Decentralized technologies (Web3, Blockchain, Distributed Ledger Technologies, Distributed Storage and Computation as IPFS) have started to disrupt multiple domains, including finance and payments, but also networks, computing, supply chain, identity management, and Artificial Intelligence with decentralized learning.

The BRAINS conference is dedicated to these advances that could make the world of networks and services more secure while enabling new distributed business models.

This year, a new DeFi track is open to both technically oriented and economics-oriented papers. We particularly welcome interdisciplinary work that combines blockchain protocols, smart contract engineering, and DeFi market design, as well as empirical and theoretical studies on crypto-economics and financial innovation.

Areas of interest include, but are not limited to:

Effective challenges for decentralized systems

    Theoretical contributions to Blockchain, DLT and decentralized storage
    Distributed consensus and fault tolerance solutions, including domain-specific consensus
    Protocols and algorithms
    Distributed ledger analytics
    Trade-offs between decentralization, scalability, and security
    Zero-Knowledge proofs
    Layer 2 solutions for scalability and privacy
    Blockchain interoperability and cross-chain mechanisms
    Storage solutions and data availability
    Censorship resistance and fair ordering
    Malicious or self-serving attacks, and defenses
    Obstacles to achieving effective decentralization

Fundamentals of Decentralized Apps, Smart contracts, and chain code

    Languages and tooling for dApp development
    Security, privacy, and forensics
    Formal methods for blockchain
    Transaction monitoring and analysis
    Collaboration between on-chain and off-chain code
    Blockchain-defined networking
    Web3 and distributed storage and computation

Application and service cases of DLT and Smart contracts

    Identity management
    Finance, payments, and fraud detection and prevention
    IoT and cyber-physical systems
    Smart grids and Industry 4.0, including dataspaces
    V2X, connected and autonomous vehicles
    Networking, Edge, and Cloud technologies
    Blockchain for Beyond 5G and 6G technologies
    Service or resource marketplaces
    Public sector Blockchain solutions and infrastructures
    Results from large collaborative projects on these topics
    Blockchain for education, public administration, health
    Blockchain for Business Process and Supply Chain Management
    Regulation and policies

Blockchain and AI

    Machine learning and AI for blockchain security
    Federated and decentralized learning for blockchain systems
    Large Language Models for blockchain
    Using Blockchain for agentic AI

Decentralized Finance (DeFi) Track (Open to both technical and economics/finance-oriented papers on blockchain and DeFi.) 

    AMMs (Automated Market Makers)
    Lending Protocols 
    Stablecoins
    Restaking
    Decentralized Autonomous Organizations
    DePIN (Decentralized Physical Infrastructure Networks) 
    Prediction Markets 
    AI Agents & DeFi
    DeFi and Privacy

Blockchain for Information Systems and Business Process Management

    On-chain and off-chain data and processes integration
    Business processes auditing and monitoring on blockchain
    Process mining techniques for blockchain-based systems
    Software architecture for blockchain-based information systems
    Modeling aspects for processes and data in blockchain-based systems

Student Track

We encourage the submission of student papers (i.e., all authors of the paper must be MSc or PhD students) on the topics mentioned in the CFP. Student papers have to be clearly stated on the first page. The papers should follow the same guidelines as short papers (max 4 pages) and be submitted on the dedicated track for student papers.