Related papers: SoK: Liquid Staking Tokens (LSTs) and Emerging Tre…
Liquid staking has become the largest category of decentralized finance protocols in terms of total value locked. However, few studies exist on its implementation designs or underlying risks. The liquid staking protocols allow for earning…
This paper studies liquid staking tokens (LSTs) on automated market makers (AMMs), both theoretically and empirically. LSTs are tokenized representations of staked assets on proof-of-stake blockchains. First, we model LST-liquidity on AMMs…
The Proof of Efficient Liquidity (PoEL) protocol, designed for specialised Proof of Stake (PoS) consensus-based blockchains that incorporate intrinsic DeFi applications, aims to support sustainable liquidity bootstrapping and network…
Decentralized finance introduces new business models and use cases as part of digital finance. Restaking has recently emerged as a transformative mechanism in DeFi, promising extra yields but introducing complex and interconnected risks.…
Permissionless Proof-of-Stake (PoS) economic security is predicated on the high cost of violating consensus safety or liveness. We show that liquid staking introduces additional risks that are not captured by standard PoS economic security…
We introduce a micro-velocity framework for analysing the on-chain circulation of Lidos liquid-staking tokens, stETH, and its wrapped ERC-20 form, wstETH. By reconstructing full transfer and share-based accounting histories, we compute…
This paper presents a novel staking coopetition design aimed at incentivizing decentralization and continuous growth of economic security within a proof-of-stake system. Staking rewards follow a nonlinear mapping relative to stake size.…
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…
Proof-of-stake blockchain protocols have emerged as a compelling paradigm for organizing distributed ledger systems. In proof-of-stake (PoS), a subset of stakeholders participate in validating a growing ledger of transactions. For the…
Decentralized Finance (DeFi) staking is one of the most prominent applications within the DeFi ecosystem, where DeFi projects enable users to stake tokens on the platform and reward participants with additional tokens. However, logical…
Stablecoins have emerged as a rapidly growing digital payment instrument, raising the question of whether blockchain-based settlement can function as a substitute for incumbent card networks in retail payments. This Systematization of…
Staking has emerged as a crucial concept following Ethereum's transition to Proof-of-Stake consensus. The introduction of Liquid Staking Derivatives (LSDs) has effectively addressed the illiquidity issue associated with solo staking,…
User transactions on Ethereum's peer-to-peer network are at risk of being attacked. The smart contracts building decentralized finance (DeFi) have introduced a new transaction ordering dependency to the Ethereum blockchain. As a result,…
Stablecoins have become a foundational component of the digital asset ecosystem, with their market capitalization exceeding 230 billion USD as of May 2025. As fiat-referenced and programmable assets, stablecoins provide low-latency,…
Decentralized Finance (DeFi), a blockchain powered peer-to-peer financial system, is mushrooming. Two years ago the total value locked in DeFi systems was approximately 700m USD, now, as of April 2022, it stands at around 150bn USD. The…
Decentralized Finance (DeFi) refers to financial services that are not necessarily related to crypto-currencies. By employing blockchain for security and integrity, DeFi creates new possibilities that attract retail and institution users,…
Blockchain introduces decentralized trust in peer-to-peer networks, advancing security and democratizing systems. Yet, a unified definition for decentralization remains elusive. Our Systematization of Knowledge (SoK) seeks to bridge this…
Canonical LST (sTEZ) is an enshrined, protocol-native mechanism designed to mitigate the centralization risks associated with liquid staking intermediaries. Intended to complement direct staking rather than replace it, Canonical LST…
Proof of Stake (PoS) is a burgeoning Sybil resistance mechanism that aims to have a digital asset ("token") serve as security collateral in crypto networks. However, PoS has so far eluded a comprehensive threat model that encompasses both…
We present a novel method for a multi-party, zero-trust validator infrastructure deployment arrangement via smart contracts to secure Proof-of-Stake (PoS) blockchains. The proposed arrangement architecture employs a combination of…