A Hierarchical and Abstraction-Based Blockchain Model

Abstract

In the nine years since its launch, amid intense research, scalability is always a serious concern in blockchain, especially in case of large-scale network generating huge number of transaction-records. In this paper, we propose a hierarchical blockchain model characterized by:(1) each level maintains multiple local blockchain networks, (2) each local blockchain records local transactional activities, and (3) partial views (tunable w.r.t. precision) of different subsets of local blockchain-records are maintained in the blockchains at next level of the hierarchy. To meet this objective, we apply abstractions on a set of transaction-records in a regular time interval by following the Abstract Interpretation framework, which provides a tunable precision in various abstract domain and guarantees the soundness of the system. While this model suitably fits to the real-worlds organizational structures, the proposal is powerful enough to scale when large number of nodes participate in a network resulting into an enormous growth of the network-size and the number of transaction-records. We discuss experimental results on a small-scale network with three sub networks at lower-level and by abstracting the transaction-records in the abstract domain of intervals. The results are encouraging and clearly indicate the effectiveness of this approach to control exponential growth of blockchain size w.r.t. the total number of participants in the network.

Two-Level Blockchain System for Digital Crime Evidence Management

“…To address this problem of blockchain scalability, research on a hierarchical blockchain model has been studied [ 8 ]. Each level of the hierarchical blockchain maintains multiple local blockchains, records local transaction activity, and allows partial views of different subsets of blockchain records to be maintained on the next level of the blockchain.…”

“…This is because we need to find a balance between coping with high throughput and handling a large number of nodes [ 9 ]. The existing hierarchical blockchain systems [ 8 , 9 ] are suitable for managing data that consist of multiple terminals or nodes, such as IoT devices. However, they cannot support the data with large files, such as crime evidence videos [ 24 , 25 ].…”

“…Blockchain systems for managing large amounts of data have been widely studied, such as hierarchical, multi-level, and on/off-chain blockchains. However, the existing hierarchical blockchain or multi-level blockchain is suitable for effectively managing the data of multiple terminals or nodes, such as IoT devices [ 8 , 9 ]. Moreover, there are some studies that combine on-chain and off-chain scaling.…”

Traceability and ownership claim of data on big data marketplace using blockchain technology

“…With the advent of bitcoin (Nakamoto, 2009), its underlying blockchain technology has attracted huge attentions from both industry and academia in the recent years (Al-Jaroodi & Mohamed, 2019;Sahoo et al, 2019;Tsilidou & Foroglou, 2015). Blockchain is a type of distributed, transparent, trustless, publicly accessible ledger for maintaining a permanent and tamper-proof records of transactional data in a decentralized peer-to-peer network.…”

“…In recent years, blockchain technology (Nakamoto, 2009) has become a source of new hope with its broad spectrum of applications in practice. Examples include supply-chain, insurance, real-estate, financial services, and many more (Pilkington, 2016;Sahoo et al, 2019). We are witnessing its footstep in digital watermarking as well.…”