NFT as a proof of Digital Ownership-reward system integrated to a Secure Distributed Computing system Managed by Blockchain

*** Se video below for a quick demo and usage of the tool.

Summary

This is a Thesis project for my masters degree in Data Science provided by University of Stavanger. The purpose of this work is to demonstrate the feasibility and potential to implement an NFT-Based system to store and manage ownership of data, contribute to the newtork and use Proof of Ownership as the consensus mechanism.

A permissioned Blockchain-based network

The project simulates the interaction between two organization in a permissioned blockchain network where they can:

• Upload a data file system with its metadata
• Mint uploaded data as an NFT and store the resulted hash or IPFS-CID into their own database as a proof of ownership.
• Transfer the generated NFT Asset
• Burn the NFT
• Extend the NFT

Thus, the project aims to show the potential a solution like this has to be implemented in real applications for corporate organizations.

Purpose

This thesis project emerged by the need to overcome security threats and data breaches as well as to explore a way to share and contribute in a commonly shared data repository similar to what current oil companies use in Norway.

Technologies

Hyperledger Fabric 2.2

Open-source enterprise blockchain technology, with particular permissioned capabilities, authorization and consensus.

IPFS

Decentralized file storage system used content-addressed capabilities.

ExpressJS

Backend web application framework for Node.js designed for building web applications and APIs.

Typescript

A programming language superset of JavaScript developed and maintained by Microsoft.

React

Open-source front-end JavaScript library for building user interfaces based on UI components.

Docker

Set of platform as a service products that use OS-level virtualization to deliver software in packages called containers.

System Components

Hyperledger Fabric

Chaincode

• Uses NFT (Erc-721) smart contract extension to allow data management

Private IPFS Network

It is a private network that controls content addressed files and shares the files among different nodes

Backend

Server application that communicates with the hyperledger network and extends its functionality by an API.

Frontend

User interface that enables organizations to issue NFT's by uploading data files.

Repository Structure

network

Contains all the hyperlesdger fabric implementation for the development of this project

thesis

Source code for the thesis report written in Latex. Final version can be found here:

web

Contains all web components for the application program.

client

Frontend application developed in React and Typescript

server

Backend server appplication developed in ExpressJS and Typescript

common

Common data types and utils used by both Backened and server

REST

A Postman collection to explore and use all the API calls created. Related documentation can be found there to further extend to other applications

chaincode

Contains the smart contracts and code developed for Fabric NFT system

token-erc-721

Implementation and extension of Ethereum Standart ERC-721 (NFT) smart contract built in TypeScript.

resources

Miscelaneous, images and diagrams build to present and explain the system architecture, technologies used and workflows.

Instructions

To run the project follow the following steps:

Prerequisites

• A linux operating system or bash scripting shell is required.
• On a windows machine the usage of WSL (any linux distribution) can help to run the project
• Docker Desktop installed (if using Windows with WSL make sure the option 'Use WSL 2 Based engine' or similar is selected).

1. Clone the repository

git clone https://github.com/asahicantu/NFT-Thesis.git

2. Change to network folder

Move to the repository's directory and then to the network directory

cd NFT-Thesis/network

3. Enable execution mode for all .sh (shell scripting files)

find . -name "*.sh" -exec chmod +x {} \;

4. Run the network infrastructure

Execute the following command to create all the network infrastructure in docker, certificates, organizations nad connection files.

./network start

This process will take some minutes to finish running, what it does:

1. Invokes Docker-compose commands to create the docker containers for:
2. Hyperledger fabric
3. Hyperledger explorer and explorerdb (Interface to visualize the blocks in the Ledger)
4. Hyperledger orderer (Orderer node)
5. Peer nodes (Peer and CA Orderers for organizations 1 and 2)
6. IPFS nodes (Bootstrap, and 2 nodes for private network)

5. Run web application

1. It is recommended to use two terminals and change to directory cd web
2. Execute: cd server && ./npm run dev this will execute ExpressJS Web Server 2.1. Important to run this environment in dev mode to visualize logs and potential resistance to failures
3. In the second terminal execute cd client && ./npm run start this will execute React Web App
4. Navigate to the web application (localhost:3000) and select the option menu "Register Organizations" 4.1. Register Organization 1 By selecting the file "network/organizations/peerOrganizations/org1.example.com/connection-org1.json" 4.2. Register Organization 2 By selecting the file "network/organizations/peerOrganizations/org2.example.com/connection-org2.json"
5. Select the option menu "Enroll User" 5.1. Select the organizstion that user will belong, user name (add 'minter' as a default option) and department (set 'deptartment1' as default option) 5.2 Submit the user enrollment proces. Repeat the process to add more users for both organization 1 and 2
6. Select 'Mint NFT' Option to issue a new NFT. 6.1 In 'Organization' field set 'Org1', 'minter' as owner and select a file as follows: 6.2. Repeat the process to mint as any NFT as desired
7. Use the menu 'View Tokens' to visualize issued NFTS residing on the IPFS Server

Stopping the network or restarting the system

To ensure all files are removed after using the system it is recommended to run the following command with super user privileges:

cd network
sudo ./network.sh stop

This will remove all running docker containers and organization related connectivity profiles.

Bencharming with Hyperledger Caliper

For the test and benchmark performances Hyperledger Caliper was used.

 docker pull hyperledger/caliper:0.5.0

Usage:

docker run --rm hyperledger/caliper:0.5.0 -it bash calipper --version

Running benchmarking with Hyperledger fabric

If additional statistics are desired to be run against the Fabric system it is recommended to use and follow the instructions provided by Hyperlesdger Caliper. Copy all the contents from network/organizations into network/compose/caliper and run docker compose command.

cd network
sudo cp -r organizations compose/caliper/ 
docker-compose -f docker-compose-caliper.yaml up

npm install --only=prod @hyperledger/caliper-cli@0.5.0
npx caliper bind --caliper-bind-sut fabric:2.2
npx caliper launch manager --caliper-workspace . --caliper-benchconfig scenarios/config.yaml --caliper-networkconfig networks/fabric/network-config.yaml
npx caliper launch manager --caliper-workspace ./ --caliper-networkconfig networks/fabric/test-network.yaml --caliper-benchconfig benchmarks/samples/fabric/fabcar/config.yaml --caliper-flow-only-test --caliper-fabric-gateway-enabled