SCOPE
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The 8th International Congress on Blockchain and Applications (BLOCKCHAIN'26) will be held in University of Naples Federico II, Italy from 21st-23rd October, 2026. This annual congress will bring together researchers and practitioners of blockchain and other distributed ledger technologies (DLT), who will share ideas, projects, lectures, and advances associated with those technologies and their application domains. This meeting will be co-located with the PAAMS'26 conference.

Among the scientific community, the advance in next-generation blockchain and distributed ledger technologies is seen as a promising combination that will transform the production and manufacturing industry, media, finance, insurance, e-government, agriculture, energy, or even medicine. Besides, the combination of DLT with other cutting-edge disruptive technologies (AI, metaverse, quantum computing...) will open up a multitude of amazing opportunities that entail an interesting challenge of research at the same time.

The BLOCKCHAIN'26 congress is devoted to: promoting the investigation of next-generation blockchain and DLT technologies; exploring the latest ideas, innovations, guidelines, theories, models, technologies, applications and tools of blockchain/DLT combined with other cutting-edge technologies; and identifying critical issues and challenges that researchers and practitioners must deal with in future research. We want to offer researchers and practitioners the opportunity to work on promising lines of research and to publish their developments in this area.


info@blockchain-congress.net





TOPICS
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The topics of interest include, but are not limited to:

Technologies and techniques

- Key and innovative theories, methodologies, schemes and technologies of blockchain and AI
- Architectures and platforms for blockchain and AI
- Blockchain and AI for Big Data
- Blockchain and AI for Multi-Agent systems
- Blockchain and AI for the Internet of Things
- Blockchain and AI in 5G
- Sensors and devices for blockchain
- Distributed consensus mechanisms (PoW, PoS, PoE…)
- Encryption algorithms
- Fault tolerance mechanisms
- Other distributed ledger technologies
- Cloud, fog, and edge computing approaches for blockchain
- Blockchain standardization issues
- Platforms for smart contracts
- Side-chain and cross-chain systems
- Anonymity and privacy in blockchain
- Malicious transactions detection
- 4th and 5th generation blockchain
- 4th and 5th generation blockchain


Applications

- Blockchain and AI enabled new business models and applications
- Blockchain and AI for e-commerce
- Blockchain and AI for logistics and transportation
- Blockchain and AI for supply chain management
- Blockchain and AI for product life cycle
- Blockchain and AI for knowledge and innovation management
- Blockchain and AI for agriculture
- Blockchain and AI in eHealth
- Applications of cryptocurrencies
- Blockchain as a Tamper-Proof Technology
- Application of smart contracts
- Blockchain Governance and Human Rights
- Applications of blockchain and AI in other domains.
- Use-cases of blockchain and AI in Industry 4.0, banking, etc.
- Blockchain and AI for fintech
- Blockchain and AI for insurtech





SPECIAL ISSUES
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Authors of selected papers from PAAMS will be invited to submitan extended and improved version to special issue in different journals.


- Special issue ADCAIJ - Advances in Distributed Computing and Artificial Intelligence Journal JCR (2023): 1.7, (Q3)


To be updated




COMMITTEES
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General Chair

Rafael Pastor Vargas, UNED (Spain)



TPC Chair

Javier Prieto, University of Salamanca (Spain)



Workshops Chair

Albano Carrera, University of Salamanca (Spain)



Advisory board

Abdelhakim Hafid, Université de Montréal (Canada)

Paulo Vieira, Guarda Polytechnic Institute (Portugal)

Óscar Lage, Tecnalia (Spain)

Ashok Kumar Das, IIIT Hyderabad (India)

António Pinto, Instituto Politécnico do Porto (Portugal)

Paulo Leitao, Technical Institute of Bragança (Portugal)

Francisco Luis Benitez Martínez, Fidesol (Spain)

Pedro Nevado, University of Salamanca (Spain)



Organizing committee Chair

Salvatore Villani, University of Naples Federico II (Italy)





CALL FOR WORKSHOP PROPOSALS
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Following the successful initiative from previous years, the BLOCKCHAIN intends to host a number of workshops on different related areas also in the next edition of the conference. Therefore, BLOCKCHAIN Committee invites workshop proposals.

