1

Generative AI-enabled Blockchain Networks:

Fundamentals, Applications, and Case Study
Cong T. Nguyen, Yinqiu Liu, Hongyang Du, Dinh Thai Hoang, Dusit Niyato, Diep N. Nguyen, and Shiwen Mao

Abstract—Generative Artificial Intelligence (GAI) has recently in addressing these issues [1]. DAI can streamline blockchain
emerged as a promising solution to address critical challenges operations in various ways. It can enhance scalability by com-
of blockchain technology, including scalability, security, privacy, pressing transaction data, refining consensus mechanism de-
and interoperability. In this paper, we first introduce GAI
sign, and optimizing network resource allocation. For security
arXiv:2401.15625v1 [cs.CR] 28 Jan 2024

techniques, outline their applications, and discuss existing so-

lutions for integrating GAI into blockchains. Then, we discuss and accuracy, Natural Language Processing (NLP) techniques
emerging solutions that demonstrate the effectiveness of GAI in are instrumental in analyzing and verifying smart contracts,
addressing various challenges of blockchain, such as detecting thereby preventing errors. Deep Learning (DL) significantly
unknown blockchain attacks and smart contract vulnerabilities, bolsters security as it can scrutinize transaction patterns and
designing key secret sharing schemes, and enhancing privacy.
Moreover, we present a case study to demonstrate that GAI, node information to spot and counteract malicious activities.
specifically the generative diffusion model, can be employed to Additionally, DL plays a vital role in preserving user privacy
optimize blockchain network performance metrics. Experimental within blockchain networks because it can anonymize and
results clearly show that, compared to a baseline traditional consolidate transaction data and facilitate the processing of
AI approach, the proposed generative diffusion model approach encrypted data without the need for decryption. In terms of
can converge faster, achieve higher rewards, and significantly
improve the throughput and latency of the blockchain network. interoperability, DAI aids in the development of secure and
Additionally, we highlight future research directions for GAI efficient cross-chain protocols and supports the processing of
in blockchain applications, including personalized GAI-enabled data at the semantic level, thereby enhancing the functionality
blockchains, GAI-blockchain synergy, and privacy and security and reach of blockchain technology.
considerations within blockchain ecosystems. While DAI techniques offer solutions to several blockchain
Index Terms—Generative Artificial Intelligence, Blockchain, challenges, they face notable limitations. Newer blockchain
Variational Autoencoder, Generative Adversarial Network, Gen- networks, often lacking extensive historical data, impede
erative Diffusion Model, Large Language Model DAI’s effectiveness in learning and preventing emerging
threats. Additionally, DAI models trained on one type of
I. I NTRODUCTION blockchain, such as those using Proof-of-Work protocols,
may not perform well on networks using different protocols
Blockchain technology, renowned for its exceptional ability
like Proof-of-Stake or Proof-of-Authority. Moreover, DAI’s
to maintain data integrity and immutability in decentralized
inability to generate new content or adapt to novel scenarios
settings, has been increasingly recognized as a crucial enabler
limits its usefulness in applications like detecting new attacks
for transparent data management. Fundamentally, a blockchain
or automating smart contract creation. Therefore, while DAI
operates as a distributed ledger, where records are collectively
is beneficial in certain areas, its limitations highlight the need
maintained and shared across a peer-to-peer network. This
for more versatile technologies in blockchain development.
technology leverages sophisticated cryptographic methods and As AI technologies continue to evolve, Generative AI (GAI)
consensus mechanisms to provide self-governance, security, has recently been emerging as a focal point, drawing even
transparency, and efficiency. Its applications are diverse and greater levels of attention. GAI techniques focus on generating
far-reaching, encompassing sectors such as finance and health- new information, such as pictures, texts, sounds, videos, and
care, and extending to innovative domains like the Metaverse system designs, by learning patterns and structures from
and Web 3.0 [1], [2]. existing data and autonomously producing new output [3].
While blockchain technology is innovative, it faces chal- Compared to DAI, GAI offers a distinct advantage thanks to
lenges such as scalability, security, privacy, and interoperabil- its outstanding ability to generate data, coupled with its innate
ity [1], [2]. The integration of traditional Discriminative Arti- creativity and flexibility. Particularly, GAI can create realistic
ficial Intelligence (DAI) with blockchain shows great promise content by using latent vectors to represent given samples and
Cong T. Nguyen is with the Institute of Fundamental and Applied Sciences, learning their distribution. This allows GAI to overcome data
Duy Tan University, Vietnam. (e-mail: [email protected]) scarcity by synthesizing new data [4].
Y. Liu, H. Du, and D. Niyato are with the School of Computer Science Thanks to these advantages, GAI has the potential to address
and Engineering, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (e-mail: yin-
[email protected], [email protected], [email protected]). many challenges currently faced by DAI in blockchain net-
Dinh Thai Hoang and Diep N. Nguyen are with the School of Electrical works, as illustrated in Fig. 1. Moreover, there are application
and Data Engineering, University of Technology Sydney, Australia (e-mail: scenarios in which GAI may be the sole viable solution.
[email protected], [email protected])
S. Mao is with the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Particularly, GAI can be beneficial for the following scenarios:
Auburn University, Auburn, USA (e-mail: [email protected]) • Data augmentation for supporting DAI: Data generated
 2

