University of Twente Student Theses
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Towards updatable smart contracts
Bloo, F.W.C. (2018) Towards updatable smart contracts.
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Abstract: | Multiple blockchain implementations, such as Ethereum, support the storage and execution of executable code, called smart contracts. Due to the immutability of smart contracts, security updates and new functionalities can currently not be implemented. From this, the main goal of the study is derived: to investigate whether a smart contract can be updated in a decentralised manner. This study adopts a Design Science approach to design a solution that involves a technical aspect to bypass the immutability of a smart contract and a decision-making process to reach a consensus on an update amongst the (anonymous) participants. This thesis presents a design that bypasses the immutability by adopting a proxy smart contract which redirects incoming calls to the most recent version of the smart contract. The decision-making process that we present, is extracted from four illustrative case studies. In this study, a fair stake is implemented as the value at risk: the stake in the process is relative to the value stored on the smart contract. As the results show, the applicability and feasibility of this concept are limited for smart contracts. The design that we present in this study is not viable and should not be implemented by industry. |
Item Type: | Essay (Master) |
Faculty: | EEMCS: Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Science |
Subject: | 54 computer science, 85 business administration, organizational science |
Programme: | Business Information Technology MSc (60025) |
Link to this item: | https://purl.utwente.nl/essays/76769 |
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