Related papers: Barriers to Collusion-resistant Transaction Fee Me…
In the white book of Bitcion, Satoshi Nakamoto described a bitcoin system that can realize point-to-point online payment without a third-party organization. After supporting this magical application scenario and subverting the traditional…
To achieve interoperability between unconnected ledgers, hash time lock contracts (HTLCs) are commonly used for cross-chain asset exchange. The solution tolerates transaction failure, and can "make the best out of worst'' by allowing…
While blockchains initially gained popularity in the realm of cryptocurrencies, their widespread adoption is expanding beyond conventional applications, driven by the imperative need for enhanced data security. Despite providing a secure…
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…
This paper studies the optimal transaction fee mechanisms for blockchains, focusing on the distinction between price-based ($\mathcal{P}$) and quantity-based ($\mathcal{Q}$) controls. By analyzing factors such as demand uncertainty,…
Cryptocurrencies are poised to revolutionize the modern economy by democratizing commerce. These currencies operate on top of blockchain-based distributed ledgers. Existing permissionless blockchain-based protocols offer unparalleled…
A proof-of-randomness (PoR) protocol is presented as a fair and low energy-cost consensus mechanism for blockchains. Each network node of a blockchain may use a true random number generator (TRNG) and hash algorism to fulfil the PoR…
Scalability problems in programmable blockchains have created a strong demand for secure methods that move the bulk of computation outside the blockchain. One of the preferred solutions to this problem involves off-chain computers that…
Micropayment channels are the most prominent solution to the limitation on transaction throughput in current blockchain systems. However, in practice channels are risky because participants have to be online constantly to avoid fraud, and…
Blockchain is a novel technology that is rising a lot of interest in the industrial and re- search sectors because its properties of decentralisation, immutability and data integrity. Initially, the underlying consensus mechanism has been…
Cryptocurrencies, especially Bitcoin (BTC), which comprise a new digital asset class, have drawn extraordinary worldwide attention. The characteristics of the cryptocurrency/BTC include a high level of speculation, extreme volatility and…
Atomic swaps are a fundamental primitive for the trustless exchange of digital assets across blockchains: they guarantee that either both parties receive the agreed assets or neither party transfers. While this all-or-nothing guarantee is…
Committee-based blockchains are among the most popular alternatives of proof-of-work based blockchains, such as Bitcoin. They provide strong consistency (no fork) under classical assumptions, and avoid using energy-consuming mechanisms to…
Bitcoin is currently subject to a significant pay-for-speed trade-off. This is caused by lengthy and highly variable transaction confirmation times, especially during times of congestion. Users can reduce their transaction confirmation…
We consider a model of bilateral trade with private values. The value of the buyer and the cost of the seller are jointly distributed. The true joint distribution is unknown to the designer, however, the marginal distributions of the value…
Digital payments traditionally rely on online communications with several intermediaries such as banks, payment networks, and payment processors in order to authorize and process payment transactions. While these communication networks are…
There has been substantial recent concern that pricing algorithms might learn to ``collude.'' Supra-competitive prices can emerge as a Nash equilibrium of repeated pricing games, in which sellers play strategies which threaten to punish…
Payment channel networks (PCN) enable scalable blockchain transactions without fundamentally changing the underlying distributed ledger algorithm. However, routing a payment via multiple channels in a PCN requires locking collateral for…
Blockchains such as Bitcoin and Ethereum execute payment transactions securely, but their performance is limited by the need for global consensus. Payment networks overcome this limitation through off-chain transactions. Instead of writing…
The long-term success of cryptocurrencies largely depends on the incentive compatibility provided to the validators. Bribery attacks, facilitated trustlessly via smart contracts, threaten this foundation. This work introduces, implements,…