Audit Smart Contracts

Tech: LLM
GAI can be used to generate adversarial inputs to test how a smart contract
Detect Known/Unknown Attacks behaves under different conditions, thereby helping to identify unknown vulnerabilities
Tech: GAN, LLM Test
GAI can help DAI in detecting known attacks by creating synthetic network smart contracts
IR-83
traffic data to train DAI models. GAI can also detect unknown attacks by LLM
learning to create representations of normal transactions patterns. Based on Adversarial
those, abnormal patterns can be detected without needing to know the attack inputs
patterns in advance. Abnormal Transaction

Training
Transaction Detection
Module
Tracer Module
(LLM)
Blockchain
Transaction

Normal Transaction

New block

Blockchain Optimization
Tech: GDM
Transactions GAI can be used to generate solutions to optimize blockchain consensus mechanisms and
network parameters, e.g., block size and generation interval, under various network conditions
Blockchain
account
Consensus
Public/Private Add
keys noise
Smart Blockchain Initial Solution Evaluate
contracts State Solution
Feedback

Smart
Users contracts

Privacy Enhancement
Smart Contract Generation
Tech: LLM Tech: GAN, VAE
Secret Key Sharing
Tech: GAN GAI can be employed to automatically generate GAI can be employed to generate fake transactions
GAI can be leveraged to design key secret-sharing schemes to solve smart contracts based on user inputs. These smart data and fake identities. GAI can also be used to
the problem of hard recovery of lost keys, security issues due to the contracts can also be generated in different optimize privacy-preserving mechanisms.
demand for key recovering, and low communication efficiency. programming languages and for different blockchain
protocols
Sub-Images Shared
Convert
secrets
to Decode Eclipse VAE
GAN Obfuscate
image Modelling Prompts
real transactions
Framework

Key

Fig. 1: The schematic of GAI-enabled blockchain. 1) A user generates a public/private key pair to join a blockchain network.
GAI can aid in key generation and sharing processes. 2) Once joined, the user can create transactions and smart contracts. GAI
can automatically generate smart contracts. 3) Transactions and smart contracts are validated by the consensus mechanism.
GAI can audit smart contracts and detect attacks from transactions. GAI can also be leveraged to optimize blockchain network
parameters and consensus mechanisms. 4) Once validated, transactions and smart contracts are collected to create a new block
to add to the chain. GAI also can generate fake transactions to obfuscate real transactions to improve privacy.

by GAI can be used to augment DAI’s training or to • Scalability: GAI can generate data to support the simula-
simulate and evaluate blockchain networks [5]. tions and evaluations of newly designed consensus, cross-
• Smart contract generation and vulnerabilities detec- chain communication, and sharding mechanisms, thereby
tion: GAI can be used to generate adversarial inputs addressing scalability issues.
to test smart contracts, enabling it to effectively detect • Optimization: GAI can learn to generate potential solu-
unknown vulnerabilities [6]. Moreover, GAI can aid in tions for blockchain’s optimization problems, e.g., deter-
automatic smart contract generation [7]. mine block size and block time.
• Zero-day attack detection: By generating transactions
Given the above potentials, this article provides a com-
that mimic normal transactions for training, GAI can ac-
prehensive exploration of how GAI can address the current
curately detect unknown attacks via abnormal transaction
challenges in blockchain, such as scalability, security, privacy,
patterns in blockchain networks [8].
and interoperability. Particularly, we first introduce different
• Domain adaptation: GAI can be utilized in cross-
types of GAI techniques and then summarize the potential
chain and cross-platform scenarios, such as creating
applications and existing solutions for integrating GAI into
new blockchain data based on existing blockchains with
blockchain networks. Moreover, we conduct a case study
different applications/architecture or migrating existing
on blockchain design, focusing on how to leverage a GAI
networks into new protocols.
technique, namely Generative Diffusion Model (GDM), to
• Privacy enhancement: GAI can be leveraged to generate
optimize the blockchain network performance, e.g., throughput
fake transactions to obfuscate and anonymize user trans-
and latency. Simulation results show that compared to a
action history in blockchains.
baseline traditional AI approach, the proposed GDM approach
 3

