Related papers: A Fast Confirmation Rule (aka Fast Synchronous Fin…
The spectacular success of Bitcoin and Blockchain Technology in recent years has provided enough evidence that a widespread adoption of a common cryptocurrency system is not merely a distant vision, but a scenario that might come true in…
To address the large amount of energy wasted by blockchains, we propose a decentralized consensus protocol for blockchains in which the computation can be used to search for good approximate solutions to any optimization problem. Our…
In recent years, significant research efforts have focused on improving blockchain throughput and confirmation speeds without compromising security. While decreasing the time it takes for a transaction to be included in the blockchain…
A proof of the security of the Bitcoin protocol is made rigorous, and simplified in certain parts. A computational model in which an adversary can delay transmission of blocks by time $\Delta$ is considered. The protocol is generalized to…
In blockchain applications, transaction confirmation is often treated as usability friction to be minimized or removed. However, confirmation also marks the boundary between deliberation and irreversible commitment, suggesting it may play a…
The blockchain data structure maintained via the longest-chain rule---popularized by Bitcoin---is a powerful algorithmic tool for consensus algorithms. Such algorithms achieve consistency for blocks in the chain as a function of their depth…
In Tendermint blockchains, the proof-of-stake mechanism and the underlying consensus algorithm entail a dynamic fault model that implies that the active validators (nodes that sign blocks) may change over time, and a quorum of these…
Blockchain has recently attracted the attention of the industry due, in part, to its ability to automate asset transfers. It requires distributed participants to reach a consensus on a block despite the presence of malicious (a.k.a.…
Despite being under development for over 15 years, transaction throughput remains one of the key challenges confronting blockchains, which typically has a cap of a limited number of transactions per second. A fundamental factor limiting…
As blockchains continue to seek to scale to a larger number of nodes, the communication complexity of protocols has become a significant priority as the network can quickly become overburdened. Several schemes have attempted to address…
In this study, we propose PRETRUST, a new framework to address the problem of the efficiency of payment process based on blockchain systems. PRETRUST is based on the thoughts of consortium chains, supporting fast payments. To make parties…
Sidechain technology has been envisioned as a promising solution to accelerate today's public blockchains in terms of scalability and interoperability. By relying on the mainchain for security, different sidechains can formulate their own…
Ethereum is a permissionless blockchain ecosystem that supports execution of smart contracts, the key enablers of decentralized finance (DeFi) and non-fungible tokens (NFT). However, the expressiveness of Ethereum smart contracts is a…
Firmware integrity is a foundational requirement for securing Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS), where malicious or compromised firmware can result in persistent backdoors, unauthorized control, or catastrophic system failures. Traditional…
Consensus protocols are crucial for a blockchain system as they are what allow agreement between the system's nodes in a potentially adversarial environment. For this reason, it is paramount to ensure their correct design and implementation…
Blockchain consensus protocols enable participants to agree on consistent views of the blockchain that may be ahead or behind relative to each other but do not fork into different chains. A number of recently popular…
We report our experience in the formal verification of the reference implementation of the Beacon Chain. The Beacon Chain is the backbone component of the new Proof-of-Stake Ethereum 2.0 network: it is in charge of tracking information…
Ethereum represents new innovation in the fields of cryptocurrency which has become relatively stagnate, promising many things, including an entire programming language and development enviroment built into the network. However the current…
Authorization is challenging in distributed systems that cannot rely on the identification of nodes. Proof-of-work offers an alternative gate-keeping mechanism, but its probabilistic nature is incompatible with conventional security…
Blockchain platforms such as Ethereum and several others execute complex transactions in blocks through user-defined scripts known as smart contracts. To append a correct block into blockchain, miners execute these transactions of smart…