Related papers: SoK: Bitcoin Layer Two (L2)
Bitcoin is the first implementation of what has become known as a 'public permissionless' blockchain. Guaranteeing security and protocol conformity through its elegant combination of cryptographic assurances and game theoretic economic…
Blockchains are distributed systems, in which security is a critical factor for their success. However, despite their increasing popularity and adoption, there is a lack of standardized models that study blockchain-related security threats.…
Quantum computation represents a threat to many cryptographic protocols in operation today. It has been estimated that by 2035, there will exist a quantum computer capable of breaking the vital cryptographic scheme RSA2048. Blockchain…
With the escalating prevalence of malicious activities exploiting vulnerabilities in blockchain systems, there is an urgent requirement for robust attack detection mechanisms. To address this challenge, this paper presents a novel…
Advances in quantum computing threaten digital communication security by undermining the foundations of current public-key cryptography through Shor's quantum algorithm. This has driven the development of Post-Quantum Cryptography (PQC), a…
In the cryptographic currency Bitcoin, all transactions are recorded in the blockchain - a public, global, and immutable ledger. Because transactions are public, Bitcoin and its users employ obfuscation to maintain a degree of financial…
Blockchain is a decentralized transaction and data management solution, the technological weapon-of-choice behind the success of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. As the number and variety of existing blockchain implementations continues…
Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) drive the prosperity of the Web3 ecosystem. By November 2023, the total market value of NFT projects reached approximately 16 billion USD. Accompanying the success of NFTs are various security issues, i.e.,…
One fundamental limitation of blockchain-based smart contracts is that they execute in a closed environment. Thus, they only have access to data and functionality that is already on the blockchain, or is fed into the blockchain. Any…
While catastrophic attacks on Ethereum persist, vulnerability research remains fixated on implementation-level smart contract bugs, creating a gap between academic understanding of vulnerabilities and the root causes of high-impact,…
Bitcoin is the cryptocurrency with the largest market capitalisation, but its widespread adoption is fundamentally limited by the scalability constraints of its consensus algorithm, which requires every transaction to be confirmed onchain.…
Transparency is crucial in security-critical applications that rely on authoritative information, as it provides a robust mechanism for holding these authorities accountable for their actions. A number of solutions have emerged in recent…
Cross-chain bridges are used to facilitate token and data exchanges across blockchains. Although bridges are becoming increasingly popular, they are still in their infancy and have been attacked multiple times recently, causing significant…
This paper presents a comprehensive framework for transaction posting and pricing in Layer 2 (L2) blockchain systems, focusing on challenges stemming from fluctuating Layer 1 (L1) gas fees and the congestion issues within L2 networks.…
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…
With the recent advances of IoT (Internet of Things) new and more robust security frameworks are needed to detect and mitigate new forms of cyber-attacks, which exploit complex and heterogeneity IoT networks, as well as, the existence of…
This paper explores how zero-knowledge proofs can enhance Bitcoin's functionality and privacy. First, we consider Proof-of-Reserve schemes: by using zk-STARKs, a custodian can prove its Bitcoin holdings are more than a predefined threshold…
Large Language Models (LLMs) have achieved remarkable success but remain highly susceptible to jailbreak attacks, in which adversarial prompts coerce models into generating harmful, unethical, or policy-violating outputs. Such attacks pose…
The proof-of-work consensus protocol suffers from two main limitations: waste of energy and offering only probabilistic guarantees about the status of the blockchain. This paper introduces SklCoin, a new Byzantine consensus protocol and its…
Large Language Models (LLMs) are increasingly adopted in healthcare to support clinical decision-making, summarize electronic health records (EHRs), and enhance patient care. However, this integration introduces significant privacy and…