can converge faster, achieve higher rewards, and significantly those challenges, such as using reinforcement learning to op-
improve the throughput and latency of the blockchain network. timize consensus mechanisms [9] and resource allocation [1].
Finally, we discuss potential future research directions of However, acquiring an adequate amount of data to ensure the
GAI applications for blockchain, including personalized GAI- effectiveness of DAI training, especially labeled data, is not
enabled blockchain, GAI-blockchain synergy, and the privacy always practical.
and security concerns of GAI applications in blockchain. 2) Security: DAI has been widely adopted to address
security issues in blockchain networks. For example, smart
II. OVERVIEW O F AI- AIDED B LOCKCHAIN T ECHNOLOGY contracts can contain bugs, errors, or malicious codes that
compromise their functionality and integrity. To address this
A. Blockchain Fundamentals issue, NLP can be employed to analyze and verify smart
Blockchain represents a novel paradigm for decentralized contract codes. Furthermore, DL can help to generate and
data management. A blockchain functions as a decentralized encrypt digital signatures, thereby improving their resilience
database, essentially a ledger, that shares records among partic- to attacks. Alternatively, DL techniques can be leveraged to
ipants within a peer-to-peer network. It relies on cryptographic detect and prevent fraud and attacks by analyzing blockchain
hash functions, digital signatures, and distributed consensus transactions and node information [10]. Nevertheless, these
mechanisms to ensure that once a record is added to the DAI techniques often struggle when labeled data is limited.
database, it cannot be changed without an agreement of other Moreover, they are not effective in detecting zero-day attacks
network participants. As a result, data stored in the blockchain and unknown vulnerabilities in smart contracts.
can be verified without the need of a central authority [1], [2]. 3) Privacy: One of the main challenges of privacy is the
Transactions are the fundamental components of a trade-off between transparency and anonymity, as revealing
blockchain network. They represent digital exchanges of assets too much or too little information can affect the trust and
or information between users, such as a transfer of network accountability of a blockchain network. To improve the privacy
tokens, e.g., coins in cryptocurrency, among different users or of blockchain networks, DAI solutions can be applied, such as
an exchange of digital assets. Multiple transactions are bundled using homomorphic encryption to perform direct computations
into a block, and the block is then added to an ever-growing on encrypted data and using federated learning to train models
sequence of blocks, i.e., a chain of blocks. The transactions on distributed data without sharing them [11].
and blocks are linked by hash pointers, such that any change 4) Interoperability: As more blockchain applications
in the transaction history can be immediately detected. To emerge, the number of blockchain networks is rapidly in-
add new blocks to the chain, blockchain users participate in creasing. However, due to the lack of common standards
a consensus mechanism to preserve the network’s security and protocols, these networks often cannot communicate with
and integrity. Particularly, users in a blockchain network may each other, which leads to serious interoperability issues. To
exhibit various issues, including being faulty, engaging in improve the interoperability of blockchain networks, DAI tech-
malicious activities, or having inaccurate information. In such niques can be potential solutions, such as using ontology-based
trustless environments, consensus mechanisms play a key role semantic web technologies to enable common understand-
in ensuring that all users agree on the state of the network. For ing and representation of data across different blockchains.
example, Proof of Work (PoW) and Proof of Stake (PoS) are Moreover, transfer learning can be leveraged to enable cross-
two common consensus mechanisms. Participants, i.e., users, platform learning and adaptation. However, DAI techniques
in a PoW-based blockchain network need to solve intensive might not work well when two blockchain networks are
computational puzzles to add new blocks to the chain. In employing different consensus mechanisms, e.g., PoS and
contrast, participants in PoS are chosen to produce new blocks PoW, or when they have different architectures, e.g., sharded
depending on the number of network tokens that they hold. and non-sharded blockchains.
These selection processes are necessary to ensure security and From the above discussion, it is evident that DAI can be
trust without the presence of central authorities [1], [2]. utilized to tackle various challenges in blockchain technology.
However, it is worth noting that DAI has certain limitations.
B. Challenges and Existing DAI Solutions These include the reliance on labeled data, a lack of capability
in detecting zero-day attacks and unknown vulnerabilities, and
Despite its potential and numerous applications, blockchain
interoperability challenges while being applied across different
technology also faces many challenges. To address the chal-
consensus mechanisms and blockchain architectures.
lenges, existing DAI solutions have been proposed.
1) Scalability: As the number of blockchain users is contin-
uously growing, blockchain networks need to handle more and III. G ENERATIVE AI FOR B LOCKCHAIN
more transactions. This leads to serious scalability issues due
to the trade-off between transaction throughput and network In this section, we explore the potential of GAI to address
security in conventional blockchain networks. Particularly, the challenges of blockchain networks. Specifically, we first
increasing block size or reducing block time (i.e., average time present the fundamentals of GAI and introduce four typical
to produce one block) can increase the transaction processing GAI models. Then, we discuss the existing GAI solutions to
speed. However, it also leads to increasing risks of forks, address various blockchain challenges, especially the ones that
attacks, or inconsistencies. DAI can be leveraged to address cannot be addressed by DAI.
 4

