Related papers: The Gap Game
This paper studies to what extent the cost of operating a proof-of-work blockchain is intrinsically linked to the cost of preventing attacks, and to what extent the underlying digital ledger security budgets are correlated with the…
Blockchains have block-size limits to ensure the entire cluster can keep up with the tip of the chain. These block-size limits are usually single-dimensional, but richer multidimensional constraints allow for greater throughput. The…
We present an example where a distributed coordinated protocol supported by a blockchain-enabled monetary mechanism leads to achieving optimal information theoretic degrees of freedom gains. The considered setting is that of a linear…
Transaction fee markets are essential components of blockchain economies, as they resolve the inherent scarcity in the number of transactions that can be added to each block. In early blockchain protocols, this scarcity was resolved through…
The incentive-compatibility properties of blockchain transaction fee mechanisms have been investigated with *passive* block producers that are motivated purely by the net rewards earned at the consensus layer. This paper introduces a model…
A key component of security in decentralized blockchains is proof of opportunity cost among block producers. In the case of proof-of-work (PoW), currently used by the most prominent systems, the cost is due to spent computation. In this…
With the rapid development of cloud computing, vast amounts of duplicated data are being uploaded to the cloud, wasting storage resources. Deduplication (dedup) is an efficient solution to save storage costs of cloud storage providers…
Coin flipping is a cryptographic primitive in which two spatially separated players, who in principle do not trust each other, wish to establish a common random bit. If we limit ourselves to classical communication, this task requires…
In cryptocurrencies, transaction fees are typically exclusively paid in the native platform currency. This restriction causes a wide range of challenges, such as deteriorated user experience, mandatory rent payments by decentralized…
Tendermint-core blockchains (e.g. Cosmos) are considered today one of the most viable alternatives for the highly energy consuming proof-of-work blockchains such as Bitcoin and Ethereum. Their particularity is that they aim at offering…
Consensus algorithms facilitate agreement on and resolution of blockchain functions, such as smart contracts and transactions. Ethereum uses a Proof-of-Stake (PoS) consensus mechanism, which depends on financial incentives to ensure that…
This paper introduces a structural game-theoretic model to value decentralized digital assets like Bitcoin. Instead of relying on speculative beliefs, it frames the asset's price within a Rational-Expectations Security-Utility Nash…
There are $n$ players who compete by timing their actions. An opportunity appears randomly on a time interval. Whoever takes an action the fastest after the opportunity has arisen wins. The occurrence of the opportunity is observed only…
Decentralized payment systems such as Bitcoin have become massively popular in the last few years, yet there is still much to be done in understanding their formal properties. The vast majority of decentralized payment systems work by…
Threshold cryptography is essential for many blockchain protocols. For example, many protocols rely on threshold common coin to implement asynchronous consensus, leader elections, and provide support for randomized applications. Similarly,…
Recent works of Roughgarden (EC'21) and Chung and Shi (SODA'23) initiate the study of a new decentralized mechanism design problem called transaction fee mechanism design (TFM). Unlike the classical mechanism design literature, in the…
Blockchain enables peer-to-peer transactions in cyberspace without a trusted third party. The rapid growth of Ethereum and smart contract blockchains generally calls for well-designed Transaction Fee Mechanisms (TFMs) to allocate limited…
In this paper we show that, using only mild assumptions, previously proposed multidimensional blockchain fee markets are essentially optimal, even against worst-case adversaries. In particular, we show that the average welfare gap between…
The past decade has witnessed the rapid evolution in blockchain technologies, which has attracted tremendous interests from both the research communities and industries. The blockchain network was originated from the Internet financial…
In this review, we evaluate the mechanisms behind the decentralized finance protocols for generating stable, passive income. Currently, such savings interest rates can be as high as 20% annually, payable in traditional currency values such…