Embedded Blockchain Infrastructure Management (eBIM): A RISC-V-Empowered Hardware--Software Co-Design Framework Towards Trustworthy Blockchain

2026-07-08

AI Summary

This work addresses the limitations of traditional Blockchain-as-a-Service (BaaS) platforms, which rely on third-party infrastructure and consequently suffer from trust deficits, constrained flexibility, and loss of data sovereignty. To overcome these challenges, the paper proposes an embedded Blockchain Infrastructure Management (eBIM) framework that pioneers the deep integration of RISC-V architecture with blockchain technology, drawing inspiration from the eSIM paradigm to enable hardware-software co-design. The eBIM framework incorporates cryptographic acceleration, Trusted Execution Environments (TEEs), zero-knowledge virtual machines, and a smart contract engine to establish a trustworthy, verifiable, and scalable infrastructure paradigm. By providing researchers with a foundational reference model, this study elucidates the framework’s operational principles, capability boundaries, and future research directions, thereby advancing the development of decentralized, trusted infrastructure.

Abstract

Blockchain systems are undergoing a fundamental transition from decentralized ledgers for digital assets to general-purpose trust infrastructures for verifiable computation, decentralized physical resources, and automated infrastructure management. Meanwhile, the limitations of the Blockchain as a Service (BaaS) model stem from a common structural problem: outsourcing control of infrastructure to third-party service providers inevitably involves a systemic surrender of trust, flexibility, and data sovereignty. RISC-V, with its open, modular, and extensible design, provides a general-purpose computing foundation for public blockchains that is open, low-level, compileable, verifiable, and scalable. Inspired by the development and characteristics of eSIM, the embedded Blockchain infrastructure management (eBIM) is defined as a software-hardware collaborative paradigm for blockchain infrastructure management with RISC-V. This study aims to provide a comprehensive survey on eBIM supporting research and technologies, to answer the following research questions (RQs): RQ1 What is eBIM? RQ2 How does eBIM work? RQ3 What can eBIM do? By introducing the concept of eBIM, this paper establishes a foundational reference for researchers, hardware architects, and protocol designers in this rapidly evolving landscape, including cryptographic acceleration, trusted execution environments, zero-knowledge virtual machines, and smart contract execution engines. The prospects of the proposed e-BIM and its future research directions are indicated in this paper.

Problem

• Blockchain as a Service (BaaS)
• trust
• data sovereignty
• infrastructure management
• decentralization

Innovation

• eBIM
• RISC-V
• hardware-software co-design
• trustworthy blockchain
• embedded infrastructure