A. Fundamentals of Generative AI B. Generative AI for Blockchain

With outstanding advantages in creativity and flexibility, 1) Challenges that GAI can improve over DAI:
GAI has become a promising solution to address the afore- a) Detecting known attacks: GAI can be used to help
mentioned challenges in blockchain technology. GAI focuses DAI to detect anomalies in blockchain networks. For example,
on creating new content and information based on training in [5], a GAN model is used to create synthetic data from a
and user inputs. To this end, GAI, by using DL techniques and real network traffic log dataset. Then, the newly created data
neural networks, can analyze patterns and structures in existing is used to train a Transformer-based model to detect and pre-
data. It then utilizes these learned characteristics to produce vent cyberattacks. After training, the Transformer-based model
new data that closely resemble the original information. More- can analyze network traffic and detect potential cyberattacks.
over, by generating more content and learning from their own Simulation results show that the proposed approach can detect
results, GAI can progressively enhance their performance and cyberattacks with over 95% accuracy.
the quality of generated content [3]. b) Audit smart contracts: Both DAI and GAI can be
applied to audit smart contracts in different ways. DAI can be
A key distinction between GAI and DAI lies in their
trained to identify specific vulnerabilities, e.g., frontrunning,
approaches to data. Particularly, GAI aims to model the data’s
backrunning, and sandwiching [6], in smart contracts. Similar
distribution, whereas DAI focuses on modeling the relationship
to the intrusion detection cases, DAI is only effective for
between the data and its labels. For example, GAI can generate
detecting known vulnerabilities or patterns of risky behavior
an image of a cat based on its learned knowledge of a typical
in contract code. On the other hand, GAI can be used to gen-
cat’s features. In contrast, DAI can classify an image as a
erate adversarial inputs to test how a smart contract behaves
cat or not based on its characteristics. Furthermore, GAI
under different conditions. This can help to detect unknown
can utilize the learned distribution to produce new content,
vulnerabilities in smart contract code, exceeding the capability
while DAI can only use the learned relationship for making
of DAI. For example, the authors in [6] conduct experiments
predictions. As a result, GAI can learn to produce novel and
on a benchmark dataset of 10,000 existing smart contracts
diverse content that is related to but not limited by the training
and compare the performance of two LLMs, e.g., GPT4 and
data. Comparisons of the integration of DAI and GAI with
Claude, and a random baseline model. The results show that
blockchain are summarized in Table I. Next, we are going to
LLMs outperformed the random model by 20% in terms of
discuss typical GAI models [12] that have high potentials for
attack detection accuracy, demonstrating the potential of LLMs
blockchain networks.
for enhancing security analysis and improving the efficiency
1) Variational Autoencoder (VAE): A VAE comprises an
of the auditing process.
encoder network, responsible for mapping input data into 2) Unique challenges that only GAI can address:
a latent space distribution, and a decoder network, which a) Detect unknown attacks: In addtion to enhancing
generates data samples from this distribution. This unique the performance of DAI in intrusion detection, GAI has a
architecture enables VAE to learn compact and continuous data unique ability to accurately detect zero-day attacks. Particu-
representations within a lower-dimensional latent space. As a larly, although DAI is often employed for anomaly detection,
result, VAE is a highly efficient solution for generating data it only performs well if the characteristics of attacks are
based on long-term distributions, such as transaction history known and there is a clear distinction between normal and
or smart contract usage. malicious activities in the dataset. In contrast, GAI can deal
2) Generative Adversarial Network (GAN): A GAN con- with the cases where attack patterns are not well-defined or
sists of a generator neural network for creating synthetic data are evolving over time, as GAI can capture a broader range
samples and a discriminator network that learns to distinguish of anomalies. For example, a GAI-based blockchain intrusion
real and fake data. Through adversarial training of both detection system, namely BLOCKGPT, is proposed in [8].
networks, GAN excels at generating high-quality data, which BLOCKGPT can detect two real-world attacks, i.e., Beanstalk
is essential for training blockchain attack detection systems or and Revest, which caused more than $80 million loss, based
for simulation and evaluation purposes [5]. on analyzing the transaction traces. Moreover, experimental
3) Generative Diffusion Model (GDM): A GDM iteratively results show that BLOCKGPT can process, on average, 2284
adds noise to an initial data point and then denoises it, gradu- transactions per second, and it can detect twice as many new
ally converging to the desired data distribution. Thanks to their attacks as those of the baseline methods.
ability to produce realistic and diverse data samples, GDMs b) Generate smart contracts: GAI techniques, such as
can be applied to generate high-quality data for evaluation or GANs and LLMs, can be applied for smart contract generation
generate solutions to blockchain optimization problems. by learning and simulating the patterns and logic found in
4) Large Language Model (LLM): An LLM is an AI model existing smart contracts. For example, GAI can generate code
designed for natural language understanding and generation that adheres to the syntax and semantics of smart contract
tasks. These models are built on deep neural networks with programming languages such as Solidity (used in Ethereum).
millions to billions of parameters, enabling them to capture It can assist developers by automatically generating code tem-
and generate human-like text across a wide range of languages plates, suggesting contract structures, or even proposing entire
and topics. As a result, LLMs can be especially useful for un- contracts based on high-level descriptions or requirements.
derstanding and generating text-based data in the blockchain, For example, the authors in [7] investigate the potential of
such as smart contract code [6], [7]. ChatGPT for smart contract generation. The authors develop
 5

