinct use cases of the application. But do you know why do we need APIs? The application is developed under different phases. First of all, the application developed that does not undergo formal testing is said to be in pre-alpha phase. Then, the application jumps to the next stage, i.
After the alpha release of an application, it is prepared for the beta release. During Beta Phase, the software contains the complete feature set, but it might have unknown bugs. Once the beta version is ready, the application gets prepared for Release Candidate version.
A release candidate is an advanced beta version which is now ready to be a final product. When the application is tested thoroughly, it is moved to the production phase to get ready to be delivered. Deployment is the process of putting an application onto a prepared application server. Before an app goes live, it should be deployed on the test network to test its functionalities.
While deploying an application, administrators can also control which versions of the app should be deployed to different resources using provisioning. After provisioning an application, it should be hosted on the main chain. For example, if you have built an application on the public blockchain, it should be released on the main network.
Blockchain Development Process – A Complete Guide for Innovators
Process: These risks are associated with the various processes that a blockchain solution requires in its architecture and operations. Technology: The underlying technology used to implement various processes and business needs may not always be the best choice, and this can ultimately lead to security risks.
It is important to analyze the risks highlighted above in order to then derive a risk model for the blockchain-based solution. Some key considerations for designing a blockchain solution include:.
The security of a solution should also be evaluated in the context of its threat model. Blockchain, by nature, has robust record integrity guarantees, however a number of things can go wrong in other parts of a blockchain-based application that can lead to compromise and loss.
Some examples include weak access controls, loose key and certificate management protections, and insufficient communication security.
The key to properly securing such an application is to develop a comprehensive threat model for it and mitigate identified weaknesses.
One well-known model is the Spoofing, Tampering, Repudiation, Information disclosure, Denial of service attacks, and Elevation of privilege STRIDE model that is used to study relationships between the actors and assets, review threats and weaknesses related to these relationships, and propose appropriate mitigations. Blockchain applications often incorporate external components — Identity and access management IAM systems, multi-factor authentication MFA , public key infrastructure PKI , and regulatory and audit systems — that are owned and managed by actors.
These systems need to be carefully scrutinized before they can become part of the overall solution as they are developed or controlled by third parties. These should be taken into consideration for the threat model in a blockchain solution.
Figure 1 takes into consideration the various factors and derives a threat model that can be applied in a blockchain-based implementation. Yet these apps are frequently associated with a number of similar actors, assets, and use cases. In this article, we propose a threat model for these common elements that can be used as a template that would serve as a starting point for more detailed security analysis in specific projects.
For a secure blockchain solution, start by developing a risk model that can address all of the business, governance, technology, and process risks. Next, evaluate the threats to the blockchain solution and develop a threat model as shown in Figure 1.
Define the security controls that mitigate the risks and threats based on the following three categories:. Use corporate security standards and systems to ensure a secure software development lifecycle, application scanning, and appropriate security policies. In the absence of generally accepted security standards and regulations, the state of blockchain application development is clearly nascent.
From a security assurance standpoint, blockchain business network ecosystems that are nearing implementation require a comprehensive risk management approach that leverages cybersecurity risk frameworks, best practices, and cybersecurity assurance services to effectively mitigate risks. In the previous sections, you saw that in order to build a secure blockchain solution it is important to assess the risks and threats, and derive the security controls.
Using the security controls in a blockchain architecture leads to the blockchain security reference model, which can be applied across all blockchain solutions. The key takeaways for this article are summarized in the blockchain security model shown in Figure 3, which highlights the most important parts of securing a blockchain solution.
These include:. This article has explained the essential components needed to secure a blockchain solution. Going forward, we strongly recommend that you review the solutions that you are designing and architecting against this blockchain security reference architecture and blockchain security model to ensure the security of your blockchain solutions. For more blockchain security resources, see the Related Content links below and the Resources links in the right-hand column. Acknowledgements: The authors would like to thank the following colleagues for their contributions to this article: Adewale Omoniyi, Dmitriy Beryoza, Kapil Singh, Jeff Tennenbaum, and Alessandro Sorniotti.
Get involved Close outline. Close Close. Article Secure your blockchain solutions What are the key threats and what can you do about them? Favorite this Save Thumbs up Like. Category Risk Risk description and examples Business and governance Decision making A blockchain solution has a decentralized governance process that creates risks around lack of control over policy compliance and decision making.
Access controls Lack of centralized governance can also cause reduced control over who can access the platform and the level of access provided to every user. This can be a larger issue if members have different ways of categorizing users in their respective organizations. Financial Financial risks in a blockchain solution come primarily from risk of fraud transactions and critical data loss due to potential security breaches.
Audit, legal, and compliance risks Certain operations on the platform may rely on data that is stored on-chain or validated by data on-chain. This can cause challenges with compliance regulations and compliance with system and application audits. It can also introduce legal risks that define the liability of the data in question.
Process Identity and access management IAM Unauthorized access to the platform can result in dire consequences for members with critical data loss, suspension of operations, and denied access. Lack of IAM can also cause incorrect invocation of certain smart contract functions. Secure communications Insecure communications between different nodes within the solution or between the solution and external components may result in misdirection, which in turn can lead to transport-level security issues.
This can also raise challenges related to access permissions and threats from insider attacks. Vulnerable solution untested codes Untested codes or solutions that come through non-DLT-certified processes or methodologies can be vulnerable to hacking and may impact the overall business and operability of the solution.
Blockchain identity keys on hardware security module HSM When using a shared HSM for storing blockchain identity keys, a set of keys for one organization can potentially be mixed up with those of another organization.
Infrastructure security The underlying infrastructure that is deployed for architecting a blockchain solution can have numerous issues, including unnecessary access and unwanted packets trying to get into the network. Technology Storage, expiration, and malfunctioning of keys Blockchain identity keys and transaction tokens are an important component of the solution. Challenges with certificate and key expiration, renewal, archive, and revocation can bring huge risks to the functioning of the platform.
Application security The blockchain itself is immutable and tamper-proof, but the applications that leverage the network pose challenges at every level. Validation and authentication of shared ledger It is important to understand the validity and the authenticity of the shared ledger. This is also an emerging technology and associated risks are sometimes unknown.
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Blockchain and For Audits. Main article: Development contract. Designed as a general programming platform, Ethereum is for open-source and public blockchain based distributed computing platform, featuring the functionality of smart development. Semantic Solutions. Identify a blockchain use-case for your application and concept if your idea requires blockchain-based or not. This would cause the attacked version of Bitcoin to plummet blockchain-based value, making the attack concept pointless as the bad actor has control of a solutions asset. I accept.