Joshua Ellul

University of Malta · Centre for Distributed Ledger Technologies

Blockchain, Smart Contracts and other forms of Distributed Ledger Technology provide means to ensure that processes are verifiable, transparent, and tamper-proof. Yet the very same enabling features that bring decentralisation also pose challenges to providing protection for the various users and stakeholders. Most jurisdictions which have implemen...

This article evaluates how to adapt to disruption by examining the concept of legal personality as applied to DAOs, taking into account the unique features of DAOs, and reimagining how these and other Innovative Technology Arrangements might be regulated more effectively.

Decentralised Autonomous Organisations, more commonly known as DAOs, are the preferred governance method of DeFi and other permissionless organisations. DAOs are a key innovation that facilitate community organising, monetising and managing and will most likely play an increasingly important role in the economy. However, as the document discusses,...

This report is the first of a series of brief papers relating to the main legal aspects of non-fungible tokens (NFTs). The aim is to highlight NFT characteristics and provide an extensive but not exhaustive overview of the legal classification and frameworks across the globe. The report places a special focus on EU laws, but it is not limited to th...

The terms self-sovereign identity (SSI) and decentralised identity are often used interchangeably, which results in increasing ambiguity when solutions are being investigated and compared. This article aims to provide a clear distinction between the two concepts in relation to the revised Regulation as Regards establishing the European Digital Iden...

The terms self-sovereign identity (SSI) and decen- tralised identity are often used interchangeably, which results in increasing ambiguity when solutions are being investigated and compared. This article aims to provide a clear distinction between the two concepts in relation to the revised Regulation as Regards establishing the European Digital Id...

Small jurisdictions have emerged as the true testing grounds for digital identity carrying all the risks of reshaping how legal identities are governed, despite their often overlooked contributions. Many small places pioneering digital identity initiatives find themselves subsumed under the World Bank’s Identity for Development (ID4D) project, one...

This abstract shows possible integrations of digital identity with Web3 technologies in the context of higher education and decentralised autonomous organisations (DAOs), focusing on small states like Malta, Dominica, and the Marshall Islands.

The article aims to investigate the potential of blockchain technology in mitigating certain cybersecurity risks associated with artificial intelligence (AI) systems. Aligned with ongoing regulatory deliberations within the European Union (EU) and the escalating demand for more resilient cybersecurity measures within the realm of AI, our analysis f...

Though viticulture, wine production and distribution, involves processes mainly revolving around a single component/ingredient — grapes, it is not exempt from the complexities of supply chain management. Supply chains involve an extensive need for trust in various involved stakeholders, and whilst for the most parts modern day supply chains ‘work’,...

It is unclear whether the so-called common Union Toolbox will support other projects outside of the EU and private sector ones. In this work, we argue that electronic ledgers (as defined in eIDAS) can connect markets that are currently outside of the scope of eIDAS. Furthermore, sectors currently relying substantially on public permissionless ledge...

The paper focuses on the philosophical challenges of governance over trustless ledgers, namely Bitcoin Layer 2 solutions in El Salvador. Blockchain adoption in El Salvador is an example of policy based on a ‘frontier epistemology’ (Nickles 2009), creating a situation where “facts are uncertain, values are in dispute, stakes are high, and decisions...

In this article, we develop an interdisciplinary analysis of MEV which desires to merge the gap that exists between technical and legal research supporting policymakers in their regulatory decisions concerning blockchains, DeFi and associated risks. Consequently, this article is intended for both technical and legal audiences, and while we abstain...

In this article, we develop an interdisciplinary analysis of MEV which desires to merge the gap that exists between technical and legal research supporting policymakers in their regulatory decisions concerning blockchains, DeFi and associated risks. Consequently, this article is intended for both technical and legal audiences, and while we abstain...

In this article, we develop an interdisciplinary analysis of MEV which desires to merge the gap that exists between technical and legal research supporting policymakers in their regulatory decisions concerning blockchains, DeFi and associated risks. Consequently, this article is intended for both technical and legal audiences, and while we abstain...

It is widely accepted that blockchain and other distributed ledgers cannot initiate requests for input from external systems and are reliant on oracles to provide such inputs. This belief is founded on the fact that each node has to reach a deterministic state. In this paper we show that this belief is a preconceived one by demonstrating a method t...

Digital technologies prove to be challenging to regulate but also, or perhaps due to the fact that they prove to be challenging to provide assurances for. In this paper, we present this two-faceted challenge, going into technical reasons for the difficulty of building reliable software and how technological safeguards can only provide limited guara...

Non-Fungible Tokens are often referred to as a technological manner to keep track of 'ownership' of various digital or physical assets. However, the reality is that, 'ownership' is defined by the law of the land, and NFTs are seen to be challenging what such ownership really means. NFTs, thus are, not only a complex1 technological 'ownership' solut...

