IJACSA Special Issue on Intelligent Consensus Protocol Selections for Blockchain Applications

Abstract

Blockchain has emerged as a transformative technology underpinning decentralized systems in diverse application domains such as financial services, healthcare, mobile networks, supply chains, and cyber-physical infrastructures. Central to blockchain operation is the consensus protocol, which determines how distributed participants reach agreement on a shared ledger. While traditional mechanisms like Proof of Work (PoW) and Proof of Stake (PoS) have gained prominence, their limitations in scalability, energy efficiency, and security have driven the development of numerous alternatives such as Practical Byzantine Fault Tolerance (PBFT), Delegated PoS (DPoS), Proof of Authority (PoA), and hybrid models.

The dynamic nature of real-world environments—especially in security-sensitive and mobility-aware contexts such as vehicular networks, Internet of Things (IoT), and smart cities—necessitates intelligent and adaptive consensus protocol selection. Recent works have attempted to address this complexity. Shahid et al. (2023) present a comprehensive taxonomy of consensus mechanisms tailored to IoT constraints, while Zhang and Lin (2022) analyze performance trade-offs in permissioned blockchain networks. Xu et al. (2023) propose reinforcement learning-based consensus adaptation, and Ferreira et al. (2023) introduce trust-aware protocols for mobile systems. Moreover, Nguyen et al. (2023) develop a fuzzy logic-based selector for consensus strategies in resource-constrained blockchain networks. Dinh et al. (2020) benchmark modern blockchain systems and demonstrate the impact of consensus variation on throughput and latency. Lee et al. (2022) explore deep learning-driven decisions for protocol selection in heterogeneous systems. Gervais et al. (2022) call for security-centric evaluation frameworks amid rising attacks on classical consensus models.

Despite these advances, there remains a lack of unified frameworks for context-aware, datadriven, and autonomously adaptive selection of blockchain consensus protocols. Bridging this gap involves integrating intelligent algorithms—such as multi-agent systems, machine learning, and game-theoretic decision models—into blockchain architecture. The ability to select or switch protocols dynamically based on contextual parameters (e.g., node mobility, trust level, latency, energy availability, or adversarial behavior) is becoming increasingly essential. This special issue aims to foster a frontier research dialogue at the intersection of intelligent systems, blockchain engineering, cyber security, and mobility technologies.

Objectives

Designing adaptive frameworks for intelligent consensus protocol selection in heterogeneous blockchain environments.
Modeling the relationship between mobility, trust, and consensus performance in realtime systems.
Proposing machine learning-based and reinforcement learning approaches for dynamic consensus adaptation.
Developing lightweight and context-aware consensus selection strategies for IoT, UAVs, and vehicular networks.
Investigating hybrid consensus models capable of protocol switching under variable conditions.
Benchmarking intelligent selection approaches against static strategies in terms of scalability, throughput, and energy consumption.
Studying adversarial models and their mitigation through intelligent protocol adaptation.
Integrating trust management systems with consensus decision-making for enhanced security.
Simulating real-world use cases with high-mobility and security-sensitive applications.
Exploring the role of explainability and transparency in automated consensus selection algorithms.
Analyzing interoperability challenges in multi-chain environments using intelligent protocol selection.
Validating theoretical models with hardware-in-the-loop testbeds or distributed prototypes.

Submission Guidelines:

Authors must follow the journal guidelines available at http://thesai.org/Publications/Guidelines.

Research articles, review articles as well as communications are invited.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are refereed through a double blind peer-review process.

There is a fixed publication fee of GBP 500 for all accepted manuscripts. Only registered manuscripts will be part of the published special issue.

Authors may submit their manuscripts as per the following schedule:

Submission Deadline: 05 October 2025
Review Notification: 20 December 2025
Registration Deadline: 15 January 2026
Camera Ready Submission: 19 February 2026
Final publication: 30 May 2026

Manuscripts should be submitted via email to Prof. Ali Ahmadian via email to ahmadian.hosseini@unirc.it. Subject line should be: "Special Issue on Intelligent Consensus Protocol Selections for Blockchain Applications".

