An Ethereum and IPFS Prototype for Bangladesh’s Universal Pension Scheme: Design, Cost Analysis, and Feasibility Limits

This research makes several significant contributions to blockchain-based pension management. First, it develops a smart contract architecture that reflects key features of the Bangladeshi pension system, including government and contributory schemes, tier-based contributions, minimum contribution periods, service-based gratuity, and relationship-based survivor benefits. Second, it proposes and evaluates a hybrid Ethereum–IPFS design and compares its public-chain trust model with the permissioned consortium blockchain used in earlier Bangladeshi research. The study also provides a detailed gas and fiat cost analysis, showing that Ethereum mainnet transaction costs may be approximately 2.9 times higher than the contribution being recorded, making direct mainnet deployment economically impractical. Security was assessed through Slither-based static analysis and manual review, with all 56 findings documented and prioritized. Two important vulnerabilities identified in the developed code were corrected and covered by regression tests. In addition, a 33-case automated test suite was created to validate the complete pension life cycle and access-control rules. Finally, the research examines the practical conflict between blockchain immutability and the legal requirement to correct errors in official pension records.