Blockchain

Blockchain technology can bring opportunities, such as reducing transaction business costs and increasing transparency to the oil and gas industry. This model is adopted as a public maturity model in business processes, industry, and IS/IT organizations. This model is classified into five levels of emerging, identified, defined, operational, and mature to identify the applications of this technology toward flourishing and providing the ultimate solution to most of the organization's problems. Therefore, this qualitative research has been designed to identify maturity levels to provide a conceptual model of maturity levels of blockchain technology in grounded theory. First, the initial factors extracted through reviewing the research background; then, by conducting semi-structured interviews with 12 blockchain technology experts, the data were collected. It is noted that the interview was stopped as the duplicated and identical data, based on grounded theory research strategy The meanings and characteristics of the blockchain maturity model challenges presented in three stages of coding. The reliability of the interviews has confirmed by the reliability methods of Test-Retest and intra-subject agreement. The results of data analysis indicate that experts at the emerging level to primary educating and technology monitoring, at the identified level, to recognize the applications of this technology and regulation, at the defined level, to develop a roadmap, proof of concept, and Feasibility, At the operational level, the stakeholder resistance, and at the matured level, the entry new members, the consortium, and increasing attention to maturity requirements, is a spotlight with more frequency than other indicators and elements.

In this paper we utilize the main findings from the recent literature to set the economic foundation for the existence of money, its modern interpretation as “memory” (Chokerlakota 1998) and how the Blockchain technology has empowered crypto currencies to perform this role in the information age. To locate the issue in a historical perspective and in line with this strand of thought, we consider direct and indirect exchange and the Wicksell triangle and discuss the frictions under which the need for fiat money arises. More specifically, it will be argued when “reputation” (trust) is imperfect, high cost of enforcing contracts undermines the case for pure private money (credit). The corner stones of the present system, a remnant of 20th century central banks’ fiat money and “private money” issued by the banking system and the current payment system relies primarily on the technologies and centralized “trust” protocols developed before the early 1990s. The internet and the digital technology have greatly reduced the costs of gathering and storing information and thus is able to compete with the traditional payment system in the future in the niche markets. In this connection, how the Blockchain technology can complement internet technology for creation of crypto currency for payments, money transfers and asset purchases will be discussed. Finally, the paper examines whether crypto currencies can replace money in its current form. It will be shown that in the case of crypto currencies, high price volatility undermines the store of value function of money and this factor plus issues pertaining to money laundering and taxation prevents them to become a widespread form of money, though they will be used as a medium of exchange in the niche markets.

The use of technology acceptance models is a way to understand the users' attitude towards new technologies. The present study aimed to investigate drivers affecting the customers' behavioral intention to use blockchain capabilities as a financial instrument using a combination of several technology acceptance models to determine what factors encouraged users to use blockchain capabilities as a financial instrument. Therefore, determinants of the behavioral intention to use blockchain capabilities as a financial instrument were first explored by the literature review, and then the structural equation model was built according to this basis. Results of data analysis indicated that the personal propensity to trust and structural assurance beliefs directly affected the initial trust that in turn, affected the users' behavioral intention. On the other hand, task and technology characteristics directly affected the task-technology fit that in turn, affected the users' behavioral intention. Furthermore, the performance expectancy directly affected the users' behavioral intention. Results of the present research indicated that the intention to use blockchain capabilities as financial instrument came from a social need; and users were keen to use blockchain despite some limitations of this technology.

Blockchain technology is rapidly gaining the attention of financial institutions around the world, especially among decision makers in Islamic financial institutions who are planning to apply this innovative technology into their institutions activities which could be an upright solution for their issues and challenges. This paper contributes to the emerging literature on financial technology by discussing some of the innovative applications of blockchain in Islamic financial institutions. In addition, this paper sheds light on the main opportunities and challenges facing application of Blockchain Technology in the Islamic financial industry and highlight the way forward to address these issues. Relying on the previous literature and analysis; this paper confirms the enormous opportunities for utilizing blockchain technology in various Islamic financial applications such as Waqf, Zakat and Sukuk. On the other hand, the main challenges towards implementing blockchain in this industry are the complexity of Islamic finance products added to the opacity of its application which end up with unclear regulations and lack of standards.

