Cashflow: A Channel-Oriented, Credit-Based Virtual Currency System for Establishing Fairness in Ad-Hoc Networks with Selfish Nodes

Cooperation in ad hoc networks cannot be taken for granted when nodes belong to distinct authoritative domains. In this paper we present Cashflow, a virtual currency system to motivate nodes to participate in ad hoc networks and to prevent selfishness. This system is different to previously proposed virtual currency systems in that it uses a channel concept for data transmission as well as a market system for pricing. The combination of channel and market concept results in a number of positive system characteristics. For instance, Cashflow provides implicit access regulation and load balancing mechanisms to avoid overload situations in the network. Additionally it considers node context for data transmission and pricing. Cashflow also leaves the decision about the participation degree to the user, which is an important but frequently neglected topic for the user acceptance of virtual currency systems.