Blockchain technology is driving a global technological and industrial transformation. With its decentralized, tamper-proof, transparent, and highly secure features, it has been widely applied in finance, supply chain management, healthcare, smart contracts, and other industries. To ensure the healthy development of blockchain technology and promote its sustainable application in the Australian information industry, the Australian Technology and Information Industry Association (ATIIA) has formulated a series of industry standards to regulate the data security, smart contract standards, cross-chain interoperability, compliance, and industry applications of blockchain systems, providing guidance for governments, enterprises, developers, and investors.
These standards aim to establish an open, secure, and efficient blockchain ecosystem, ensuring transparency and scalability in technical implementation, data privacy, regulatory compliance, and industry applications while aligning the Australian blockchain industry with international standards.
ATIIA believes that blockchain industry standards should follow these core principles to ensure their legality, security, and scalability in global applications:
1. Decentralization: Ensuring that blockchain systems adopt distributed storage to prevent single points of failure and enhance system reliability.
2. Security: Ensuring data security and resistance to attacks through encryption technologies, identity verification, and consensus mechanisms.
3. Transparency: Blockchain systems should maintain data transparency to enhance social trust, particularly in high-trust industries such as finance, supply chains, and healthcare.
4. Regulatory Compliance: All blockchain applications must comply with the regulations of the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC), Privacy Act 1988, and international financial standards.
5. Scalability: Blockchain systems should support high-throughput transaction processing and low-latency consensus mechanisms.
6. Interoperability: Supporting communication and interaction between different blockchain networks to facilitate cross-chain data and asset exchange.
(1) Hash Encryption Technology: Blockchain-stored data must be encrypted using SHA-256 or higher-level hashing algorithms to ensure data integrity and prevent tampering.
(2) Transaction Signing and Identity Verification: All transaction data should be digitally signed using asymmetric encryption (ECDSA, Ed25519) to verify authenticity.
(3) Private Key Security Management: Private key management must comply with international standards, such as multi-signature (Multisig), hardware security modules (HSM), and decentralized key management systems (DKMS) to ensure security.
(4) Hierarchical Data Storage: A layered storage architecture should be adopted, incorporating zero-knowledge proofs (ZKP) and fully homomorphic encryption (FHE) to enhance data privacy protection.
(1) Privacy Compliance: Blockchain applications must comply with the Privacy Act 1988 to ensure transparency and control over user data.
(2) Privacy-Enhancing Technologies: Techniques such as zero-knowledge proofs (ZKP), ring signatures, and CoinJoin should be supported to enhance data privacy protection and prevent transaction traceability.
(3) Decentralized Identity (DID): Blockchain applications requiring user authentication (e.g., financial services) should adopt decentralized identity (DID) technologies to protect user privacy.
(4) Right to Control and Delete Data: Users should have the ability to delete or anonymize their data (Right to be Forgotten) in compliance with data privacy protection regulations.
(1) Consensus Mechanism Security: Advanced consensus mechanisms such as Byzantine Fault Tolerance (BFT), Proof of Stake (PoS), and Delegated Proof of Stake (DPoS) should be used to enhance network attack resistance.
(2) Smart Contract Security Auditing: A smart contract vulnerability detection mechanism should be established, utilizing static analysis tools (e.g., MythX, Slither) to ensure security.
(3) DDoS Protection Mechanisms: A defense system should be in place to prevent large-scale distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks, ensuring network stability.
(4) Smart Contract Monitoring System: An automated monitoring system should be developed to regularly assess contract security and provide real-time alerts.
(1) Code Quality and Security Review: Smart contracts must comply with industry security standards and undergo independent third-party audits to ensure they are free from known vulnerabilities.
(2) Formal Verification: For critical smart contracts (e.g., financial transaction contracts), formal verification should be used to prove their logical correctness and prevent unintended behaviors.
(3) Vulnerability Prevention: Smart contracts should be designed to prevent common vulnerabilities such as reentrancy attacks, integer overflow, and short address attacks. Secure coding practices, such as using SafeMath for arithmetic operations, should be followed.
(4) Storage and Access Control: Contract variables should employ appropriate access control mechanisms (e.g., Ownable, RBAC) to ensure data can only be modified by authorized accounts.
(5) Upgrade Mechanisms: Smart contracts should adopt upgradeable architectures, such as proxy contracts, allowing for bug fixes and optimizations while ensuring transparency in the upgrade process.
(1) Modular Architecture: Contracts should be modularized, enabling independent upgrades and maintenance of different functional components.
(2) Standardized Interfaces: International standards such as ERC-20 (token standard), ERC-721 (NFT standard), and ERC-1155 (multi-asset management) should be adopted for interoperability.
(3) Gas Fee Optimization: Gas fee optimization strategies should be used, such as reducing storage operations and utilizing events instead of storage variables to lower transaction costs.
(1) Legal Enforceability: Smart contracts related to finance, insurance, and real estate must be legally enforceable and comply with Australian Contract Law.
(2) Anti-Money Laundering (AML) and KYC Compliance: Financial smart contracts must comply with the AML/CTF Act to ensure transparency in user identity and prevent illegal fund transfers.
(3) Dispute Resolution Mechanism: Smart contracts should include arbitration clauses allowing parties to resolve disputes on-chain or off-chain.
(1) Standardized Cross-Chain Protocols: Common cross-chain communication protocols (e.g., Cosmos IBC, Polkadot XCM, Chainlink CCIP) should be supported for interoperability between blockchain ecosystems.
(2) Data Validation Mechanisms: Light Client Verification or Merkle Proofs should be used to verify the authenticity of cross-chain transactions.
(3) Decentralized Cross-Chain Bridges: Cross-chain asset transfers must be secure, avoiding single points of failure and centralized control risks.
(1) Atomic Swaps: On-chain atomic swap technology should be used for decentralized asset exchanges to ensure transaction security and immutability.
(2) Liquidity Pools: Multi-chain liquidity pool protocols (e.g., Thorchain, Anyswap) should be supported to improve cross-chain trading efficiency.
(3) Off-Chain Indexing: Off-chain data indexing technologies (e.g., The Graph) should be used to enhance the efficiency of cross-chain transaction queries and execution.
ATIIA will strengthen collaboration with ISO/TC307 (International Blockchain Standardization Committee), IEEE, and the Enterprise Ethereum Alliance (EEA) to align Australian blockchain standards with global standards. The association will also promote the adoption of blockchain in digital identity verification, public data storage, and transparent governance.
The standardization of blockchain technology is essential for its widespread adoption and sustainable development. Through the establishment of blockchain industry standards, ATIIA provides technical guidance for enterprises, developers, and governments, ensuring the secure, transparent, and scalable growth of blockchain technology.