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We identify a subtle security issue that impacts the design of smart contracts, because agents may themselves deploy smart contracts (side contracts). Typically, equilibria of games are analyzed in vitro, under the assumption that players…
Classical optimal auction theory assumes that bids reach the seller directly. We study how this picture changes when a revenue-maximizing intermediary controls access to the seller's auction. Motivated by blockchain auctions, online…
We analyze bribing attacks in Proof-of-Stake distributed ledgers from a game theoretic perspective. In bribing attacks, an adversary offers participants a reward in exchange for instructing them how to behave, with the goal of attacking the…
Blockchain protocols incentivize participation through monetary rewards, assuming rational actors behave honestly to maximize their gains. However, attackers may attempt to harm others even at personal cost. These denial of profit attacks…
All-pay auctions, a common mechanism for various human and agent interactions, suffers, like many other mechanisms, from the possibility of players' failure to participate in the auction. We model such failures, and fully characterize…
Lately, Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs), i.e., uniquely discernible assets on a blockchain, have skyrocketed in popularity by addressing a broad audience. However, the typical NFT auctioning procedures are conducted in various, ad hoc ways,…
Smart contract-enabled blockchains allow building decentralized applications in which mutually-distrusted parties can work together. Recently, oracle services emerged to provide these applications with real-world data feeds. Unfortunately,…
Validators in permissionless, large-scale blockchains, such as Ethereum, are typically payoff-maximizing, rational actors. Ethereum relies on in-protocol incentives, like rewards for correct and timely votes, to induce honest behavior and…
As a trusted middleware connecting the blockchain and the real world, the blockchain oracle can obtain trusted real-time price information for financial applications such as payment and settlement, and asset valuation on the blockchain.…
Consensus algorithms facilitate agreement on and resolution of blockchain functions, such as smart contracts and transactions. Ethereum uses a Proof-of-Stake (PoS) consensus mechanism, which depends on financial incentives to ensure that…
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…
We study blockchain trade-intent auctions, which currently intermediate about USD 10 billion in trades each month. These auctions are combinatorial because executing multiple trade intents jointly generates additional efficiencies. However,…
We address the problem of improving bidders' strategies in prior-dependent revenue-maximizing auctions and introduce a simple and generic method to design novel bidding strategies if the seller uses past bids to optimize her mechanism. We…
Similar to a strategic interaction between rational and intelligent agents, cryptography problems can be examined through the prism of game theory. In this setting, the agent aiming to protect a message is called the defender, while the one…
Bitcoin uses blockchain technology to maintain transactions order and provides probabilistic guarantee to prevent double-spending, assuming that an attacker's computational power does not exceed %50 of the network power. In this paper, we…
Ethereum block builders run sealed auctions among searchers, but nothing in the protocol forces a builder to honor the auction outcome after observing submitted bundles. This paper studies the commitment problem. We model a builder who…
The Ethereum block-building process has changed significantly since the emergence of Proposer-Builder Separation. Validators access blocks through a marketplace, where block builders bid for the right to construct the block and earn MEV…
We identify a subtle security issue that impacts mechanism design in scenarios in which agents can absolutely commit to strategies. Absolute commitments allow the strategy of an agent to depend on the commitments made by the other agents.…
The mining process in blockchain requires solving a proof-of-work puzzle, which is resource expensive to implement in mobile devices due to the high computing power and energy needed. In this paper, we, for the first time, consider edge…
We propose a new all-pay auction format in which risk-loving bidders pay a constant fee each time they bid for an object whose monetary value is common knowledge among the bidders, and bidding fees are the only source of benefit for the…