Blockchain and other distributed ledger technologies have enabled peer-to-peer networks to maintain ledgers with an immutable history and guaranteed computation, all carried out without the need of trusted parties. In practice, few applications of blockchain are closed i.e. do not interact with the world outside the blockchain, and various techniqu...

Tinkercad.com, amongst other things, provides an easy to use environment to emulate Arduino Uno devices along with connected virtual hardware components and is controlled by Arduino sketch code. Whilst the platform is a useful tool for learning, since it does not provide a means of communicating with the outside world, as soon as a project requires...

It is widely accepted that blockchain and other distributed ledgers cannot initiate requests for input from external systems and are reliant on oracles to provide such inputs. This belief is founded on the fact that each node has to reach a deterministic state. However, in this short paper we show that this belief is preconceived by demonstrating a...

Smart contracts exist immutably on blockchains, making their pre-deployment correctness essential. Moreover, they exist openly on blockchains-open for interaction with any other smart contract and off-chain entity. Interaction, for instance with off-chain oracles, can affect the state of the smart contract, and correctness of these smart contracts...

Aspect-oriented programming tools aim to provide increased code modularity by enabling programming of cross-cutting concerns separate from the main body of code. Since the inception of runtime verification , aspect-oriented programming has regularly been touted as a perfect accompanying tool, by allowing for non-invasive monitoring in-strumentation...

Aspect-oriented programming tools aim to provide increased code modularity by enabling programming of cross-cutting concerns separate from the main body of code. Since the inception of runtime verification, aspect-oriented programming has regularly been touted as a perfect accompanying tool, by allowing for non-invasive monitoring instrumentation t...

Smart contracts exist immutably on blockchains, making their pre-deployment correctness essential. Moreover, they exist openly on blockchains—open for interaction with any other smart contract and offchain entity. Interaction, for instance with off-chain oracles, can affect the state of the smart contract, and correctness of these smart contracts m...

Blockchain technology has taken off rapidly in the last decade, as blockchain-based applications have expanded across sectors and acquired substantial global user support. This rise has been accelerated in the domain of cryptocurrencies, as one of blockchains' most famous (or infamous) applications. This relatively novel type of a financial asset c...

Twitter sentiment has been shown to be useful in predicting whether Bitcoin’s price will increase or decrease. Yet the state-of-the-art is limited to predicting the price direction and not the magnitude of increase/decrease. In this paper, we seek to build on the state-of-the-art to not only predict the direction yet to also predict the magnitude o...

Regulators typically seek to ensure that entities are compliant with laws through the combination of transparency, auditability and accountability. There are common misconceptions that DeFi cannot be regulatory-compliant. The underlying technology of blockchain naturally increases the level of transparency and auditability through its characteristi...

Artificial Intelligence regulatory developments have been ever-increasing in both academia as well as within policy and governmental settings. Whilst extensive literature has been published on the topic of how such regulation should be developed, the question as to whether such regulation should be AI-specific or focused on software in general rema...

Smart Contracts built on Blockchain systems have brought about the ability to deploy code that is tamperproof, verifiable and guaranteed to do exactly what it is written to do over a network of decentralised systems. This enables for decentralised (and centralised) organisations to define rules for particular operations, or even for the entire orga...

Decentralised Finance, commonly referred to as DeFi, is defined as the overall subsection of crypto-assets and smart contract-based automated and permissionless financial services. DeFi, in most cases, is an all-encompassing term for protocol-based services that act cooperatively to form complex and widely available financial services. DeFi applic...

Business processes have been long researched, with many tools, languages, and diagrammatic notations having been developed for automation. Recently, distributed ledger technology (of which Blockchain is one type) has been proposed for use in the monitoring of business process compliance. Such a set-up is attractive since it allows for immutability...

Decentralized Finance (DeFi) takes the promise of blockchain a step further and aims to transform traditional financial products into trustless and transparent protocols that run without involving intermediaries. Similar to how 2017 was the year of ICOs, 2020 was the year of DeFi, with more than fifteen billion dollars of total investments. The dec...

Programming errors in Ethereum smart contracts can result in catastrophic financial losses from stolen cryptocurrency. While vulnerability detectors can prevent vulnerable contracts from being deployed, this does not mean that such contracts will not be deployed. Once a vulnerable contract is instantiated on the blockchain and becomes the target of...

Runtime monitoring comes at a runtime cost. Overheads induced by monitoring and verification code may be necessary, and yet prohibitive in certain circumstances. When verification is local to a single unit of execution in a system, one can choose whether or not to monitor based on the risk of that individual unit. In this paper, we propose a monito...

Decentralized Finance (DeFi) takes the promise of blockchain a step further and aims to transform traditional financial products into trustless and transparent protocols that run without involving intermediaries. Similar to how 2017 was the year of ICOs, 2020 was the year of DeFI with more than $15 billion of total investments. The decentralized pl...

