Automated Reasoning in Blockchain: Foundations, Applications, and Frontiers

TL;DR

This survey articulates how formal logic and automated reasoning can provide rigorous guarantees for blockchain systems, addressing smart contracts, consensus protocols, and security mechanisms. It maps a spectrum of logical formalisms (e.g., temporal, deontic, epistemic) and automated techniques (model checking, theorem proving, SMT) to concrete blockchain problems, and highlights existing tools and platform-specific efforts. The authors identify gaps such as scalability, cross-platform coverage, and the integration of diverse reasoning strategies, and propose directions like integrated logical frameworks and AI-augmented verification to move toward trustworthy, scalable ecosystems. The work underscores the practical importance of formal methods for ensuring correctness, safety, and incentive compatibility in real-world blockchain deployments, including federated and IoT-enabled environments.

Abstract

Blockchain technology has emerged as a transformative paradigm for decentralized and secure data management across diverse application domains, including healthcare, supply chain management, and the Internet of Things. Its core features, such as decentralization, immutability, and auditability, achieved through distributed consensus algorithms and cryptographic techniques, offer significant advantages for multi-stakeholder applications requiring transparency and trust. However, the inherent complexity and security-critical nature of blockchain systems necessitate rigorous analysis and verification to ensure their correctness, reliability, and resilience against potential vulnerabilities.