TABLE I: Comparisons of the applications of DAI and GAI in blockchain networks

Discriminative Artificial Intelligence (DAI) Generative Artificial Intelligence (GAI)
Implementation -Utilize available blockchain data such as transaction
-Generate high-quality synthetic blockchain data and contents
approach history and smart contracts to train models
-Require sufficient high-quality data
Data -Do not require a lot of data
Characteristics

-Might not work well in new blockchain networks

availability -Create data, e.g., using GAN and VAE, to support DAI training
with little historical data
Domain -Cannot adapt to different smart contract -Adapt to different smart contract languages and blockchain
adaptation languages or blockchain protocols protocols
-Create new contents, e.g., automatically create smart contracts
-Struggle to produce new content
using LLMs
Uncreativity -Cannot detect unknown blockchain attacks and smart
-Work well with unknown scenarios, e.g., detect new attacks and
contract vulnerabilities
vulnerabilities
-Use reinforcement learning for resource allocation -Use GAN, VAE, and LLM to generate transactions, traffic data,
Blockchain -Optimize consensus mechanisms and smart contracts to support simulation and optimization
network Disadvantages: Might not work well in different -Use GDM to optimize blockchain network design
optimization network conditions and blockchain protocols Advantages: Data augmentation. Can adapt to different network
due to a lack of adaptability conditions and blockchain protocols
-Mimic normal traffic and transactions patterns. Flag abnormal
-Analyze traffic and transactions to detect attacks patterns
Attack detection
Disadvantages: Can only detect known attacks Advantages: LLM can detect unknown attacks, e.g., recent
Applications

attacks on Beanstalk and Revest [8].

