Agent-based modeling as a tool to support decision-making rules used by smart contracts in DLT based communities
Summary
Various issues are surrounding the relatively new area of smart contract design.
These problems are very diverse in nature ranging from performance issues to exploiting
of contracts. The concerns stem from the transformation of domain information
to smart contract immutability to developers coding insecure smart contracts.
Hence, there is a compelling need to study smart contracts to find and address vulnerabilities
before deployment on a ledger due to its immutability. This study aims
to support the design of a code search community platform through agent-based
modeling by simulating systems requirements. In this paper, we present an abstract
replication of institutional emergence patterns. We used the ADICO grammar of
institutions as the basic structure to model system requirements. We establish a
common pool resource of institutional statements through a standardized method,
which is then used to simulate smart contracts through agent-based modeling. We
demonstrated through a case study the usage of the ADICO framework. We observe
common institutional patterns which are used to study smart contract design
in an agent-based environment. Institutions made a major contribution to the governance
of common-pool resource systems in a simplified environment. In addition,
we show how different domain concepts regarding agent-based modeling and smart
contract design can be mapped. Furthermore, this study generates open-source software
to simulate a decentralized system as an agent-based model through Repast
Simphony, from which insights regarding sustainability can be gathered.
We conclude that agent-based modeling is a foundational tool for designing smart
contracts in new DLT based communities.