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Banking as an essential service can be hard to access in remote, rural regions where the network connectivity is intermittent. Although micro-banking has been made possible by SMS or USSD messages in some places, their security flaws and…
Does the proof-of-work protocol serve its intended purpose of supporting decentralized cryptocurrency mining? To address this question, we develop a game-theoretical model where miners first invest in hardware to improve the efficiency of…
Crypto-coins (also known as cryptocurrencies) are tradable digital assets. Notable examples include Bitcoin, Ether and Litecoin. Ownerships of cryptocoins are registered on distributed ledgers (i.e., blockchains). Secure encryption…
Decentralization is widely recognized as a crucial characteristic of blockchains that enables them to resist malicious attacks such as the 51% attack and the takeover attack. Prior research has primarily examined decentralization in…
Identifying reputable Ethereum projects remains a critical challenge within the expanding blockchain ecosystem. The ability to distinguish between legitimate initiatives and potentially fraudulent schemes is non-trivial. This work presents…
Cryptoassets such as cryptocurrencies and tokens are increasingly traded on decentralized exchanges. The advantage for users is that the funds are not in custody of a centralized external entity. However, these exchanges are prone to…
Achieving the equilibrium between scalability, sustainability, and security while keeping decentralization has prevailed as the target solution for decentralized blockchain applications over the last years. Several approaches have been…
Transaction fees represent a major incentive in many blockchain systems as a way to incentivize processing transactions. Unfortunately, they also introduce an enormous amount of incentive asymmetry compared to alternatives like fixed block…
The research delves into the capabilities of a transformer-based neural network for Ethereum cryptocurrency price forecasting. The experiment runs around the hypothesis that cryptocurrency prices are strongly correlated with other…
Smart contract access control mechanisms can introduce centralization into supposedly decentralized ecosystems. In our view, such centralization is an overlooked risk of smart contracts that underlies well-known smart contract security…
The rise of Ethereum has lead to a flourishing decentralized marketplace that has, unfortunately, fallen victim to frontrunning and Maximal Extractable Value (MEV) activities, where savvy participants game transaction orderings within a…
While the literature features a number of proposals to defend against transaction manipulation attacks, existing proposals are still not integrated within large blockchains, such as Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Cardano. Instead, the user…
Layer-2 (L2) blockchains inherit Ethereums security guarantees while reducing gas fees. As a result, they are gaining traction among traders at Automated Market Makers (AMMs), sparking debate over whether they contribute to liquidity…
The Monero blockchain enables anonymous transactions through advanced cryptography in its peer-to-peer network, which underpins decentralization, security, and trustless interactions. However, privacy measures obscure peer connections,…
Blockchain technology promises to democratize finance and promote social equity through decentralization, but questions remain about whether current implementations advance or hinder these goals. Through a mixed-methods study combining…
The rise of smart contract systems such as Ethereum has resulted in a proliferation of blockchain-based decentralized applications including applications that store and manage a wide range of data. Current smart contracts are designed to be…
Trading on decentralized exchanges has been one of the primary use cases for permissionless blockchains with daily trading volume exceeding billions of U.S.~dollars. In the status quo, users broadcast transactions and miners are responsible…
Bitcoin introduced delegation of control over a monetary system from a select few to all who participate in that system. This delegation is known as the decentralization of controlling power and is a powerful security mechanism for the…
Ethereum is currently the second largest blockchain by market capitalization and a popular platform for cryptocurrencies. As it has grown, the high value present and the anonymity afforded by the technology have led Ethereum to become a…
Machine learning has recently enabled large advances in artificial intelligence, but these tend to be highly centralized. The large datasets required are generally proprietary; predictions are often sold on a per-query basis; and published…