-Understand smart contract codes
-Analyze smart contract code to detect vulnerabilities -Use LLM to automatically generate smart contracts
Smart contract design Disadvantages: Can only detect known vulnerabilities Advantages: Can detect unknown vulnerabilities
Cannot generate smart contract Can generate smart contracts in different languages, e.g., Solidity
and DAML
-Use GAN and VAE to generate fake transactions to obfuscate
-Assist in encryption and anonymization
real transactions
Privacy Disadvantages: Rely on quality and quantity of
Advantages: Do not require a lot of data. Can generate
training data
high-quality fake data
-Generate synthetic representations of multiple blockchain networks
-Use transfer learning to enable cross-platform
-Use GAN to generate new blockchain data in different protocols
learning and adaptation
Interoperability Advantages: Can adapt to different protocols and settings
Disadvantages: Cannot adapt to significant
Can help to migrate blockchain data to different networks and
changes/differences in networks and protocols
protocols

an Eclipse Modeling Framework [7] to translate users’ input Then, the image is segmented into sub-images. These are then
parameters (e.g., smart contract participants and transactions used to train the generator network of the GAN to generate
receiver) into prompts. These prompts are then fed into Chat- shared secret subimages from noise, while the discriminator
GPT to automatically generate smart contracts in two lan- network determines whether the generated subimages are
guages, e.g., Solidity and DAML. Moreover, smart contracts consistent or similar to the original subimages. When the
can be generated for different blockchain networks employing process is finished, the shared secret subimages created by
different protocols by slightly adjusting the prompts. Addi- the generator can be decoded to construct the original image.
tionally, GAI can detect potential vulnerabilities by simulating Simulation results show that the proposed scheme can recover
contract interactions and avoiding those during the generation the original image with the highest quality, e.g., 19% higher in
process. terms of peak-signal-to-noise-ratio (PSNR), compared to other
c) Optimize blockchain network designs: GAI can be baseline methods.
applied to optimize blockchain designs by creating synthetic e) Enhance privacy: GAI offers unique advantages in
workloads and transaction patterns that mimic real-world improving blockchain privacy. Generative models like VAEs
usage scenarios. Based on those, blockchain developers and and GANs can generate synthetic data that closely mimic real
network administrators can simulate different resource allo- blockchain transactions and activities. This synthetic data can
cation strategies and optimize them for high efficiency and be used to obscure or mask sensitive information, making it
performance. Alternatively, GAI techniques such as GDM can challenging for adversaries to trace or de-anonymize users on
be leveraged to directly generate potential solutions to resource the blockchain. Moreover, GAI can support the encryption
allocation problems. In Section IV of this paper, we will of transactions or identity data, e.g., applying the scheme
present a case study to demonstrate the effectiveness of this proposed in [13] for transactions and identity data. The major
approach. use cases of GAI in blockchain are summarized in Table II.
d) Design key secret-sharing schemes: GAI can support
to design key secret-sharing schemes to solve the problem of IV. C ASE S TUDY: D IFFUSION M ODEL - BASED
hard recovery of lost keys, security issues due to the demand B LOCKCHAIN D ESIGN
for recovering the private key, and low key communication
efficiency in blockchain. As shown in [13], the secret-sharing In this case study, we leverage GDM to optimize a
process can be treated as a classification problem of images. blockchain system, showing how GAI can assist in optimizing
Particularly, a private key can be converted into an image. a blockchain’s performance.
 6

TABLE II: Summary of GAI approaches for blockchain.

Technique How it works Effectiveness
GAN generate synthetic data from real network
Detect known Detect cyberattacks with more than 95%
GAN traffic log to help training attack detection
attacks accuracy [5]
model
Smart contract Use LLM to analyze smart contract codes to Detect twice as many unknown vulnerabilities
LLM
audit detect vulnerabilities as baseline methods. [6]
Detecting unknown Learn to mimic real tracing representations of Detect twice as many new attacks as baseline
LLM
Attacks transactions. Flag abnormal transaction traces methods [8]
Smart contract Design prompts to ask LLMs to generate smart Generate smart contracts in multiple languages
LLM
generation contracts and for different protocols [7]
Blockchain Train GDM to generate solutions for Converge faster and perform better than DRL
GDM
optimization optimizing blockchain designs (as shown in Section IV)
Key secret-sharing Convert secret key to image and learn to
GAN Secret recovery with 19% higher PSNR [13]
scheme generate secret shares based on images
Generate fake transactions data and fake
Privacy
GAN, VAE identities. Help in transaction and identity Obfuscate real transactions and identities
enhancement
encryption, e.g., apply the scheme in [13]

Blockchain ledger 2 Overlay P2P network !! /!"

