This paper introduces Data Communities as a novel paradigm for privacy-preserving, blockchain-enabled cooperative digital infrastructures, formalized within the Cooperative Digital Infrastructure (CDI) framework and formalizes privacy guarantees through an adversarial model encompassing classical, quantum, insider, and governance-level threats.
Abstract
The rapid growth of AI-driven workloads, IoT ecosystems, and distributed digital services has exposed fundamental limitations in existing cloud and edge infrastructures, particularly in guaranteeing robust data privacy under emerging quantum threats. Current blockchain-based systems provide integrity and decentralization but rely predominantly on computational cryptography and access-control mechanisms, leaving them vulnerable to future quantum adversaries and large-scale inference attacks. In this paper, we introduce Data Communities as a novel paradigm for privacy-preserving, blockchain-enabled cooperative digital infrastructures, formalized within the Cooperative Digital Infrastructure (CDI) framework. Our approach integrates three complementary privacy protection layers: (i) MuReQua, a quantum-resilient blockchain consensus mechanism leveraging CQKD for cryptographic robustness against Shor-type attacks; (ii) DeSSE, an information-theoretically secure distributed storage model based on n × m fragmentation, ensuring zero information leakage below reconstruction thresholds; and (iii) a multi-tier data sovereignty model (C0–C3) enforcing policy-driven data locality and regulatory compliance across federated nodes. We formalize privacy guarantees through an adversarial model encompassing classical, quantum, insider, and governance-level threats, and demonstrate that the proposed architecture achieves information-theoretic confidentiality, forward secrecy, and attack-resilient distributed governance. A privacy leakage analysis shows that the probability of data reconstruction under sub-threshold compromise is identical to zero, outperforming conventional blockchain storage models based on encryption alone. Simulation and case study results indicate that Data Communities achieve up to 99.999% service availability, 55% reduction in external data exposure, and 22–35% carbon-aware optimization, while maintaining strict privacy guarantees across distributed environments. Compared with existing blockchain systems (e.g., Ethereum, Hyperledger Fabric), the proposed framework shifts privacy protection from access-control and pseudonymity to structural, information-theoretic privacy by design. Overall, the results establish Data Communities as a scalable and quantum-resilient foundation for next-generation privacy-preserving blockchain infrastructures, bridging distributed AI, secure storage, and cooperative governance under a unified formal model.
Quantum computing poses a significant threat to blockchain systems that rely on elliptic curve cryptography and other classical security mechanisms. Algorithms such as Shor’s and Grover’s can weaken or completely break the cryptographic foundations of current blockchain networks, exposing them to risks including private key recovery, transaction forgery, consensus manipulation, and harvest-now-decrypt-later attacks. This paper presents a systems framework for designing quantum-resilient blockchains by integrating post-quantum cryptographic standards, threat modeling, architectural redesign, governance mechanisms, and migration planning. The study evaluates major post-quantum cryptographic primitives, assesses their suitability for blockchain environments, and proposes a layered architecture grounded in crypto-agility, defense-in-depth, and forward secrecy. A structured migration strategy is also introduced to support the transition of existing blockchain networks toward post-quantum security while maintaining operational continuity and stakeholder trust. The framework provides practical guidance for researchers, developers, and policymakers preparing blockchain ecosystems for the post-quantum era.
The exponential growth of cloud computing has enabled large-scale data outsourcing but has simultaneously introduced critical challenges related to data confidentiality, integrity, and trust. Traditional cryptographic and blockchain-based cloud security solutions often suffer from high computational overhead, latency, and scalability limitations, which hinder their practical adoption. To address these issues, this study proposes a robust and lightweight blockchain-based security framework for secure cloud data storage. The framework integrates hybrid AES–ECC encryption, smart contract–driven access control, and a lightweight consensus mechanism combining Delegated Proof of Stake (DPoS) and Practical Byzantine Fault Tolerance (PBFT) to achieve efficient and tamper-resistant data management. The proposed system employs an on-chain/off-chain hybrid architecture that stores only essential metadata and cryptographic proofs on the blockchain while maintaining the actual data in distributed cloud storage. This design minimizes computational burden and blockchain bloat while ensuring end-to-end transparency and verifiability. A Merkle tree–based Proof of Storage (PoS) mechanism enables rapid integrity verification without requiring full data retrieval. Comprehensive experiments were conducted using a simulated multi-node cloud environment to evaluate encryption efficiency, transaction latency, throughput, storage overhead, and energy consumption. Results show that the proposed framework outperforms existing blockchain-based models, achieving a 37.7% reduction in encryption/decryption time, a 51.3% decrease in transaction latency, and a 54.5% improvement in energy efficiency. Additionally, the system attained a 99.3% security success rate under various attack scenarios, demonstrating its resilience against unauthorized access, replay, and tampering attempts. These findings confirm that the proposed approach provides a practical balance between security assurance and performance optimization.
