International Workshop on Blockchain and Web3.0 (BWEB3 2025)

The emergence of blockchain technology has catalyzed a paradigm shift in how digital systems are designed, governed, and experienced. As we move toward the era of Web3.0—a decentralized, user-centric evolution of the internet—blockchain stands as a foundational pillar, enabling trustless interactions, programmable value exchange, and new forms of digital ownership. This workshop aims to bring together researchers, practitioners, and industry leaders to explore the latest advancements, challenges, and opportunities at the intersection of blockchain and the rapidly evolving Web3.0 landscape.

Web3.0 envisions an internet where users regain sovereignty over their data, identities, and digital assets, powered by decentralized protocols and interoperable networks. Blockchain technologies, with their inherent transparency, immutability, and programmability, are central to realizing this vision. From decentralized finance (DeFi) and non-fungible tokens (NFTs) to decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs) and decentralized identity (DID) systems, the convergence of blockchain and Web3.0 is unlocking unprecedented possibilities for innovation across industries.

This workshop seeks to address critical questions: How can blockchain protocols be scaled and optimized to support the demands of Web3.0 applications? What are the emerging patterns for decentralized governance, data privacy, and interoperability in Web3.0 ecosystems? How can smart contracts, tokenization, and decentralized storage reshape digital economies and social networks? What are the ethical, regulatory, and sustainability considerations as blockchain and Web3.0 technologies mature?

Time & Venue

• Time: 14:00 - 16:00, August 11, 2025
• Venue: TU107, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong, China

Organization Chairs

• Prof. Bin Xiao, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University
• Prof. Zhe Peng, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University

Keynote Speakers

Time & Venue

14:00 - 14:30, 11 August 2025
Room TU107, PolyU

Abstract

In the rapidly evolving landscape of Web 3.0, anonymous communication is essential for enabling privacy-preserving interactions and fostering decentralized trust. This talk begins by examining its critical role in Web 3.0 applications, illustrated through the motivating example of the "stealth payment" framework, which underscores the growing demand for secure, private, and decentralized communication services. We then survey promising approaches to realizing these services, including our recent exploratory work on an MPC-based shuffler scheme (detailed in our NDSS 2025 paper). Positioned within the context of prior art, we discuss how this scheme addresses key security and performance requirements—such as non-interactiveness, horizontal scalability, and support for accountable tracing—in practical application settings. We conclude by emphasizing the MPC-based shuffler as a versatile primitive, with potential applications extending far beyond Web 3.0 ecosystems.

Biography

Prof. Cong Wang is a Chair Professor and Head of the Department of Computer Science at the College of Computing, City University of Hong Kong. His research encompasses data security and privacy, AI systems and security, and blockchain with decentralized applications. He is an IEEE Fellow, an HK RGC Research Fellow, and a Founding Member of the Young Academy of Sciences of Hong Kong. He has served as the Editor-in-Chief for the IEEE Transactions on Dependable and Secure Computing (late 2022 - Jan 2025), a premier security journal under the IEEE Computer Society.

Time & Venue

14:30 - 15:00, 11 August 2025
Room TU107, PolyU

Abstract

Blockchain technologies offer powerful tools for building robust, tamper-resistant, and decentralized data infrastructures. As data security faces mounting challenges in complex, heterogeneous, and distributed network environments, blockchain is emerging as a promising foundation for ensuring confidentiality, integrity, and availability. In this talk, we present a set of solutions that leverage blockchain to address modern data security challenges. First, we design wireless consensus protocols that remain robust under adversarial signal interference, enabling secure agreement in complex communication environments. Second, we develop decentralized storage systems that are scalable, succinct, and Byzantine-resilient, ensuring secure and efficient data sharing across untrusted nodes. Third, we introduce cross-chain interoperability frameworks that enable atomic, fair, and privacy-preserving data exchanges across heterogeneous blockchain ecosystems. These efforts demonstrate how blockchain technologies can be systematically applied to enhance data security across a range of environments and applications.

Biography

Prof. Xiuzhen Cheng is a Professor of Computer Science at Shandong University. Before August 2020, she was a tenured faculty member at The George Washington University, USA. Her research focuses on the broad area of blockchain computing, responsible AI, security and privacy, and edge intelligence. Dr. Cheng is the founder and steering committee chair of the International Conference on Wireless Artificial Intelligent Computing Systems and Applications (WASA, launched in 2006), and the founding EiC of the High-Confidence Computing Journal (launched in 2021). She served/is serving on the editorial boards of several technical journals and the technical program committees of many professional conferences/workshops. She also chaired several international conferences. Dr. Cheng is a Fellow of IEEE, a Fellow of CSEE (Chinese Society for Electrical Engineering), and a Fellow of AAIA (Asia-Pacific Artificial Intelligence Association). Her current H-Index is 72, and the total number of Google Citations is 23K+.

Time & Venue

15:00 - 15:30, 11 August 2025
Room TU107, PolyU

Abstract

Performance is one of the key bottlenecks hindering the large-scale adoption of blockchain systems. Parallelization has served as a critical technical approach to effectively enhance blockchain performance. However, the inherent characteristics of blockchain systems pose significant challenges to facilitate parallelization. This presentation will explore several parallelization technologies to improve blockchain performance, drawing from collaborative experiences with major blockchain platforms, and provide insights into the future development of parallelization technologies.

Biography

Prof.Yi Sun is a professor in the Institute of Computing Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, a member of the CCF Blockchain Technical Committee, a member of the Expert Group for Key R&D Programs under the Ministry of Science and Technology of China. His research focuses on Blockchain, Trusted Data Circulation, and Distributed Applications. He has published over 100 academic papers, held 70+ authorized patents, and participated in the formulation of more than 10 international/national standards. He received two province or ministry level First Prizes of Science and Technology Progress Award.

Time & Venue

15:30 - 16:00, 11 August 2025
Room TU107, PolyU

Abstract

Recent advancements in Web3 are fundamentally changing the landscape of digital assets. This calls for a critical reexamination and reconstruction of how assets are integrated and how decentralized trading operates. This keynote will explore the important connections between established digital currencies, real-world asset tokenization, and the intersections of emerging technologies. It will also address challenges and research directions that traditional blockchain-based trading methods cannot adequately handle. The presentation aims to inspire innovative research into a restructured Web3 asset ecosystem, highlighting unexplored opportunities for better integration, decentralization, and advanced trading solutions.

Biography

Prof.Qiang QU is a full professor at Shenzhen Institutes of Advanced Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences. He is currently the director of Guangdong Provincial Blockchain and Distributed IOT Security Engineering Research Center, and the deputy director of Shenzhen Key Laboratory on High-performance Data Mining. He is a senior member of the China Computer Federation. Qiang received his PhD from Aarhus University supervised by Obel Professor Christian S. Jensen in 2014. He has working experiences from Innopolis University, Carnegie Mellon University, ETH Zurich and Singapore Management University. His research endeavors focus on blockchain/Web3 technologies, databases, data mining, and advanced data intelligence systems. He joined Chinese Academy of Sciences at the end of 2016, and he was promoted to a full professor in 2020. He has been a principal investigator (PI) for a number of projects, and he is now the chief scientist for a project supported by National key research and development program of China.

Publication

High-quality accepted papers will be recommended to the journal of Blockchain: Research and Applications (ESCI IF: 6.9).