The aim of the workshops is to provide participants with the opportunity to present and discuss novel research ideas on emerging topics in the scope of the conference.

Our offer will guarantee the following:

- Local support for installing and managing the reviewing site of the submissions.
- 12 pages per paper, published at LNNS series of Springer, if acceptance rateunder 60%.
- Synchronization with BLOCKCHAIN agenda and coordinated deadlines for workshops.
- Duration: X slots of 2 h each for up to 6 papers each, with maximum of 8 slots.
- Standard equipment and local support all along the workshop.
- Attractive registration, 3 lunches, 2 dinners.
- Possibility of workshop invited speaker but no direct support from BLOCKCHAIN.
- Suggestion to install a round table at the end of the workshop for making summary.

Please note that workshop organizers will be responsible for creating and advertising the Call for Papers, managing the review process and collecting the camera ready papers. A dedicated Easychair installation will be provided by BLOCKCHAIN conference organizers (under a centralized management).

For each accepted workshop, one of its organizers will be invited to co-edit the proceedings of the conference.

We hope this offer will catch your attention. Should you be interested in submitting such a proposal, please contact us (info@blockchain-congress.net) with a proposal before 13th February, 2026. Please note that workshop proposals will be evaluated on a continuous basis and acceptance / rejection decisions will be sent to the workshop organizers within one week from submission. Early submissions are highly encouraged, so that workshop organizers have sufficient time to attract papers.

The proposals should be no longer than 4 pages and include the following information:

- Workshop title
- Workshop organizers’ short bio (including prior experience in organizing workshops) and contact information
- Workshop description and topics
- Relevance of the workshop to the conference
- Information about previous editions of the workshop (if applicable)
- Program Committee members (tentative)
- Estimated number of submitted papers
- Draft CFP

Please submit your workshop proposal by email to (info@blockchain-congress.net) (Subject: BLOCKCHAIN Workshop Proposal). Please feel free to contact us if you have any questions.




DOCTORAL CONSORTIUM
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The aim of the Doctoral Consortium is to provide a framework as part of which students can present their ongoing research work and meet other students and researchers and obtain feedback on lines of research for the future.

The Doctoral Consortium is intended for students who have a specific research proposal and some preliminary results, but who are still far from completing their dissertation.

All proposals submitted to the Doctoral Consortium will undergo a thorough reviewing process with the aim of providing detailed and constructive feedback. The accepted submissions will be presented at the Doctoral Consortium and published in the conference proceedings.




PUBLICATION
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Accepted papers will be included in BLOCKCHAIN Proceedings, published by Springer.

At least one of the authors will be required to register and attend the symposium to present the paper in order to include the paper in the conference proceedings. All the accepted papers will be published by Lecture Notes in Networks and Systems series of Springer Verlag.


** Indexing: The books of this series are submitted to DBLP, INSPEC, Norwegian Register for Scientific Journals and Series, SCImago, SCOPUS, WTI Frankfurt eG, zbMATH, Google Scholar, Springerlink. **






IMPORTANT DATES
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Deadline: 17th April, 2026

Workshop deadline: 17th April, 2026

Doctoral Consortium deadline: 24th April, 2026

Notification of acceptance: 19th June, 2026

Camera-Ready papers: 15th July, 2026

Conference Celebration: 21st-23rd October, 2026




ORGANIZING COMMITTEE
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University of Naples Federico II (Italy)





SCIENTIFIC ORGANIZERS
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UNED (Spain)

University of Salamanca (Spain)

Université de Montréal (Canada)

Guarda Polytechnic Institute (Portugal)

Tecnalia (Spain)

IIIT Hyderabad (India)

Instituto Politécnico do Porto (Portugal)

Technical Institute of Bragança (Portugal)

Fidesol (Spain)