# VidBlock: A Web3.0-Enabled Decentralized Blockchain Architecture for Live Video Streaming
## 1 Introduction  
In the digital age, the demand for real-time streaming services has grown exponentially [1, 2]. However, traditional centralized streaming architectures face challenges that limit their effectiveness in meeting user demands and adapting to a globally connected audience. These challenges include:  
* **Centralized data management:** Centralized servers in traditional systems act as single points of failure, making them vulnerable to outages and data breaches. Moreover, centralized control over user data raises concerns about unauthorized sharing and misuse [3, 4]. * **Lack of user privacy and data control:** Traditional streaming platforms collect and exploit user data without transparency, undermining user trust and often violating privacy standards [5]. * **High costs of infrastructure:** Maintaining centralized server infrastructures incurs high operational and maintenance costs, which are often passed down to users through subscription fees or advertisements [6, 7]. * **Geographical and licensing restrictions:** Regional licensing agreements limit content accessibility, creating a fragmented and inequitable global streaming experience [8]. To overcome the limitations of traditional streaming platforms, which primarily focus on issues of security, privacy, and scalability, researchers have been exploring Web3.0 solutions. Many of these efforts have concentrated on leveraging blockchain technology and decentralized networks to enhance user trust, protect data privacy, and improve system performance [9, 10, 11]. However, existing research has often focused on isolated aspects ofthe problem, such as security in the form of blockchain-based authentication or privacy through decentralized storage mechanisms, while scalability and operational efficiency have received less attention. In this context, VidBlock is an ecosystem designed to democratize content delivery and storage while ensuring data integrity and user trust. Its serverless architecture aligns with decentralization principles, eliminating centralized servers to reduce vulnerabilities, enhance operational efficiency, and lower costs. A key feature of VidBlock is its use of relay nodes, which play a crucial role in ensuring the resilience and robustness of the system. These relay nodes not only facilitate content delivery through decentralized pathways but also assist in the establishment of P2P sessions between client nodes. This helps ensure seamless and efficient communication across the network. Additionally, in the event of network failures, the relay nodes enable enhanced recovery by establishing alternative pathways, minimizing disruptions, and ensuring continuous content availability. This shift not only improves content accessibility but also addresses the limitations of previous approaches that concentrated solely on privacy or security. VidBlock combines security, privacy, and scalability within a fully decentralized system, unlike previous research, which has often focused on these issues in isolation. While earlier studies focused predominantly on addressing individual aspects, such as privacy protection through encryption or decentralized storage for security, VidBlock takes a comprehensive approach by integrating blockchain technology to ensure transparency, immutability, and trust in both data storage and content delivery. By doing so, VidBlock overcomes the narrow scope of prior research, presenting a unified framework that addresses the intertwined challenges of decentralization, security, and operational efficiency in streaming platforms. The primary contributions of VidBlock can be summarized as follows:  
1. **Decentralized data management** : In a traditional streaming service, all user data, preferences, and content metadata are typically stored on centralized servers. This creates a single point of failure; if these servers are compromised, it can lead to widespread data breaches or service outages.