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Proof-of-Work is a consensus algorithm where miners solve cryptographic puzzles to mine blocks and obtain a reward through some Block Reward Mechanism (BRM). PoW blockchain faces the problem of centralization due to the formation of mining…
Blockchain-based Distributed Ledgers (DLs) promise to transform the existing financial system by making it truly democratic. In the past decade, blockchain technology has seen many novel applications ranging from the banking industry to…
The blockchain initially gained traction in 2008 as the technology underlying bitcoin, but now has been employed in a diverse range of applications and created a global market worth over $150B as of 2017. What distinguishes blockchains from…
Many protocols in distributed computing rely on a source of randomness, usually called a random beacon, both for their applicability and security. This is especially true for proof-of-stake blockchain protocols in which the next miner or…
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,…
Despite broad use of BFT consensus in blockchains, censorship resistance is weak: leaders can exclude transactions, a growing concern for trading and DeFi. We address this by introducing a new abstraction and protocol stack. First, we…
We improve the fundamental security threshold of eventual consensus Proof-of-Stake (PoS) blockchain protocols under the longest-chain rule by showing, for the first time, the positive effect of rounds with concurrent honest leaders. Current…
All public blockchains are secured by a proof of opportunity cost among block producers. For example, the security offered by proof-of-work (PoW) systems, like Bitcoin, is due to spent computation; it is work precisely because it cannot be…
The recent surge in federated data management applications has brought forth concerns about the security of underlying data and the consistency of replicas in the presence of malicious attacks. A prominent solution in this direction is to…
The Philos Marketplace blockchain system is a proposed hierarchical blockchain architecture which allows a large number of individual blockchains to operate in parallel. These parallel chains achieve consensus among one another on a limited…
Blockchain is a decentralized, distributed ledger technology that ensures transparency, security, and immutability through cryptographic techniques. However, advancements in quantum computing threaten the security of classical cryptographic…
Blockchains have witnessed widespread adoption in the past decade in various fields. The growing demand makes their scalability and sustainability challenges more evident than ever. As a result, more and more blockchains have begun to adopt…
We study a robust, i.e. in presence of malicious participants, multi-agent multi-armed bandit problem where multiple participants are distributed on a fully decentralized blockchain, with the possibility of some being malicious. The rewards…
We present a general consensus framework that allows to easily introduce a customizable Byzantine fault tolerant consensus algorithm to an existing (Delegated) Proof-of-Stake blockchain. We prove the safety of the protocol under the…
Tezos is an innovative blockchain that improves on several aspects compared to more established blockchains. It offers an original proof-of-stake consensus algorithm and can be used as a decentralized smart contract platform. It has the…
Blockchain systems have been a part of mainstream academic research, and a hot topic at that. It has spread to almost every subfield in the computer science literature, as well as economics and finance. Especially in a world where digital…
The increasing application and deployment of blockchain in various services necessitates the assurance of the effectiveness of PBFT (Practical Byzantine Fault Tolerance) consensus service. However, the performance of PBFT consensus service…
In this paper, we explore vulnerabilities and countermeasures of the recently proposed blockchain consensus based on proof-of-authority. The proof-of-work blockchains, like Bitcoin and Ethereum, have been shown both theoretically and…
Distributed Ledger Technologies (DLTs), when managed by a few trusted validators, require most but not all of the machinery available in public DLTs. In this work, we explore one possible way to profit from this state of affairs. We devise…
Blockchain applications that rely on the Proof-of-Work (PoW) have increasingly become energy inefficient with a staggering carbon footprint. In contrast, energy-efficient alternative consensus protocols such as Proof-of-Stake (PoS) may…