On September 26, 2024, Blockchain@X Research Center, part of CREST, hosted the second in-person FairOnChain consortium meeting at the Alan Turing Building at INRIA on the École polytechnique campus.
The meeting brought together the principal investigators (PIs) and researchers involved in the FairOnChain project, an initiative focused on developing a fair and modular blockchain data infrastructure for open science and society. Participants included:
- Prof. Julien Prat, CREST, École polytechnique
- Prof. Marco Mattavelli, École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne
- Prof. Arnaud Gaudinat, Haute École de Gestion de Genève
- Prof. William Knottenbelt, Imperial College London
- Christophe Lebrun, Haute École de Gestion de Genève
- Madalina Sas, Imperial College London
- Natkamon Tovanich, CREST, École polytechnique
During the meeting, the team updated the progress of ongoing work and detailed the planning for the next phase of the project. This included developments of a unified blockchain data structure and publicly accessible blockchain datasets aimed at enhancing data access, transparency, and reproducibility in blockchain research.
The team also discussed the technical work required to achieve the project goals and plans for the internal report submission to CHIST-ERA. Furthermore, they explored the possibility of upcoming publications resulting from the research within the consortium.
The meeting strengthened collaboration within this international team. Future meetings are planned for Lausanne, Switzerland, around January 2025, followed by a gathering in London, United Kingdom, in June 2025.
About FairOnChain Project
The FairOnChain Project is a pioneering European research collaboration funded by the CHIST-ERA call for Open and Reusable Research Data and Software (ORD). Running from 2023 to 2025, this two-year initiative aims to overcome the technical barriers to accessing and analyzing blockchain data, promoting enhanced transparency and reproducibility in blockchain research.
As part of this project, the FairOnChain team will contribute to the scientific community with:
- Publicly Accessible and Expandable Datasets: These will include structured, daily updated blockchain transaction data. Researchers can access raw blockchain transactions alongside enriched, community-maintained datasets in a uniform, open format, ensuring greater availability and reuse of this complex data.
- Open-Source Software Framework and Standardized APIs: This project aims to deliver a unified framework for researchers to query, annotate, and reference blockchain data effectively. Additionally, it will support the development of well-described, reusable workflows and pipelines to facilitate the exchange and replication of scientific results in line with the FAIR principles (fundability, accessibility, interoperability, and reusability) of open science.
By developing modular and scalable data infrastructure, FairOnChain aims to facilitate easier, open access to blockchain datasets, enabling researchers and society to benefit from trustworthy and reusable data for scientific discovery.
The consortium behind FairOnChain includes leading research institutions from France (École polytechnique, Institut Polytechnique de Paris), Switzerland (Haute École de Gestion de Genève, HES-SO and École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne) and the United Kingdom (Imperial College London).
Each institution has received grants from its respective national research agencies to support this collaborative research project.