Guest Editors

Dr. Ali Ahmadian is a Senior Research Scientist at the Mediterranea University of Reggio Calabria, Italy, an Adjunct Professor at the Istanbul Okan University, Turkey and an Associate Fellow Researcher at the Institute of IR 4.0, The National University of Malaysia. As an active researcher, he is dedicated to research in applied mathematics. He received his Ph.D. in early of 2014 as the best postgraduate student from Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM). After his Ph.D. He took a postdoctoral fellowship at same university as part of the numerical analysis research group and at the same time joint to the University of Malaya as an Associate Researcher. He was promoted as a Fellow Researcher on December 2017 in UPM. In 2019 he joined the National University of Malaysia as a senior lecturer where he currently works in the Institute of IR 4.0. In general, his primary mathematical focus is the development of computational methods and models for problems arising in computer science, biology, physics, and engineering under fuzzy and fractional calculus (FC); in this context, he has worked on projects related to nano-communication networks, drug delivery systems, machine learning algorithms, and carbon nanotubes dynamics, nanofluids, viscosity, computational intelligence and etc.

Professor Massimiliano Ferrara received the master’s degree (cum laude) in economics from the University of Messina, the master’s degree (cum laude) from the University of Naples Fed- erico II, the master’s degree (cum laude) from the Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa, and the Ph.D. degree (cum laude) from the University of Messina. He has been a Research Affiliate with the ICRIOS–Invernizzi Center for Research on Innovation, Organization, Strategy and Entrepreneurship, University Bocconi of Milan, since 2013, the President of Scientific Committee of the MEDAlics Research Center, and the Scientific Director of the DECISIONS Lab. He was a General Counsel of the FondazioneBanco di Napoli, the Vice Rector with the University for foreigners “Dante Alighieri’’ of Reggio Calabria, and the Head of Region Calabria Department for Cultura, Research and Education. He was a Visiting Professor with Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA, Western Michigan University, USA, Morgan State University, Baltimora, MD, USA, the Northeastern University di Boston, USA, and recently with the Center for Dynamics of Dresden University of Technology, Germany. He is currently a Full Professor of mathematical economics, statistics, business analytics & decision theory, applied economics with the Mediterranea University of Reggio Calabria, Italy.

Dr. Karan Singh (SMIEEE) is working with the School of Computer & Systems Sciences, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. He works as a proctor and many committee members at Gautam Buddha University. He is member of Admission and placement committee at school level. His primary research interests are in computer network, computer network security, Multicast communication and Software Define Network. He supervised five Ph.D. and thirty-five M.Tech. students. He is reviewer of IEEE & Elsevier conferences and reviewer of International Journals & IEEE Transactions. He is an Editorial Board Member of Journal of Communications and Network (CN), USA. He published eighty plus research papers in journal SCI/SCIE/Scopus and good conference. He organized of various workshop, Session, Conference and training. Dr. Singh worked as General Chair of international conference (Qshine) in year 2013 at Gautam Buddha University. He will organize an International Conference “NetCrypt 2020” at JNU, New Delhi.

Dr. Ashok Kumar Yadav, B.Tech. (AKTU Lucknow, India), M.Tech. & Ph.D. (JNU New Delhi, India), has over eight years of teaching and research experience. He is currently serving as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Information Technology at Rajkiya Engineering College, Azamgarh, India. He previously served at the University of Delhi as an assistant professor (on ad-hoc). His research focuses on MADM, blockchain technology, machine learning, and mobility management in mobile communication. He has published extensively in renowned journals, including Elsevier, Springer, World Scientific, and Taylor & Francis, and has presented at prestigious international conferences. He authored Blockchain Technology and Its Applications and co-authored Mastering Disruptive Technologies: Applications of Cloud Computing, IoT, Blockchain, Artificial Intelligence, and Machine Learning Techniques. His contributions include six SCI-indexed papers, three Scopus publications, and eight patents. Additionally, he has edited two books with IGI Global. Actively involved in academia, he serves as a reviewer for international journals and participates in program committees for various conferences. He received the Best Paper Award at the IEEE World Conference on Applied Intelligence and Computing (June 17–19, 2022) and the International Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Smart Communication (AISC) (January 27–29, 2023).