Related papers: Bitcoin covenants unchained
The Bitcoin protocol allows to save arbitrary data on the blockchain through a special instruction of the scripting language, called OP_RETURN. A growing number of protocols exploit this feature to extend the range of applications of the…
Contracts are an essential and fundamental component of commerce and society, serving to clarify agreement between multiple parties. While digital technologies have helped to automate many activities associated with contracting, the…
We condense the theory of blockchains down to a simple and compact set of four type equations (Idealised EUTxO), and to an algebraic characterisation (abstract chunk systems), and exhibit an adjoint pair of functors between them. This gives…
There are different interpretations of the terms "tokens" and "token-based systems" in the literature around blockchain and digital currencies although the distinction between token-based and account-based systems is well entrenched in…
Previous work presented a theoretical model based on the implicit Bitcoin specification for how an entity might issue a protocol native cryptocurrency that mimics features of fiat currencies. Protocol native means that it is built into the…
As blockchains continue to seek to scale to a larger number of nodes, the communication complexity of protocols has become a significant priority as the network can quickly become overburdened. Several schemes have attempted to address…
The rising importance of cryptocurrencies as financial assets pushed their applicability from an object of speculation closer to standard financial instruments such as loans. In this work, we initiate the study of secure protocols that…
Smart contracts are computer programs that can be consistently executed by a network of mutually distrusting nodes, without the arbitration of a trusted authority. Because of their resilience to tampering, smart contracts are appealing in…
Contracts are a well-established approach for describing and analyzing behavioral aspects of web service compositions. The theory of contracts comes equipped with a notion of compatibility between clients and servers that ensures that every…
Distributed immutable ledgers, or blockchains, allow the secure digitization of evidential transactions without relying on a trusted third-party. Evidential transactions involve the exchange of any form of physical evidence, such as money,…
We consider the execution of smart contracts on Bitcoin. There, every contract step corresponds to appending to the blockchain a new transaction that spends the output representing the old contract state, creating a new one for the updated…
The Ethereum platform supports the decentralized execution of smart contracts, i.e. computer programs that transfer digital assets between users. The most common language used to develop these contracts is Solidity, a Javascript-like…
Blockchain is a core technology to manage the value of cryptocurrencies, or to record trails of important business trades. The Smart Contract on blockchain is expected to improve security on blockchain system with automated operation, but…
Smart contracts on a blockchain behave precisely as specified by their code. A vulnerability in this code can lead to unexpected behaviour, which is hard to fix because a blockchain does not allow to change smart contract code after its…
The fundamental building blocks of the Bitcoin lightning network are bidirectional payment channels. We describe an extension of payment channels in the Proofgold network which allow the two parties to bet on whether a proposition will be…
There is growing interest in providing programmatic access to the value locked in Bitcoin, which famously offers limited programmability itself. Various approaches have been put forth in recent years, with the vast majority of proposed…
We present a new approach to automated reasoning about higher-order programs by extending symbolic execution to use behavioral contracts as symbolic values, enabling symbolic approximation of higher-order behavior. Our approach is based on…
We examine blockchain technologies, especially smart contracts, as a platform for decentralized applications. By providing a basis for consensus, blockchain promises to upend business models that presuppose a central authority. However,…
Cryptocurrencies are distributed systems that allow exchanges of native (and non-) tokens among participants. The complete historical bookkeeping and its wide availability opens up an unprecedented possibility, i.e. that of understanding…
Bitcoin is a peer-to-peer electronic payment system that has rapidly grown in popularity in recent years. Usually, the complete history of Bitcoin blockchain data must be queried to acquire variables with economic meaning. This task has…