{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,4,10]],"date-time":"2026-04-10T13:44:31Z","timestamp":1775828671374,"version":"3.50.1"},"reference-count":38,"publisher":"Springer Science and Business Media LLC","issue":"3","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2021,9,3]],"date-time":"2021-09-03T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1630627200000},"content-version":"tdm","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0"},{"start":{"date-parts":[[2021,9,3]],"date-time":"2021-09-03T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1630627200000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0"}],"funder":[{"name":"TU Wien"}],"content-domain":{"domain":["link.springer.com"],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["Int J Data Sci Anal"],"published-print":{"date-parts":[[2023,9]]},"abstract":"<jats:title>Abstract<\/jats:title><jats:p>Next to cryptocurrencies, tokens are a widespread application area of blockchains. Tokens are digital assets implemented as small programs on a blockchain. Being programmable makes them versatile and an innovative means for various purposes. Tokens can be used as investment, as a local currency in a decentralized application, or as a tool for building an ecosystem or a community. A high-level categorization of tokens differentiates between payment, security, and utility tokens. In most jurisdictions, security tokens are regulated, and hence, the distinction is of relevance. In this work, we discuss the identification of tokens on Ethereum, the most widely used token platform. The programs on Ethereum are called smart contracts, which\u2014for the sake of interoperability\u2014may provide standardized interfaces. In our approach, we evaluate the publicly available transaction data by first reconstructing interfaces in the low-level code of the smart contracts. Then, we not only check the compliance of a smart contract with an established interface standard for tokens, but also aim at identifying tokens that are not fully compliant. Thus, we discuss various heuristics for token identification in combination with possible definitions of a token. More specifically, we propose indicators for tokens and evaluate them on a large set of token and non-token contracts. Finally, we present first steps toward an automated classification of tokens regarding their purpose.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.1007\/s41060-021-00281-1","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2021,9,4]],"date-time":"2021-09-04T00:40:20Z","timestamp":1630716020000},"page":"333-352","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1007\/springer_crossmark_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":23,"title":["Identification of token contracts on Ethereum: standard compliance and beyond"],"prefix":"10.1007","volume":"16","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-4217-4530","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Monika","family":"Di Angelo","sequence":"first","affiliation":[]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-8950-1551","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Gernot","family":"Salzer","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[]}],"member":"297","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2021,9,3]]},"reference":[{"key":"281_CR1","unstructured":"Contract ABI Specification. https:\/\/solidity.readthedocs.io\/en\/latest\/abi-spec.html (2019). 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The authors declare that they have no extra funding but their employment at the university.","order":2,"name":"Ethics","group":{"name":"EthicsHeading","label":"Funding"}},{"value":"The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest. In particular, they are neither invested in Ethereum nor have ties to companies of its ecosystem.","order":3,"name":"Ethics","group":{"name":"EthicsHeading","label":"Conflict of interest"}},{"value":"We use publicly available transaction data from the main chain of Ethereum (see Sect.\u00a0). Information on groups of smart contracts that we analyzed can be found on our website .","order":4,"name":"Ethics","group":{"name":"EthicsHeading","label":"Availability of data and materials"}},{"value":"Our scripts are available at .","order":5,"name":"Ethics","group":{"name":"EthicsHeading","label":"Code availability"}}]}}