The objective of the research is to clarify what Blockchain technique is and the developments of its various uses, and identify the accounting perspective of this technique and the possibility of using it in accounting work. It also aims at demonstrating how to utilize its Blockchain technique in accounting information systems, and identify the most important potential effects of the use of technique in accounting information systems. To achieve the research objectives, a descriptive approach was adopted to discuss the fundamentals of Blockchain technique and its most important accounting implications, in addition, its significance for the usefulness and reliability of the development of automated computing accounting systems. The researchers concluded that the use of Blockchain technology for accounting work requires analysis of the related impact on the development of accounting information systems in terms of their implementations and modules, with the need to fully transition in the design of accounting information systems to electronic sophisticated programs and applications developed and technologically advanced.

Today's world is struggling with the COVID-19 pandemic, as one of the greatest challenges of the 21st century. During the lockdown caused by this disease, many financial losses have been inflicted on people and all industries. One of the fastest ways to save these industries from the COVID-19 or any possible pandemic in the future is to provide a reliable, fast, smart, and secure solution for people's health assessment. In this article, blockchain technology is used to propose a model which provides and validates the health certificates for people who travel or present in society.  For this purpose, we take advantage of blockchain features such as being unchangeable, errorless, distributed, and a single point of failure nonexistence, high security, and proper use in protecting people's privacy. Since a variety of antibody and human health proving tests against the virus are developing, this study tries simultaneously to design an integrated and secure system to meet the authenticity and accuracy of different people's health certificates for the companies requiring these certifications. In this system, on the one hand, there are qualified laboratories that are responsible for performing standard testing and also providing results to the system controller. On the other hand, entities that need to receive health certificates must be members of this system. Finally, people are considered as the end-user of the system. To provide test information for the entities, the mechanism of KYC tokens will be used based on the Stellar private blockchain network. In this mechanism, the user will buy a certain amount of KYC tokens from the system controller. These tokens are charged in the user's wallet, and the user can send these tokens from his wallet to any destination company, to exchange the encrypted health certificate information. Finally, considering the appropriate platform provided by blockchain technology and the requirement of a reliable and accurate solution for issuing health certificates during the Covid-19 pandemic or any other disease, this article offers a solution to meet the requirements.

Polling system is not trusted everywhere around the world it is very important in this modern world to replace the traditional polling system with the new technology. Some countries like United States, Japan, and India suffer from corrupted polling system. Major issues are faced by current polling systems like system hacking, vote rigging, vote manipulation, distributed denial of service attack, and online polling booth capturing. This paper will lead to the problems faced by the traditional polling system and how the new technology will provide the solution to that problem. Also, our purpose is to check the feasibility of the system by recording the transaction fees and evaluate the right way to spend the amount of gas in the transaction. This will highlight blockchain frameworks including blockchain as a service and polling system which is on blockchain that addresses all constraint introducing ethereum which is a blockchain-based distributed computing platform. Ethereum is open source, and publicly available with a system featuring smart contracts. It provides the cryptocurrency wallets that let you make cheap, instant payments with gas in the form of ethers. The ethereum community is the most active and largest blockchain community in the world. There is no centralized organization that controls ethereum.

In recent times amount of data is increasing rapidly and analysis of data is a must to come up with business decisions, predictions etc. It’s not just text are numbers which has to be stored properly. Data Types these days varies from images, video, social media data, surveys to blogs etc. When this is the case its mandatory to deal with Bigdata and to safeguard those Bigdata. Technologies available in Bigdata and Bitcoin helps us in achieving this. Bigdata technologies helps in storing the unstructured data effectively and processing of such voluminous data is taken care of. Hashing algorithms are used in Blockchain to keep the data safe. Hashing algorithms like SHA 256 are used to make it more secure. Its almost not possible to break the data available in Blockchain. Let’s try to secure the data even more using encryption algorithms to make sure that proper data is used for analysis etc.