• Throughput =
##
• Latency = 𝑇 $ + 𝑇 %
R
bp
Block 0 s Block n
Denoising diffusion Modeling Noise
Blockchain ledger 1 … State

Blockchain ledger 3 Design

Surveillance Blockchain design Forward diffusion
Room
temperature video
Device
𝑡! 𝑡" 𝑡# 𝑡$ 𝑡%
Underlying IoT network voltage Device 3
IoT
IoTdevice
device11 IoT device 2 Device 2
𝒓𝟏 𝐺𝐻𝑧 …
𝑺𝑻

𝒓𝟐 𝐺𝐻𝑧 IoT device 3

by

𝒓𝟑 𝐺𝐻𝑧 Device 1
… …
t es

𝑻𝑰 s
Transactions
IoT device 4 Pending Confirmed
(leader) block 𝑺𝑩 bytes block n+1

Fig. 2: The model of IoT-orient blockchain system. Note that in PBFT, each node performs two operations for message
validation, namely signature validation and message endorsement. The corresponding computation complexity is denoted by CS
and CE , respectively. According to [14], each node will perform 1 and 2+4(K+f −1) times of signature validation and message
−1)]CE
endorsement, respectively, where f means the number of malicious block producers. Accordingly, T V = CS +[2+4(K+f R .
Since PBFT contains five rounds of broadcast, T B = 5 SRB . The optimization goal is to maximize α · throughput + β · latency,
with the constraint that the latency should be less than the user threshold.

A. System Model PBFT involves a leader block producer generating a pending

block at regular intervals, followed by a multi-stage voting
Our case study models a consortium blockchain for Internet process for block validation.
of Things (IoT) data transmission, with a focus on optimizing
blockchain performance in this context. We consider N IoT
devices with heterogeneous computational capabilities, form- B. Problem Formulation
ing a network where each data transmission between devices The advancement of lightweight and mining-free
generates a blockchain transaction. To ensure an immutable blockchains facilitates blockchain deployment on resource-
and traceable transaction history, we select K nodes (where constrained IoT devices. That said, the selection of block
K ≤ N ) as block producers, responsible for executing a producers is important since IoT nodes exhibit heterogeneity
consensus mechanism to form and validate blocks, thereby in terms of physical resources. Only by selecting appropriate
mitigating the risk of single-point failures [15]. This model block producers with sufficient resources and configuring
is implemented using open-source platforms like Hyperledger the suitable PBFT settings accordingly can maximize the
Fabric and Ethereum [15], covering the necessary data struc- blockchain performance in the given scenario. Therefore, this
tures and operational workflows for block producers. We then case study aims to provide a GAI-empowered approach for
adopt Practical Byzantine Fault Tolerance (PBFT) [15], a customized blockchain design. To enhance the performance
widely used consensus mechanism in consortium blockchains. of the considered blockchain, we focus on allocating key
 7

resources, namely computational power, storage capacity, 104

and bandwidth. Accordingly, we formulate an optimization 6
problem to fine-tune block producer selection, block size, and
block time, as illustrated in Fig. 2.
Particularly, we first identify two Key Performance Indi- 4
cators (KPIs) for blockchain performance: throughput and

Reward
confirmation latency. Throughput represents the rate at which 2
transactions are recorded on the blockchain, and confirmation
latency refers to the time taken for a transaction to be fully
confirmed by all block producers. As depicted in Fig. 2, these 0
PPO
KPIs are integrated using a linear function with adjustable Diffusion (Ours)
weights, allowing us to assess the combined effect of through-
put and latency on overall performance. -2
0 1000 2000 3000 4000 5000 6000
As shown in Fig. 2, throughput is affected by the block size Training Epoch
S B , the block time T I , and the average size of one transaction
S T . Confirmation latency comprises the block time T I and Fig. 3: The training curves of GDM and PPO.
block confirmation time T C . Moreover, the duration of T C
depends on the validation latency TV and broadcast time TB , 600
3809.37 3400.57 3999.75 3570.78

both of which depend on the selection of block producers. As

5.17 4.85 5.37
a result, to optimize the KPIs, we need to find the optimal 500
4.65

