# Blockchain-Based Loyalty Management System
## 3 Proposed loyalty Management System
### Blockchain Selection  
One of the most critical components within the proposed system is the choice of the underlying blockchain platform. Currently, there are numerous blockchain networks with distinct characteristics and purposes. For this specific type of loyalty management system, some key factors are essential, such as the number of transactions per second, cost per transaction, ability to support smart contracts, scalability, and a good source of information and documentation. Since this system will support several loyalty programs and each customer can subscribe to several programs, high transaction volumes per second are essential to ensure good performance. Considering the expected number of transactions, the cost of each transaction must be minimal so that retailers are not penalized and the platform becomes more affordable. Since the purpose of the system is to support and manage different types of loyalty schemas and loyalty programs, smart contracts are mandatory. Therefore, the chosen blockchain must support them. Due to the need for the system to handle platform growth, scalability is required. Therefore, the blockchain network must permit scaling. The blockchain system must also have good documentation to ensure the best use of blockchain resources and capabilities. The choice of a set of blockchain network candidates took all the mentioned factors into account. The chosen networks were Avalanche, Ethereum, Hyperledger Fabric, Polygon, and Solana. These networks are currently the most popular and are distinct from each other. Table 4 summarizes their main characteristics for comparison. The information presented was obtained from the available documentation, except for the transaction price. Transaction prices for Polygon, Ethereum, and Avalanche have been determined utilizing the following specialized websites, which are designed for scanning transactions provided by the blockchains: PolygonScan [25], Ethereumlo [26], and Avascan [27] for Avalanche. Solana's price is available on their official website [28]. It is important to note that these prices are subject to change, as they depend on several factors, such as the value of the cryptocurrency at any given time and the volume of transactions processed over the course of a day. Concerning Hyperledger, the transaction price is zero, as it is a private network. \begin{table}
\begin{tabular}{c c c c c c} \hline \hline  & **Avalanche** & **Ethereum** & **Hyperledger** & **Polygon** & **Solana** \\ \hline Environment execution & EVM 1-AVM 2 & EVM 1 & Docker & EVM 1 & LLVM \\ Smart contract language & Solidity & Solidity & Java/GO & Solidity & C/Rust \\ Transaction per second & 4500 & 15–27 & 3500 & 10,000 & 65,000 \\ Permission type & Public/Private & Public & Private & Public & Public \\ Transaction price & \textless{}$0.01 & \textless{}$4 & \$0 & \textless{}$0.01 & \textless{}$0.0025 \\ Layer & Layer 1 & Layer 1 & Layer 1 & Layer 2 & Layer 1 \\ \hline \hline \end{tabular}  
* EVM—Ethereum virtual machine,2 AVM—Avalanche virtual machine.  
\end{table} 
Table 4: Blockchain network comparison. \begin{table}
\begin{tabular}{c c c} \hline \hline
**User Story** & **Description** & **Name** \\ \hline \multirow{3}{*}{US-9} & As a retailer, & \\  & I need to configure my profile & \\  & so that I can create my loyalty program & \\ \hline \multirow{3}{*}{US-10} & As a retailer, & \\  & I need to check my business status & \\  & so that I can gain insight into my success & \\ \hline \multirow{3}{*}{US-11} & As a retailer, & \\  & I need to exchange money into cryptocurrency & \\  & so that I can pay for blockchain interactions & \\ \hline \hline \end{tabular}
\end{table} 
Table 3: Retailer user stories. Despite Ethereum being the most popular among the five solutions, it presents a weakness regarding the number of supported transactions per second. Additionally, the cost for each transaction is too high, which can lead to platform rejection.