INTRODUCTION: Communication and information exchange are of great importance in order to coordinate crisis management in an emergency and rescue processes. Therefore, the attainment of a strong, complete, and stable communication infrastructure will be among the vital factors for providing an appropriate response to emergencies. The use of new technologies that seem to ensure reliable communication and information exchange must be constantly evaluates. METHODS: This review study searched articles published from 2000 to 2021 in Persian and English regarding blockchain technology applications in such databases as Google Scholar, Science Direct, and PubMed using keywords, including rescue, blockchain, and crisis management. FINDINGS: Accurate and optimal presentation of information is an essential prerequisite for crisis management in response to disasters due to the significant impact of each role-maker's decisions. Innovative blockchain technology is extensively used in various fields and is usually well-known and popular for its decentralized and distributed organization and leadership. CONCLUSION: In general, blockchain technologies have shown success in reducing logistics, support, executive, and management costs in different areas. Crisis management in emergencies and disaster response can be significantly improved by the implementation of blockchain technologies. In addition, studies show that the implementation of blockchain technology in crisis management during an emergency and rescue processes is very complex and requires a great deal of cooperation from all parties. However, it will be effective in practice.

Available research suggests using Blockchain in electronic medical files to aggregate and integrate information. While reviewing authoritative articles and books, we analyzed the challenges and opportunities of using Blockchain this way. By using the specialists' opinion, completing a specialist questionnaire, using the DEMETEL technique and interpretive structural modeling (ISM) technique, this research investigated and analyzed the possibilities of using Blockchain in electronic medical files. The pair comparison technique was used to study and analyze the challenges of using Blockchain this way. The results are stated in this research. Research achievements include the design of a model using Blockchain for electronic medical files, analysis of Block chain's opportunities and challenges, measurement of the components, design and presentation of the model, and prioritizing the challenges of using Blockchain. This research suggests that the use of Blockchain in electronic medical files can reduce extra costs, create a comprehensive system for medical records to avoid additional costs, facilitate access to patient information, and reduce medical errors. The results obtained reveal that the components of immutability and the impossibility of data forgery of patient records (based on data integration in Blockchain) have the most impact on the system. Examination of the challenges reveals that blockchain technology's challenges (low speed, difficulty working with Blockchain, poor integrations between the software for various electronic health records) are of the utmost importance.

Blockchain technology is one of the revolutionary technologies in service-based industries. E-health services are considered as a major economic and social activity in the world in which patients, the medical community and service providers such as insurance organizations play a key role. In Iran, e-health services have been introduced for more than a decade, but it is seriously lagging behind the leading countries. According to the Blockchain Opportunity window, a technological and economic catch-up is possible in e-health services in the country. Decentralization, data transparency, security and privacy are the key features of Blockchain technology. Therefore, in this research, through case study strategy and using documents, scientific articles, evidence, statistics and events and opinions of experts, policy factors were presented to catch-up through the Blockchain technology opportunity window. The dimensions of the proposed policy framework were presented in 4 categories: macro policies, market, financing, and technology learning and development. This study presents technological catch-up policy framework by Blockchain technology to policymakers for using in e-health services.

As an emerging technology, blockchain can be used in all areas of e-commerce, one of which is advertising. The present study has been designed to identify a dynamic model of trust in blockchain-based advertising and acceptance of this type of advertising. In order to achieve the purpose of the research, the required information was collected by literature, background review and experts opinions. In the next step, the research information was analyzed using systems dynamics methodology (Sterman approach) and a dynamic research model was presented. After model validation and examining the causal relationships, simulations and scenario analysis were performed using Vensim software. The results show the positive effect of the audience, advertiser and advertising characteristics on trust in blockchain-based advertising and, consequently, the improvement of the audience loyalty coefficient. Also, the results of scenarios indicate an ascending growth (Pessimistic: about %60, Optimistic: about %80) in audience loyalty. Finally, practical suggestions were presented in accordance with the research results