Latency Throughput Latency Throughput

selection of block producers, as well as the optimal values for

Performance
Ours PPO Ours PPO

S B and T I . Additionally, the primary constraint is controlling 400

87
confirmation latency under a predetermined limit, as excessive 37 4.
6. 31
29
300
delays can lead users to perceive transaction processing as
unsuccessful. 200 67 6.
22
2. 17
16

C. Proposed GDM Approach 100

Performance (ours)
To address the above optimization problem and design high- Performance (PPO)
0
performance blockchains, we present a GDM-based solution. State 1 State 2
• Conditions for guiding the denoising process: The Network State

condition space describes the blockchain network

Fig. 4: The performance of blockchains designed by diffusion
and is defined as [{r1 , . . . , rN }, R, ST , CS , CE ], where
and PPO. Note that the two subfigures show the throughput
{r1 , . . . , rN } represent the computation resources of N
and latency, whose units are transactions per second and
IoT devices; R means the network bandwidth; ST rep-
second, respectively. The states 1 and 2 are [12, 30, 15, 34,
resents the average size of one transaction; CS and
15, 8, 5500000, 210, 0.025, 0.01] and [10, 28, 17, 32, 13, 10,
CE means the computation complexity for verifying one
5000000, 200, 0.02, 0.015], respectively.
signature and generating one endorsement, respectively.
• Generated solution: The generated solution takes the
form [{s1 , . . . , sN }, SB , TI ]. Particularly, {s1 , . . . , sN } D. Simulation Results
indicate the scores of N IoT devices, respectively, and
the K candidates with the highest scores are selected as We conduct simulations to evaluate and compare the effec-
the block producers. SB and TI represent the block size tiveness of the proposed GDM approach with a conventional
and block time, respectively1 . Deep Reinforcement Learning (DRL) algorithm, particularly
• Reward for training: The reward takes the value of
the Proximal Policy Optimization (PPO). Specifically, we
blockchain performance if the latency constraint is satis- consider a system with six IoT devices. According to PBFT
fied. Otherwise, the reward is set to -500 for punishment. theory [15], 3f + 1 participants are required for defending f
attackers. For simplicity, we assume one attacker exists in the
Specifically, the GDM is trained on blockchain network data,
system. Accordingly, four block producers are required. As il-
learning to correlate specific conditions with generated solu-
lustrated in Fig. 3, GDM exhibits a notably faster convergence
tions that maximize rewards. This involves iterative simula-
rate than PPO. Specifically, our proposed approach converges
tions where the GDM, given a condition, generates a potential
approximately 1.5 times faster than PPO (around 4,000 epoch
solution and evaluates the outcome based on the defined
vs 6,000 epoch of the PPO). This accelerated convergence
reward. Through this process, the denoising process is trained
underscores the GDM’s effectiveness in rapidly adapting to the
to generate the solution that can maximize the reward [4],
complex demands of blockchain networks, which is particu-
identifying the most effective combination of block producers,
larly beneficial for applications requiring quick adjustments
block sizes, and block time that yields the highest performance
and low block times. Furthermore, our approach yields an
under varying network conditions.
approximately 8% higher reward than PPO, demonstrating its
1 The units of these factors are shown in Fig. 2. superior optimization capability.
 8

Apart from the observed faster convergence and higher VI. C ONCLUSION
reward, GDM also outperforms PPO in terms of design- In this paper, we have explored GAI’s potential to address
ing blockchains according to the specific condition state. various challenges of blockchain technology. Particularly, we
As depicted in Fig. 4, GDM can increase the throughput have introduced fundamental concepts of blockchain technol-
by over 400 TPS. Meanwhile, the confirmation latency is ogy and GAI techniques. Moreover, we have outlined and
slightly decreased. This performance edge can be attributed discussed the existing and potential applications of GAI in
to the model’s refined capability to balance block size, block blockchain. Following this, we have demonstrated via a case
time, block producer selection, and resource allocation, thus study how the GDM technique can be leveraged to optimize
optimizing network resource utilization. blockchain consensus mechanisms and network parameters.
Experiment results have shown that the GDM technique can
V. F UTURE D IRECTIONS converge faster, achieve higher rewards, and significantly im-
A. Personalized Generative AI-enabled Blockchain prove the throughput and latency of the blockchain network
Personalized generative AI in the context of blockchain is compared to the traditional DAI approach. Finally, we have
a promising research direction that focuses on tailoring data discussed potential research directions in the applications of
generation to individual preferences. This approach can offer GAI for blockchain technology.
more effective and personalized solutions for individual users.
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