Related papers: Unveiling Ethereum's Hidden Centralization Incenti…

Scalability is a common issue among the most used permissionless blockchains, and several approaches have been proposed to solve this issue. Tackling scalability while preserving the security and decentralization of the network is a…

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…

Ethereum 2.0, as the preeminent smart contract blockchain platform, guarantees the precise execution of applications without third-party intervention. At its core, this system leverages the Proof-of-Stake (PoS) consensus mechanism, which…

The Ethereum network, built on the devp2p protocol stack, was designed to function as a "world computer" by supporting decentralized applications through a shared P2P infrastructure. However, the proliferation of blockchain forks has…

The peer-to-peer (P2P) network of blockchain used to transport its transactions and blocks has a high impact on the efficiency and security of the system. The P2P network topologies of popular blockchains such as Bitcoin and Ethereum,…

Ethereum is undergoing significant changes to its architecture as it evolves. These changes include its switch to PoS consensus and the introduction of significant infrastructural changes that do not require a change to the core protocol,…

Most permissionless blockchain networks run on peer-to-peer (P2P) networks, which offer flexibility and decentralization at the expense of performance (e.g., network latency). Historically, this tradeoff has not been a bottleneck for most…

This paper presents a study of the Poof-of-Stake (PoW) Ethereum consensus protocol, following the recent switch from Proof-of-Work (PoS) to Proof-of-Stake within Merge upgrade. The new protocol has resulted in reduced energy consumption and…

Despite their increasing popularity, blockchains still suffer from severe scalability limitations. Recently, Ethereum proposed a novel approach to block validation based on Data Availability Sampling (DAS), that has the potential to improve…

Scalability is a common issue among the most used permissionless blockchains, and several approaches have been proposed accordingly. As Ethereum is set to be a solid foundation for a decentralized Internet web, the need for tackling…

Ethereum's transaction pool (mempool) dynamics and fee market efficiency critically affect transaction inclusion, validator workload, and overall network performance. This research empirically analyzes gas price variations, mempool…

In September 2022, Ethereum transitioned from Proof-of-Work (PoW) to Proof-of-Stake (PoS) during "the merge" - making it the largest PoS cryptocurrency in terms of market capitalization. With this work, we present a comprehensive…

We hypothesize that peer-to-peer (P2P) overlay network nodes can be attractive to attackers due to their visibility, sustained uptime, and resource potential. Towards validating this hypothesis, we investigate the state of active…

A key performance metric in blockchains is the latency between when a transaction is broadcast and when it is confirmed (the so-called, confirmation latency). While improvements in consensus techniques can lead to lower confirmation…

Blockchain enables peer-to-peer transactions in cyberspace without a trusted third party. The rapid growth of Ethereum and smart contract blockchains generally calls for well-designed Transaction Fee Mechanisms (TFMs) to allocate limited…

Many blockchain networks aim to preserve the anonymity of validators in the peer-to-peer (P2P) network, ensuring that no adversary can link a validator's identifier to the IP address of a peer due to associated privacy and security…

Censorship resistance with short-term inclusion guarantees is an important feature of decentralized systems, missing from many state-of-the-art and even deployed consensus protocols. In leader-based protocols the leader arbitrarily selects…

Consensus protocols are currently the bottlenecks that prevent blockchain systems from scaling. However, we argue that transaction execution is also important to the performance and security of blockchains. In other words, there are ample…

Quorum is a permissioned blockchain platform built from the Ethereum codebase with adaptations to make it a permissioned consortium platform. It is one of the key contenders in the permissioned ledger space. Quorum supports confidentiality…

Like most modern blockchain networks, Ethereum has relied on economic incentives to promote honest participation in the chain's consensus. The distributed character of the platform, together with the "randomness" or "luck" factor that both…