Related papers: PUPoW: A framework for designing blockchains with …
In the Bitcoin system, participants are rewarded for solving cryptographic puzzles. In order to receive more consistent rewards over time, some participants organize mining pools and split the rewards from the pool in proportion to each…
Bitcoin is a decentralized P2P digital currency in which coins are generated by a distributed set of miners and transaction are broadcasted via a peer-to-peer network. While Bitcoin provides some level of anonymity (or rather pseudonymity)…
Many protocols in distributed computing rely on a source of randomness, usually called a random beacon, both for their applicability and security. This is especially true for proof-of-stake blockchain protocols in which the next miner or…
The Bitcoin cryptocurrency records its transactions in a public log called the blockchain. Its security rests critically on the distributed protocol that maintains the blockchain, run by participants called miners. Conventional wisdom…
Despite all the progress in quantum technologies over the last decade, there is still a dearth of practical applications for quantum computers with a small number of noisy qubits. The effort to show quantum supremacy has been largely…
The Nakamoto consensus protocol underlying the Bitcoin blockchain uses proof of work as a voting mechanism. Honest miners who contribute hashing power towards securing the chain try to extend the longest chain they are aware of. Despite its…
In Ethereum, private transactions, a specialized transaction type employed to evade public Peer-to-Peer (P2P) network broadcasting, remain largely unexplored, particularly in the context of the transition from Proof-of-Work (PoW) to…
Bitcoin mining presents a significant economic incentive for efficient hashing and broadcast of data, both parameters stemming from the Proofs of Work used to advance the network. This incentive has led to the development of Bitcoin…
Transparency is crucial in security-critical applications that rely on authoritative information, as it provides a robust mechanism for holding these authorities accountable for their actions. A number of solutions have emerged in recent…
This paper introduces Proof of Team Sprint (PoTS), a novel consensus algorithm designed to address the significant energy inefficiencies inherent in traditional Proof of Work (PoW) systems. PoTS shifts the consensus mechanism from an…
Blockchain, also coined as decentralized AI, has the potential to empower AI to be more trustworthy by creating a decentralized trust of privacy, security, and audibility. However, systematic studies on the design principle of blockchain as…
We study an adversary who attacks a Proof-of-Work (POW) blockchain by selfishly constructing an alternative longest chain. We characterize optimal strategies employed by the adversary when a difficulty adjustment rule al\`a Bitcoin applies.…
A cryptocurrency is a decentralized digital currency that is designed for secure and private asset transfer and storage. As a currency, it should be difficult to counterfeit and double-spend. In this paper, we review and analyze the major…
The high electricity consumption of cryptocurrencies that rely on proof-of-work (PoW) consensus algorithms has raised serious environmental concerns due to its association with carbon emissions and strain on energy grids. There has been…
Many existing timed-release encryption schemes uses time-lock puzzles to avoid relying on a trusted timeserver or a key holder which could be a weak spot in data security. However, it is unavoidable to consume massive computing power for…
Bitcoin and Ethereum, whose miners arguably collectively comprise the most powerful computational resource in the history of mankind, offer no more power for processing and verifying transactions than a typical smart phone. The system…
Bitcoin brings a new type of digital currency that does not rely on a central system to maintain transactions. By benefiting from the concept of decentralized ledger, users who do not know or trust each other can still conduct transactions…
With the advent of the Internet of Things (IoT), e-health has become one of the main topics of research. Due to the sensitivity of patient information, patient privacy seems challenging. Nowadays, patient data is usually stored in the cloud…
The paper examines decentralized cryptocurrency protocols that are based on the use of internal tokens as identity tools. An analysis of security problems with popular Proof-of-stake consensus protocols is provided. A new protocol,…
Blockchain as a promising technology is gaining its popularity ever since proof-of-work based Bitcoin came to the world. Nevertheless, Bitcoin achieves consensus at an expensive cost of energy. Proof-of-stake is one of the solutions for…