Integrated Model-Driven Engineering of Blockchain Applications for Business Processes and Asset Management

TL;DR

This paper presents an integrated model-driven engineering approach for developing blockchain applications related to business processes and asset management, aiming to reduce vulnerabilities and improve correctness.

Contribution

It introduces a comprehensive MDE approach for blockchain-based business and asset management applications, implemented in the Lorikeet tool.

Findings

Feasibility demonstrated through implementation

Ensures functional correctness of smart contracts

Cost-effective development process

Abstract

Blockchain has attracted broad interests to build decentralised applications. Blockchain has attracted broad interests to build decentralised applications. However, developing such applications without introducing vulnerabilities is hard for developers, not the least because the deployed code is immutable and can be called by anyone with access to the network. Model-driven engineering (MDE) helps to reduce those risks, by combining proven code snippets as per the model specification, which is easier to understand than source code. Therefore, in this paper, we present an approach for integrated MDE across business processes and asset management (e.g. for settlement). Our approach includes methods for fungible/non-fungible asset registration, escrow for conditional payment, and asset swap. The proposed MDE approach is implemented in a smart contract generation tool called Lorikeet, and evaluated in terms of feasibility, functional correctness, and cost effectiveness.