R. Bala, S. Gnanavel· International Journal of Adv...· 0 citations
The Internet of Things look out on growing security and privacy defies, principally in light of the up growth of quantum threats. To handle these defies, we suggest a unified security framework that merges post-quantum blockchain technologies and zero-knowledge proofs (ZKPs) to attain secure authentication, decentralized identity management, and advanced data protection. The provided system based on a power-weighted consensus mechanism, compressed and overlapping recursive ZKPs, and transaction batching to decrease on-chain load. The outcomes display that the suggested system outperforms conventional systems and state-of-the-art solutions, with response time reduced to 92 ms, transaction throughput increased to 735 tx/s, energy consumption reduced to 0.37 J/op, and authentication accuracy increased to 97.6%, achieving a privacy score of 0.91.These outcomes emphasize that the offered framework not only attains superior performance but as well supplies strong resistance to quantum attacks and high privacy warranties, making it a promising solution for securing future IoT environments.
Hayder A. Nahi, Rusul A. Salman, Awring Falah Hassan et al.· Discover Computing· 0 citations
Distributed ledger technologies (DLTs) form critical infrastructure for decentralized applications, yet their security relies heavily on classical asymmetric cryptographic primitives that are vulnerable to quantum attacks. Post-quantum cryptography (PQC) provides candidate algorithms designed to resist such threats, but integrating these schemes into operational blockchain systems introduces significant architectural and performance trade-offs. This paper presents a comparative review of five blockchain implementations that incorporate PQC mechanisms across multiple platforms, including Hyperledger Fabric, Ethereum, and LACChain. We classify these systems using an architectural taxonomy based on the layer at which PQC is integrated, including identity-layer, key-generation, and consensus-layer modifications. To enable cross-study comparison, we apply relative delta normalization (Δ) to isolate the performance overhead introduced by PQC from differences in experimental environments. Our analysis shows that straightforward replacement of classical signatures at the identity layer can substantially increase certificate sizes by up to 925% in some implementations leading to measurable reductions in throughput and increases in transaction latency. In contrast, approaches that redesign consensus mechanisms using techniques such as identity-based encryption and aggregate signatures can mitigate these costs and, in some cases, improve throughput relative to classical baselines. These findings highlight key trade-offs between cryptographic security levels and system performance, providing practical insights for the design of scalable quantum-resistant blockchain systems.
Tyler Judd, Krish Jindal, S. Uludag· IEEE International Symposium...· 0 citations
: As blockchains gain traction in managing financial assets, robust authentication mechanisms become essential. Traditional public-private key authentication poses risks of key mismanagement, leading to significant financial losses. At the same time, in the non-blockchain context, systems like OpenID Connect (OIDC) provide user-friendly authentication with identity recovery in the traditional Web. However, they rely on a single trusted party, raising privacy concerns when applied to blockchains. In this paper, we present PEACE , an authentication mechanism for blockchains that combines the practicality of traditional Web systems with decentralization and privacy-preservation, building on a recent groundbreaking zkLogin protocol of Baldimtsi et al. (ACM CCS 2024). The protocol frees users from managing cryptographic material without giving away fund custody or relying on a single party. We detail PEACE ’s design, prove its properties in the Universal Composability framework, and present a real-world implementation compatible with existing OIDC deployments and the Ethereum blockchain.
Stefan Dziembowski, Shahriar Ebrahimi, Paweł K˛edzior et al.· Proceedings of the 23rd Inte...· 0 citations
Online voting platforms that rely on classical cryptography and centralized trust anchors face escalating challenges as the demand for secure and transparent digital elections grows. Such systems remain exposed to quantum-era threats, insider manipulation, and delayed audit mechanisms, which together can undermine public confidence and electoral legitimacy. To counter these risks, a quantum-resistant, multi-layer blockchain architecture has been developed to enable remote voting with continuous verifiability and resilience. This architecture resolves key weaknesses through five integrated layers. Quantum-Resistant Distributed Ledger Initialization (QR-DLI) embeds lattice-based cryptography, specifically Kyber and Dilithium variants, directly within the genesis block, ensuring the ledger is tamper-proof from inception and immune to quantum brute-force attacks. The Self-Adaptive Smart Contract Governance Engine (SASCG) introduces dynamic, participation-aware rule adjustments, allowing principled governance without manual overrides and ensuring that voting periods and eligibility rules adapt securely in real time. Homomorphic Vote Encryption with Multi-Authority Shard Key Distribution (HVE-MASKD) guarantees ballot confidentiality and authenticity by combining fully homomorphic encryption with distributed key shares, eliminating single points of trust. The Zero-Knowledge Proof–Based Real-Time Audit Layer (ZKP-RTAL) continuously validates ballot integrity while concealing vote content, creating a public and immutable audit trail. Finally, the Federated Performance & Threat Intelligence Optimizer (FPTIO) aggregates live telemetry and historical attack data to proactively tune consensus parameters and predict potential intrusions without interrupting the election process. Collectively, these layers achieve sub-second cryptographic operations, transaction throughput exceeding 1,500 TPS, over 99 % fraud detection accuracy, and strong scalability. The model provides a future-ready, auditable replacement for current e Voting infrastructures, strengthening digital democracy through post-quantum security, adaptive governance, and intelligent, continuous optimizations.
Pravin R Pachorkar, Sivaram Ponnusamy, Ankita Karale· Journal of Intelligent Decis...· 0 citations