A Lightweight and Secure Blockchain Interoperability Framework for Hybrid E-Commerce Ledgers

Abstract

The growing use of blockchain in e-commerce has produced hybrid environments in which private enterprise ledgers and public blockchain networks operate side by side. Consequently, efficient and secure interoperability between these networks has become increasingly important. This study presents a cross-chain interoperability framework that links a permissioned Hyperledger Fabric network with a public Ethereum network. The framework provides attestations of selected business events rather than moving assets. An interoperability smart contract on Fabric emits cross-chain events; an off-chain validator enforces uniqueness and replay protection; and a public verification contract on Ethereum records an immutable, publicly verifiable attestation of each event. The framework uses a two-of-three validator threshold to attest events, so safety holds as long as no more than one of the three validators is compromised. The prototype was evaluated by processing 21,000 events across sequential, concurrent, and peak-load workloads. On the local network, message validation averaged approximately 12 ms per event, and the interoperability layer added less than 200 ms of overhead per attestation. Sustained throughput ranged from 13.2 to 14.2 attestations per second, while the validator used approximately 16% mean CPU and less than 194 MiB of memory, with no sustained memory growth during the full experiment. On the Ethereum Sepolia public testnet, 55 transactions were confirmed with a 100% success rate and a mean confirmation time of 10,676.62 ms. Gas consumption stayed stable at about 51,743 gas per verification on the local network and about 189,092 gas on Sepolia, and the mean public testnet transaction cost was 0.000692 Sepolia ETH. Five adversarial tests were conducted, covering replay, forgery, malicious relayers, concurrent replay, and denial-of-service attacks. All five tests passed, including the rejection of 500 concurrent replay attempts with zero double registrations. The results show that the framework provides efficient, verifiable, and replay-resistant cross-chain interoperability suited to hybrid e-commerce ledgers.