Related papers: Commitment Attacks on Ethereum's Reward Mechanism
Blockchains offer a decentralized and secure execution environment strong enough to host cryptocurrencies, but the state-replication model makes on-chain computation expensive. To avoid heavy on-chain workloads, systems like Truebit and…
Blockchain offers a decentralized, immutable, transparent system of records. It offers a peer-to-peer network of nodes with no centralised governing entity making it unhackable and therefore, more secure than the traditional paper-based or…
While the literature features a number of proposals to defend against transaction manipulation attacks, existing proposals are still not integrated within large blockchains, such as Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Cardano. Instead, the user…
We identify a subtle security issue that impacts the design of smart contracts, because agents may themselves deploy smart contracts (side contracts). Typically, equilibria of games are analyzed in vitro, under the assumption that players…
Proposer anonymity in Proof-of-Stake (PoS) blockchains is a critical concern due to the risk of targeted attacks such as malicious denial-of-service (DoS) and censorship attacks. While several Secret Single Leader Election (SSLE) mechanisms…
Dynamic participation has recently become a crucial requirement for devising permissionless consensus protocols. This notion, originally formalized by Pass and Shi (ASIACRYPT 2017) through their "sleepy model", captures the essence of a…
Peer-review is a necessary and essential quality control step for scientific publications but lacks proper incentives. Indeed, the process, which is very costly in terms of time and intellectual investment, not only is not remunerated by…
Blockchain is a decentralized, distributed ledger technology that ensures transparency, security, and immutability through cryptographic techniques. However, advancements in quantum computing threaten the security of classical cryptographic…
Ethereum smart contracts are programs that can be collectively executed by a network of mutually untrusted nodes. Smart contracts handle and transfer assets of values, offering strong incentives for malicious attacks. Intrusion attacks are…
Blockchain systems often rely on rationality assumptions for their security, expecting that nodes are motivated to maximize their profits. These systems thus design their protocols to incentivize nodes to execute the honest protocol but…
Retroactive Public Goods Funding (RetroPGF) rewards blockchain projects based on proven impact rather than future promises. This paper reviews voting mechanisms for Optimism's RetroPGF, where "badgeholders" allocate rewards to valuable…
Blockchains revolutionized centralized sectors like banking and finance by promoting decentralization and transparency. In a blockchain, information is transmitted through transactions issued by participants or applications. Miners…
The advent of Ethereum 2.0 has introduced significant changes, particularly the shift to Proof-of-Stake consensus. This change presents new opportunities and challenges for arbitrage. Amidst these changes, we introduce BriDe Arbitrager, a…
Two MEV builders now produce nearly 80\% of Ethereum blocks. Block builders have the ability to reorder transactions on the blockchain in a way that can be harmful to participants. We estimate they would pay in the aggregate nearly \$14…
Cryptocurrency achieves distributed consensus using proof of work (PoW). Prior research in blockchain security identified financially incentivized attacks based on withholding blocks which have the attacker compromise a victim pool and pose…
This paper examines how various categories of Ethereum stakers respond to changes in the consensus issuance schedule, and the potential impact of such changes on the composition of the staking market. To this end, we have develop and…
Despite the popularity of Hashed Time-Locked Contracts (HTLCs) because of their use in wide areas of applications such as payment channels, atomic swaps, etc, their use in exchange is still questionable. This is because of its incentive…
The MEV-Boost block auction contributes approximately 90% of all Ethereum blocks. Between October 2023 and March 2024, only three builders produced 80% of them, highlighting the concentration of power within the block builder market. To…
Proof-of-Stake blockchains based on a longest-chain consensus protocol are an attractive energy-friendly alternative to the Proof-of-Work paradigm. However, formal barriers to "getting the incentives right" were recently discovered, driven…
Blockchain's economic value lies in enabling financial and economic transactions without relying on trusted, centralized intermediaries. In practice, however, transactions pass through a fragmented chain of intermediaries before being…