Blockchain technology was initially implemented for cryptocurrencies in 2009, but it caught the undivided attention of multiple industries such as finance, supply chain management, healthcare, and governments. This research was set out to investigate and evaluate six benefits of blockchain for marketing: fostering disintermediation, combating click fraud, reinforcing trust and transparency, enhancing privacy protection, empowering digital marketing security, and enabling creative loyalty programs. An empirical study in the form of an online survey was conducted to examine the realization of benefits in practice. The research concluded that blockchain does indeed provide promising benefits for marketing, but that depends on whether marketers use public (permissioned) blockchain or private (permissioned) blockchain, and also the ability of the blockchain community to resolve fundamental challenges and pending issues such as scalability, speed, interoperability, and privacy, besides several many others.

At this time in history that the world is becoming smaller every day due to globalization; it is important to achieve an acceptable degree of trust and confidence in any field; and blockchain can put the world on this path. Since there is no central authority governing blockchain, its decentralized nature can turn it into an appropriate platform for project management. Implementing blockchain eliminates project management bureaucracies and allows a single, unchangeable, controllable, and encrypted source to be accessible to everybody and extensible throughout the project life cycle. This approach is the key to achieve an integrated information system and is one of the important reasons for blockchain applicability as an ideal platform for project management and construction. This issue that using blockchain technology in project management will bring about capacities and capabilities has not yet been seriously addressed. Changing the management of construction projects by blockchain is just an idea for now. This study aims to identify the capacity and platforms for developing blockchain technology in project management and construction using systematic and scoping literature reviews. Moreover, it provides some suggestions about the development and improvement areas of this technology. The review results showed that in all areas of project management and construction, there are applications relevant to blockchain technology that confirm the gradual understanding of the significance and positive impact of this technology on enhancing project management and construction performance. According to the results, a major part of blockchain studies was focused on “program and project management”, and two fields of human resources and behavioural areas and research in project management and schools of thought with a share of less than 2% of existing studies were neglected.

Despite all blockchain's advantages, it has experienced some challenges and disadvantages. Identifying these challenges and minimizing them are important steps in advancing the goals of this technology. The purpose of this study is to investigate and identify the challenges of using blockchain technology in international markets with regard to the risks of such newfound technologies. This is an applied research in terms of purpose and a mixed research in terms of methodology. The effective factors in using blockchain technology have been discovered by the meta-synthesis method at first; then the ranking of these factors has been done by the fuzzy pairwise comparison. A systematic search was performed in the database of Science Direct, Emerald, and Google Scholar. Also, the seven-step method of Sandlowski and Barroso (2007) was applied. All the related articles and the challenges of using blockchain in international markets were identified and coded. The comparison method between the two coders was used to adjust the reliability and the kappa coefficient was used to calculate the correlation coefficient between the two codes. The findings of the extracted sources were finally proposed and 41 challenges were classified into 6 categories of technical, educational, structural, market, infrastructure and legal which divided in both internal and external areas.

The blockchain's immutability has allowed previously centralized operations to operate in a new way. The possibility of applications having a new architecture is given thanks to the innovative properties of the technology, which brought alternative control designs for distributed systems and allowed applications to work without the need for a central controlling point. The expansion of blockchain to other areas beyond cryptocurrencies has shown the need for applications to implement solutions to deal with corrective operations. Blockchain 3.0 applications bring new solutions for business needs. However,  as opposed to immutability, the revoking functionality is much more complex to be implemented in this type of architecture, but paramount to applications resilience, allowing faulty or invalid information to be revoked, ensuring thus that the blockchain can still be trusted. This work assesses and discusses revocation mechanisms to contribute to the technical feasibility of several applications, which require corrective operations. We present a model in the academic area, which can be replicated for other types of systems in other areas.

