Related papers: SoK: Preventing Transaction Reordering Manipulatio…
Decentralized Finance (DeFi), a blockchain powered peer-to-peer financial system, is mushrooming. Two years ago the total value locked in DeFi systems was approximately 700m USD, now, as of April 2022, it stands at around 150bn USD. The…
Blockchain introduces decentralized trust in peer-to-peer networks, advancing security and democratizing systems. Yet, a unified definition for decentralization remains elusive. Our Systematization of Knowledge (SoK) seeks to bridge this…
One fundamental limitation of blockchain-based smart contracts is that they execute in a closed environment. Thus, they only have access to data and functionality that is already on the blockchain, or is fed into the blockchain. Any…
Decentralized finance (DeFi) has the potential to disrupt centralized finance by validating peer-to-peer transactions through tamper-proof smart contracts, thus significantly lowering the transaction cost charged by financial…
Financial markets are undergoing an unprecedented transformation. Technological advances have brought major improvements to the operations of financial services. While these advances promote improved accessibility and convenience,…
Within just four years, the blockchain-based Decentralized Finance (DeFi) ecosystem has accumulated a peak total value locked (TVL) of more than 253 billion USD. This surge in DeFi's popularity has, unfortunately, been accompanied by many…
Decentralized finance (DeFi) in Ethereum is a financial ecosystem built on the blockchain that has locked over 200 billion USD until April 2022. All transaction information is transparent and open when transacting through the DeFi protocol,…
Many classical blockchains are known to have an embarrassingly low transaction throughput, down to Bitcoin's notorious seven transactions per second limit.Various proposals and implementations for increasing throughput emerged in the first…
Decentralization has been touted as the principal security advantage which propelled blockchain systems at the forefront of developments in the financial technology space. Its exact semantics nevertheless remain highly contested and…
We consider front-running to be a course of action where an entity benefits from prior access to privileged market information about upcoming transactions and trades. Front-running has been an issue in financial instrument markets since the…
Blockchains offer strong security gurarantees, but cannot protect users against the ordering of transactions. Players such as miners, bots and validators can reorder various transactions and reap significant profits, called the Maximal…
Traditional blockchain design gives miners or validators full control over transaction ordering, i.e., they can freely choose which transactions to include or exclude, as well as in which order. While not an issue initially, the emergence…
Decentralized Finance (DeFi) refers to financial services that are not necessarily related to crypto-currencies. By employing blockchain for security and integrity, DeFi creates new possibilities that attract retail and institution users,…
Blockchains revolutionized centralized sectors like banking and finance by promoting decentralization and transparency. In a blockchain, information is transmitted through transactions issued by participants or applications. Miners…
Recently, Decentralized Finance (DeFi) platforms on Ethereum are booming, and numerous traders are trying to capitalize on the opportunity for maximizing their benefits by launching front-running attacks and extracting Miner Extractable…
In recent years, significant research efforts have focused on improving blockchain throughput and confirmation speeds without compromising security. While decreasing the time it takes for a transaction to be included in the blockchain…
Currently cryptocurrencies and Decentralized Finance (DeFi), which enable financial services on public blockchains, represents a new growing trend in finance. In contrast to financial markets, ruled by traditional corporations, DeFi is…
Decentralized finance, i.e., DeFi, has become the most popular type of application on many public blockchains (e.g., Ethereum) in recent years. Compared to the traditional finance, DeFi allows customers to flexibly participate in diverse…
We present a measurement study on compositions of Decentralized Finance protocols, which aim to disrupt traditional finance and offer services on top of distributed ledgers, such as Ethereum. DeFi compositions may impact the development of…
Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs) are blockchain-based organizations that facilitate decentralized governance. Today, DAOs not only hold billions of dollars in their treasury but also govern many of the most popular…