Related papers: Automated Attack Synthesis for Constant Product Ma…
Auto-completing code enables developers to speed up coding significantly. Recent advances in transformer-based large language model (LLM) technologies have been applied to code synthesis. However, studies show that many of such synthesized…
Smart-contract exploits have caused billions of USD in cumulative losses, yet audits remain expensive and slow. Automated tools have emerged to close this gap, but each class has a characteristic failure mode. Static analyzers report…
Blockchain adoption has surged with the rise of Decentralized Finance (DeFi) applications. However, the significant value of digital assets managed by DeFi protocols makes them prime targets for attacks. Current smart contract vulnerability…
In recent years, Decentralized Finance (DeFi) grows rapidly due to the development of blockchain technology and smart contracts. As of March 2023, the estimated global cryptocurrency market cap has reached approximately $949 billion.…
Decentralized finance (DeFi) has become one of the most successful applications of blockchain and smart contracts. The DeFi ecosystem enables a wide range of crypto-financial activities, while the underlying smart contracts often contain…
The rapid integration of blockchain, cryptocurrency, and Web3 technologies into digital banks and fintech operations has created an integrated environment blending traditional financial systems with decentralised elements. This paper…
A widespread belief in the blockchain security community is that automated techniques are only good for detecting shallow bugs, typically of small value. In this paper, we present the techniques and insights that have led us to repeatable…
Smart contracts are essential to decentralized finance (DeFi) and blockchain ecosystems but are increasingly vulnerable to exploits due to coding errors and complex attack vectors. Traditional static analysis tools and existing…
Smart contracts enable contract terms to be automatically executed and verified on the blockchain, and recent years have witnessed numerous applications of them in areas such as financial institutions and supply chains. The execution logic…
Recent attacks exploiting errors in smart contract code had devastating consequences thereby questioning the benefits of this technology. It is currently highly challenging to fix errors and deploy a patched contract in time. Instant…
In decentralized finance, any individual can pool their assets into an automated market maker (AMM) -- herein we focus on the constant product market maker (CPMM) -- in exchange for a claim on a fraction of future pool assets and fees…
Automated Market Makers (AMMs) are a cornerstone of decentralized finance. They are smart contracts (stateful programs) running on blockchains. They enable virtual token exchange: traders swap tokens with the AMM for a fee, while liquidity…
Smart contracts---stateful executable objects hosted on blockchains like Ethereum---carry billions of dollars worth of coins and cannot be updated once deployed. We present a new systematic characterization of a class of trace…
Decentralized finance, i.e., DeFi, has become the most popular type of application on many public blockchains (e.g., Ethereum) in recent years. Compared to the traditional finance, DeFi allows customers to flexibly participate in diverse…
The prosperity of Decentralized Finance (DeFi) unveils underlying risks, with reported losses surpassing 3.2 billion USD between 2018 and 2022 due to vulnerabilities in Decentralized Applications (DApps). One significant threat is the Price…
The adoption of blockchain-based distributed computation platforms is growing fast. Some of these platforms, such as Ethereum, provide support for implementing smart contracts, which are envisioned to have novel applications in a broad…
With the increasing popularity of blockchain, different blockchain platforms coexist in the ecosystem (e.g., Ethereum, BNB, EOSIO, etc.), which prompts the high demand for cross-chain communication. Cross-chain bridge is a specific type of…
Decentralized finance (DeFi) is revolutionizing the traditional centralized finance paradigm with its attractive features such as high availability, transparency, and tamper-proofing. However, attacks targeting DeFi services have severely…
Automated market makers (AMMs) are a new type of trading venues which are revolutionising the way market participants interact. At present, the majority of AMMs are constant function market makers (CFMMs) where a deterministic trading…
Decentralized finance (DeFi) has been the target of numerous profit-driven crimes, but the prevalence and cumulative impact of these crimes have not yet been assessed. This study provides a comprehensive assessment of profit-driven crimes…