Related papers: Measuring Miner Decentralization in Proof-of-Work …
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…
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…
The past decade has witnessed the rapid evolution in blockchain technologies, which has attracted tremendous interests from both the research communities and industries. The blockchain network was originated from the Internet financial…
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…
Blockchain plays a crucial role in ensuring the security and integrity of decentralized systems, with the proof-of-work (PoW) mechanism being fundamental for achieving distributed consensus. As PoW blockchains see broader adoption, an…
Proof-of-Work (PoW) consensus is traditionally analyzed under the assumption that all miners incur similar costs per unit of computational effort. In reality, costs vary due to factors such as regional electricity cost differences and…
Decentralization is a fundamental design element of the Web3 economy. Blockchains and distributed consensus mechanisms are touted as fault-tolerant, attack-resistant, and collusion-proof because they are decentralized. Recent analyses,…
Cryptocurrencies aim to replicate physical cash in the digital realm while removing centralized and trusted intermediaries. Decentralization is achieved by the blockchain, a permanent public ledger that contains a record of every…
Cryptocurrencies, arguably the most prominent application of blockchains, have been on the rise with a wide mainstream acceptance. A central concept in cryptocurrencies is "mining pools", groups of cooperating cryptocurrency miners who…
Proof-of-work computation used in cryptocurrencies has witnessed significant growth in the U.S. and many other regions around the world. One of the most significant bottlenecks for the scalable deployment of such computation is its energy…
Proof-of-Work (PoW) consensus mechanism is popular among current blockchain systems, which leads to an increasing concern about the tremendous waste of energy due to massive meaningless computation. To address this issue, we propose a novel…
Blockchain technologies underpin an expanding ecosystem of decentralized applications, financial systems, and infrastructure. However, the fundamental networking layer that sustains these systems, the peer-to-peer layer, of all but the top…
While cryptocurrencies and blockchain applications continue to gain popularity, their energy cost is evidently becoming unsustainable. In most instances, the main cost comes from the required amount of energy for the Proof-of-Work, and this…
Bitcoin is the most successful cryptocurrency so far. This is mainly due to its novel consensus algorithm, which is based on proof-of-work combined with a cryptographically-protected data structure and a rewarding scheme that incentivizes…
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…
Game theory is often used as a tool to analyze decentralized systems and their properties, in particular, blockchains. In this note, we take the opposite view. We argue that blockchains can and should be used to implement economic…
The security of blockchain systems based on Proof of Work relies on mining. However, mining suffers from unstable revenue, prompting many miners to form cooperative mining pools. Most existing mining pools operate in a centralized manner,…
Bitcoin is a "crypto currency", a decentralized electronic payment scheme based on cryptography which has recently gained excessive popularity. Scientific research on bitcoin is less abundant. A paper at Financial Cryptography 2012…
Bitcoin and many other similar Cryptocurrencies have been in existence for over a decade, prominently focusing on decentralized, pseudo-anonymous ledger-based transactions. Many protocol improvements and changes have resulted in new…
A key component of security in decentralized blockchains is proof of opportunity cost among block producers. In the case of proof-of-work (PoW), currently used by the most prominent systems, the cost is due to spent computation. In this…