Secure Blockchain Applications for Smart Cities: Enhancing Trust, Privacy, and Resilience

As urban environments become increasingly connected and digitally managed, smart cities are transforming the way governments, citizens, and infrastructure interact through sophisticated technological ecosystems. This digital transformation introduces critical challenges related to security, privacy, data integrity, and system resilience. These challenges span across various urban domains, such as transportation networks, energy grids, e-governance platforms, healthcare systems, and public safety services. Traditional centralized approaches to urban data management face significant scalability issues, vulnerability to single points of failure, lack of transparency, and trust deficits among different stakeholders. The integration of Internet of Things (IoT) devices, artificial intelligence, big data analytics, and edge computing in smart city infrastructures creates multiple attack vectors and privacy concerns. These challenges require robust, transparent, and tamper-resistant solutions that can ensure citizen trust, system reliability, and democratic accountability while maintaining operational efficiency and regulatory compliance.

This Research Topic aims to explore how blockchain technology can serve as a trust layer for secure smart city applications, addressing critical urban challenges through decentralized, transparent, and immutable digital solutions. We seek to investigate novel blockchain architectures, cryptographic frameworks, and governance models that enhance the security, privacy, and resilience of smart city systems. The primary objective is to bridge the gap between theoretical blockchain capabilities and practical smart city implementations. This involves focusing on real-world deployments that demonstrate measurable improvements in various areas. Contributors will address scalability concerns, interoperability challenges, and regulatory compliance requirements while showcasing how blockchain can enable secure identity management, auditable transactions, and decentralized governance in urban contexts. This research topic will contribute to developing the next generation of smart city frameworks that are not only intelligent and connected but also private, secure, and resilient by design.

This Research Topic welcomes original research articles, comprehensive reviews, case studies, and perspective pieces that demonstrate innovative blockchain applications in smart city contexts. Key areas of interest include:

- Blockchain-based authentication, authorization, and identity management in urban systems

- Privacy-preserving blockchain frameworks for citizen data protection

- Secure smart contract design, verification, and auditing for city applications

- Blockchain-enabled data integrity and transparency in public services

- Secure and scalable consensus mechanisms adapted to smart city contexts

- Governance and compliance mechanisms using distributed ledger technologies

- Threat models, cyber-resilience strategies, and attack mitigation in blockchain infrastructures

- Real-world deployments and pilot studies demonstrating secure blockchain implementations

- Cross-institutional, regulatory, and ethical challenges in city-scale blockchain adoption

We particularly encourage interdisciplinary approaches that combine computer science, urban planning, public policy, and the social sciences. Authors should emphasize practical feasibility, alignment with public sector requirements, and contributions to transparency, accountability, and citizen empowerment.

Article types and fees

This Research Topic accepts the following article types, unless otherwise specified in the Research Topic description:

• Community Case Study
• Data Report
• Editorial
• FAIR² Data
• Hypothesis and Theory
• Methods
• Mini Review
• Opinion
• Original Research
• ... View all formats

Articles that are accepted for publication by our external editors following rigorous peer review incur a publishing fee charged to Authors, institutions, or funders.

Article types

This Research Topic accepts the following article types, unless otherwise specified in the Research Topic description:

• Community Case Study
• Data Report
• Editorial
• FAIR² Data
• Hypothesis and Theory
• Methods
• Mini Review
• Opinion
• Original Research
• Perspective
• Policy and Practice Reviews
• Policy Brief
• Review
• Systematic Review
• Technology and Code

Keywords: blockchain, smart cities, security, privacy, digital governance, urban technology, decentralized systems, cyber-resilience, identity management

Important note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.