Artificial Intelligence (AI) and the regulation thereof is a topic that is increasingly being discussed and various proposals have been made in literature for defining regulatory bodies and/or related regulation. In this paper, we present a pragmatic approach for providing a technology assurance regulatory framework. To the best of our knowledge, t...

This is the second of a series of reports that will be published addressing selected topics in accordance with the European Commission priorities. The aim is to reflect on the latest trends and developments and discuss the future of blockchain in Europe and globally. This report, prepared by the new team leading the EU Blockchain Observatory and F...

Business processes have been long researched, with many tools, languages, and diagrammatic notations having been developed for automation. Recently, distributed ledger technology (of which Blockchain is one type) has been proposed for use in the monitoring of business process compliance. Such a setup is attractive since it allows for immutability a...

It is widely accepted that blockchain systems cannot execute calls to external systems or services due to each node having to reach a deterministic state. However, in this paper we show that this belief is preconceived by demonstrating a method that enables blockchain and distributed ledger technologies to perform calls to external systems initiate...

The recent emergence of cryptocurrencies has added another layer of complexity in the fight towards financial crime. Cryptocurrencies require no central authority and offer pseudo-anonymity to its users, allowing criminals to disguise themselves among legitimate users. On the other hand, the openness of data fuels the investigator's toolkit to cond...

Artificial Intelligence (AI) and the regulation thereof is a topic that is increasingly being discussed within various fora. Various proposals have been made in literature for defining regulatory bodies and/or related regulation. In this paper, we present a pragmatic approach for providing a technology assurance regulatory framework. To the best kn...

Artificial Intelligence (AI) and the regulation thereof is a topic that is increasingly being discussed within various fora. Various proposals have been made in literature for defining regulatory bodies and/or related regulation. In this paper, we present a pragmatic approach for providing a technology assurance regulatory framework. To the best kn...

Programming errors in Ethereum smart contracts can result in catastrophic financial losses from stolen cryptocurrency. While vulnerability detectors can prevent vulnerable contracts from being deployed, this does not mean that such contracts will not be deployed. Once a vulnerable contract is instantiated on the blockchain and becomes the target of...

A decade on since Satoshi's Bitcoin paper, Blockchain is now considered to be sliding into the trough of Gartner's hype cycle. Claims in regard to Blockchain and Cryptocurrencies being dead are on the rise, whilst at the same time many claim the contrary. The vague statement encapsulates many different aspects and perspectives of a myriad of use ca...

Much of the excitement around blockchain is mainly due to promising applications in the financial sector. However, many also believe in the technology's potential to disrupt non-financial sectors and applications, including supply chains, energy, e-voting, healthcare, and education. The application of blockchain within the education sector is expec...

Blockchain and Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) enable for disintermediation of services and decentralisation of the software processes enabling them. By doing so, processes can become transparent, verifiable, tamper-proof, and immutable. They have the capacity to provide an unchangeable history, or log, of all actions that have taken place whic...

Runtime Verification in both traditional systems and smart contracts has typically been implemented at the application level. Such systems very often run on Virtual Machines which execute their application logic. Conditional monitoring is often implemented to enable for certain monitors to be switched off in aim of reducing execution overheads once...

Non-fungible tokens are an up and coming application domain for smart contracts. Ethereum is the first blockchain-based decentralized computing platform that has standardized this type of tokens into a well-defined interface, namely ERC721. We propose a framework that provides developers with a smart contract suite that offers complete implementati...

Falling is among the most damaging event elderly people may experience. With the ever-growing aging population, there is an urgent need for the development of fall detection systems. Thanks to the rapid development of sensor networks and the Internet of Things (IoT), human-computer interaction using sensor fusion has been regarded as an effective m...

The seven papers included in this special section focus on machine learning applications for the mental health industry. Mental health is one of the major global health issues affecting substantially more people than other noncommunicable diseases. Much research has been focused on developing novel technologies for tackling this global health chall...

Developing smart contract decentralised application based systems typically involves writing code for various platforms , from the smart contract code residing on the underlying distributed ledger technology implementation to back end oracles and front end websites or mobile apps. In addition to the different technologies used for the different par...

Blockchain, Smart Contracts and Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) are being touted to revolutionise digital services - through decentralisation. Cryptocurrencies, self-sovereign identities, decentralised certificate registries, and transparent voting systems are but a few applications which promise to empower endusers and provide assurances that...

Blockchain, Smart Contracts and Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) are being touted to revolutionise digital services - through decentralisation. Cryptocurrencies, self-sovereign identities, decentralised certificate registries, and transparent voting systems are but a few applications which promise to empower end-users and provide assurances that...