Although Blockchain can significantly change the future of ERP systems as an innovative tech-nology, few researchers have gone into the details of this development. Most have given an overview of the changes ahead. Therefore, in this research, we have tried to use the method of Exploratory Content Analysis (ECA) by reviewing more than three hundred scientific articles in the field of Blockchain to analyze the effects of this technology on ERP system modules such as supply chain management, maintenance, finance, project management, manufacturing, and hu-man capital management. The result of this exploratory research is an architectural model for a blockchain-based ERP system. The researchers describe the functions of this system carefully, and the role of supporting technologies such as Smart Contract, IoT, Digital Wallet, Cloud Com-puting, and Building Information Model is clarified. We genuinely believe that this research could use as a reference model for ERP vendors and researchers in information systems and business process management

Scientific sources demonstrate different attitudes of researchers to cryptocurrencies because they treat them as a category of currency, virtual money, commodity, etc. Accordingly, the relation to the valuation and risk of cryptocurrency as an investment object is different. The purpose of the article is to identify cryptocurrency value formation factors and determine the risks of investing in cryptocurrency. Cryptocurrency is simultaneously considered a currency, an asset with uncertain income, and a specific product, the price of which is determined by the energy costs for mining new cryptocurrency blocks. Thus, the paper examines the risks of investing in cryptocurrency from several positions. First, the study identifies the factors of formation of the value and risk of cryptocurrency as ordinary money based on comparing cryptocurrency with traditional money. Unlike traditional money, cryptocurrency is not tied to the economic performance of a particular country; also, central banks do not control or regulate their mining. Instead, the cryptocurrency emissions depend on the computational capacity of the equipment used for their mining. As a financial asset, cryptocurrency can be a “financial bubble” because their value increasing often exceeds the cost of mining. On the other hand, given the emergence of cryptocurrency as a phenomenon of the information economy, the paper analyses the impact of specific technical features (cryptographic hashing algorithm, the complexity of creating new blocks, the technology of verification of mining operations, etc.) on the risk of investing in cryptocurrency assets.

While travelers' desire to visit the world's most remote places has grown, the inefficiency of global payments indicates a significant barrier to tourism growth. As an emerging, decentralized, and borderless digital innovation, Bitcoin technology seems to have the ability to serve as a payment alternative and address such fundamental inefficiencies. On the other hand, bitcoin adoption can only happen when tourists and business owners choose to operate bitcoin simultaneously. The study has developed a novel Bitcoin Collaborative Network and Tourism Collaborative Network model to examine Bitcoin adoption factors. Then a fuzzy DEMATEL method was applied to the factors influencing the adoption domain, as identified based on an extensive literature review, in-depth interviews, and an international Delphi process. The study offered a model for the heterogeneous collaborative network of Bitcoin and Tourism (BCN and TCN), revealing that Perceived Usefulness is the most influencing criterion and the most prominent variable in Bitcoin Adoption. Bitcoin Technological Complexity, Government Regulatory, and Bitcoin Awareness are the factors that give the highest impacts. Also, Bitcoin's Technological Complexity is the most significant factor in bitcoin adoption. The findings might assist businesses in adopting a new market expansion strategy and benefiting from technological spillover, while government officials can explore new supporting legislation.

This study evaluated the obstacles and challenges of using blockchain technology in Iran's automotive industry. The statistical population of the present study is all specialists and experts who were familiar with blockchain technology. However, because of the impossibility of identifying and studying all the people in the society and the lack of access to all of them, sampling was done employing a purposeful judgment method. Accordingly, ten academic and industrial experts were selected as the expert. In this study, a document study was applied to study the theoretical backgrounds and the related literature. Thus, the latest materials and concepts related to the subject were reviewed by referring to scientific sources, including books, articles, and theses. A survey method was also used in evaluating obstacles and challenges. At this stage, a researcher-made questionnaire was employed to collect experts' views. The process of conducting this research is as follows: first, the theoretical backgrounds and the related literature were examined. Then the questionnaire of the study was designed, distributed among the experts, and collected. After that, the data was analyzed using the Fuzzy Dematel Technique. Based on the findings, among the seven factors of the leading technical and technological component, three sub-components, including the lack of necessary safety against cyber attacks, the storing information problem, and the lack of standardization in different blockchain systems were ranked first to third, respectively, which shows the significance of the technical and technological factors.