Related papers: ABC: Proof-of-Stake without Consensus
The security of most existing cryptocurrencies is based on a concept called Proof-of-Work, in which users must solve a computationally hard cryptopuzzle to authorize transactions (`one unit of computation, one vote'). This leads to enormous…
Many studies have been done to improve the performance of centrally controlled business processes and enhance the integration between different parties of these collaborations. However, the most serious issues of collaborative business…
We propose a blockchain architecture in which mining requires a quantum computer. The consensus mechanism is based on proof of quantum work, a quantum-enhanced alternative to traditional proof of work that leverages quantum supremacy to…
Bitcoin is the first fully-decentralized permissionless blockchain protocol to achieve a high level of security, but at the expense of poor throughput and latency. Scaling the performance of Bitcoin has a been a major recent direction of…
In the paper, we present designs for multiple blockchain consensus primitives and a novel blockchain system, all based on the use of trusted execution environments (TEEs), such as Intel SGX-enabled CPUs. First, we show how using TEEs for…
This paper presents the first generic compiler that transforms any permissioned consensus protocol into a proof-of-stake permissionless consensus protocol. For each of the following properties, if the initial permissioned protocol satisfies…
Throughput limitations of existing blockchain architectures are well documented and are one of the most significant hurdles for their wide-spread adoption. In our previous proof-of-concept work, we have shown that separating computation…
Cryptocurrencies are an emerging economic force, but there are concerns about their security. This is due, in part, to complex collusion cases and new threat vectors that could be missed by conventional security assessment strategies. To…
Today's blockchains suffer from low throughput and high latency, which impedes their widespread adoption of more complex applications like smart contracts. In this paper, we propose a novel paradigm for smart contract execution. It…
We study decentralized cryptocurrency protocols in which the participants do not deplete physical scarce resources. Such protocols commonly rely on Proof of Stake, i.e., on mechanisms that extend voting power to the stakeholders of the…
We introduce Unity, a new consensus algorithm for public blockchain settings. Unity is an eventual consistency protocol merging the Proof-of-Work (PoW) and Proof-of-Stake (PoS) into a coherent stochastic process. It encompasses hardware and…
To address the large amount of energy wasted by blockchains, we propose a decentralized consensus protocol for blockchains in which the computation can be used to search for good approximate solutions to any optimization problem. Our…
We give an explicit definition of decentralization and show you that decentralization is almost impossible for the current stage and Bitcoin is the first truly noncentralized currency in the currency history. We propose a new framework of…
Distributed consensus protocols reach agreement among $n$ players in the presence of $f$ adversaries; different protocols support different values of $f$. Existing works study this problem for different adversary types (captured by threat…
Authorization is challenging in distributed systems that cannot rely on the identification of nodes. Proof-of-work offers an alternative gate-keeping mechanism, but its probabilistic nature is incompatible with conventional security…
Blockchain consensus is a state whereby each node in a network agrees on the current state of the blockchain. Existing protocols achieve consensus via a contest or voting procedure to select one node as a dictator to propose new blocks.…
In the high-stakes race to develop more scalable blockchains, some platforms (Binance, Cosmos, EOS, TRON, etc.) have adopted committee-based consensus (CBC) protocols, whereby the blockchain's record-keeping rights are entrusted to a…
Consensus is arguably one of the most important notions in distributed computing. Among asynchronous, randomized, and signature-free implementations, the protocols of Most\'efaoui et al. (PODC 2014 and JACM 2015) represent a landmark…
The development of blockchain technologies has enabled the trustless execution of so-called smart contracts, i.e. programs that regulate the exchange of assets (e.g., cryptocurrency) between users. In a decentralized blockchain, the state…
Blockchain protocols come with a variety of security guarantees. For example, BFT-inspired protocols such as Algorand tend to be secure in the partially synchronous setting, while longest chain protocols like Bitcoin will normally require…