Smart contracts have been argued to be a means of building trust between parties by providing a self-executing equivalent of legal contracts. And yet, code does not always perform what it was originally intended to do, which resulted in losses of millions of dollars. Static verification of smart contracts is thus a pressing need. This paper present...

A book chapter published in "DLT Malta: Thoughts From The Blockchain Island", May 2019, ISBN-13: 978-8362627028 The chapter discusses the need for IT and Legal expertise for smart contracts that will be used to automate interactions between parties, and whether hybrid chimeric professionals will be the ones who eventually write such smart legal co...

Smart contracts which enforce behaviour between parties have been hailed as a new way of regulating business, particularly on public distributed ledger technologies which ensure the immutability of smart contracts, and can do away with points of trust. Many such platforms, including Ethereum, come with a virtual machine on which smart contracts are...

Smart contracts present new challenges for runtime verification techniques, due to features such as immutability of the code and the notion of gas that must be paid for the execution of code. In this paper we present the runtime verification tool ContractLarva and outline its use in instrumenting monitors in smart contracts written in Solidity, for...

Smart contracts present new challenges for runtime verification techniques, due to features such as immutability of the code and the notion of gas that must be paid for the execution of code. In this paper we present the runtime verification tool ContractLarva and outline its use in instrumenting monitors in smart contracts written in Solidity, for...

Smart contracts which enforce behaviour between parties have been hailed as a new way of regulating business, particularly on public distributed ledger technologies which ensure the immutability of smart contracts, and can do away with points of trust. Many such platforms, including Ethereum, come with a virtual machine on which smart contracts are...

The notion of smart contracts in distributed ledger systems have been hailed as a safe way of enforcing contracts between participating parties. However, unlike legal contracts, which talk about ideal behaviour and consequences of not adhering to such behaviour, smart contracts are by their very nature executable code, giving explicit instructions...

Blockchain and smart contract technology provide a means of decentralised computational agreements that are trusted and automated. By integrating Internet of Things (IoT) devices with blockchain systems and smart contracts, agreements can not only be confined to in-blockchain manipulation of state, however can enable agreements to interact on the p...

The Internet of Things (IoT) is a name coined to the digital ecosystem of numerous internet connected devices. It brings the physical world closer to the digital one and as a result, allows for new applications and services. The emergence of Blockchain, a distributed ledger technology, presents a possible solution to ensure trust in decentralized s...

Sophisticated Android malware families often implement techniques aimed at avoiding detection. Split personality malware for example, behaves benignly when it detects that it is running on an analysis environment such as a malware sandbox, and maliciously when running on a real user’s device. These kind of techniques are problematic for malware ana...

A large number of Virtual Machines have been developed for sensor nodes. Many are based on Java, although implementations based on Python and.Net also exist. Some aspects of the JVM, such as the simple yet sufficiently expressive instruction set, work well on a sensor node. However, Java was developed for more powerful devices which results in cert...

Blockchain technology and the application of smart contracts allow for automation of verifiable digital processes between any number of parties. The Internet of Things (IoT) has seen great potential in the past decade to revolutionise our day-to-day lives with the aim of automating physical processes by incorporating Internet-connected devices into...

Programming distributed embedded systems gives rise to a number of challenges. The distributed nodes are typically resource constrained, requiring expert systems programming skills to manage the limited power, communication bandwidth, and memory and computation constraints. The challenge of raising the level of abstraction of programming such syste...

Sophisticated Android malware families often implement techniques aimed at avoiding detection. Split personality malware for example, behaves benignly when it detects that it is running on an analysis environment such as a malware sandbox, and maliciously when running on a real user’s device. These kind of techniques are problematic for malware ana...

Programming distributed embedded systems gives rise to a number of challenges. The distributed nodes are typically resource constrained, requiring expert systems programming skills to manage the limited power, communication bandwidth, and memory and computation constraints. The challenge of raising the level of abstraction of programming such syste...

WebAssembly has been proposed as a binary encoding for the web which aims to be compact, platform and language independent and provide an efficient means of execution. The encoding requirements perfectly match the requirements of wireless sensor network applications. However, the encoding was not designed with typical resource constrained microcont...

When dealing with eventually consistent systems, application developers are often required to write their own conflict resolution algorithms. The aim of this work is to provide an abstraction layer for an eventually consistent database, namely CouchDB, and its client side implementation, PouchDB in a manner which makes it easier for software develo...

Practical applications of Body Sensor Networks (BSN) give rise to programming challenges that are not present in traditional computing systems. The typical memory resources available on sensor nodes are extremely limited, typically equipped with tens of kilobytes of program space and ten kilobytes of volatile memory. ... As described above, the dev...

Wireless sensor networks research in the past decade has seen substantial initiative,support and potential. The true adoption and deployment of such technology is highly dependent on the workforce available to implement such solutions. However, embedded systems programming for severely resource constrained devices, such as those used in typical wir...