Hercule : Representing and Reasoning about Norms as a Foundation for Declarative Contracts over Blockchain

Christie, S.H. and Chopra, A.K. and Singh, M.P. (2021) Hercule : Representing and Reasoning about Norms as a Foundation for Declarative Contracts over Blockchain. IEEE Internet Computing, 25 (4). pp. 67-75. ISSN 1089-7801

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Abstract

Current blockchain approaches for business contracts are based on smart contracts, namely, software programs placed on a blockchain that are automatically executed to realize a contract. However, smart contracts lack flexibility and interfere with the autonomy of the parties concerned. We propose Hercule, an approach for declaratively specifying blockchain applications in a manner that reflects business contracts. Hercule represents a contract via regulatory norms that capture the involved parties' expectations of one another. It computes the states of norms (hence, of contracts) from events in the blockchain. Hercule's novelty and significance lie in that it operationalizes declarative contracts over semistructured databases, the underlying representation for practical blockchain such as Hyperledger Fabric and Ethereum. Specifically, it exploits the map-reduce capabilities of such stores to compute norm states. We demonstrate that our implementation over Hyperledger Fabric can process thousands of events per second, sufficient for many applications. IEEE

Item Type:
Journal Article
Journal or Publication Title:
IEEE Internet Computing
Additional Information:
©2021 IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. However, permission to reprint/republish this material for advertising or promotional purposes or for creating new collective works for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or to reuse any copyrighted component of this work in other works must be obtained from the IEEE.
Uncontrolled Keywords:
/dk/atira/pure/subjectarea/asjc/1700/1705
Subjects:
?? authorizationblockchaincontractdistributed ledgerdocument storefabricshistorylawregulatory normsmart contractsinternetbusiness contractsmap-reducesemistructured databasesoftware programcomputer networks and communications ??
ID Code:
156803
Deposited By:
Deposited On:
14 Jul 2021 12:35
Refereed?:
Yes
Published?:
Published
Last Modified:
12 Feb 2024 00:40