Related papers: Routing Attacks in Ethereum PoS: A Systematic Expl…
Regardless of their variations, blockchains require a consensus mechanism to validate transactions, supervise added blocks, maintain network security, synchronize the network state, and distribute incentives. Proof-of-Work (PoW), one of the…
Blockchains have seen growing traction with cryptocurrencies reaching a market cap of over 1 trillion dollars, major institution investors taking interests, and global impacts on governments, businesses, and individuals. Also growing…
Smart contracts are software programs featuring both traditional applications and distributed data storage on blockchains. Ethereum is a prominent blockchain platform with the support of smart contracts. The smart contracts act as…
Accountability, the ability to provably identify protocol violators, gained prominence as the main economic argument for the security of proof-of-stake (PoS) protocols. Rollups, the most popular scaling solution for blockchains, typically…
Blockchain and Cryptocurrencies are gaining unprecedented popularity and understanding. Meanwhile, Ethereum is gaining a significant popularity in the blockchain community, mainly due to the fact that it is designed in a way that enables…
Many blockchain networks aim to preserve the anonymity of validators in the peer-to-peer (P2P) network, ensuring that no adversary can link a validator's identifier to the IP address of a peer due to associated privacy and security…
Proof of Work (PoW) is a Sybil-deterrence security mechanism. It introduces an external cost to a system by requiring computational effort to perform actions. However, since its inception, a central challenge was to tune this cost. Initial…
The distributed consensus mechanism is the backbone of the rapidly developing blockchain network. Blockchain platforms consume vast amounts of electricity based on the current consensus mechanism of Proof of Work. Here, we point out an…
We present and validate a novel mathematical model of the blockchain mining process and use it to conduct an economic evaluation of the double-spend attack, which is fundamental to all blockchain systems. Our analysis focuses on the value…
Despite the tremendous interest in cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum today, many aspects of the underlying consensus protocols are poorly understood. Therefore, the search for protocols that improve either throughput or security…
Blockchain consensus mechanisms must balance security, decentralization, and efficiency while ensuring fair participation. Proof of Team Sprint (PoTS) is a cooperative consensus mechanism designed to address the energy inefficiencies and…
We reveal six zero-day social engineering attacks in Ethereum, and subdivide them into two classes: Address Manipulation and Homograph. We demonstrate the attacks by embedding them in source codes of five popular smart contracts with…
Existing permissioned blockchain systems designate a fixed and explicit group of committee nodes to run a consensus protocol that confirms the same sequence of blocks among all nodes. Unfortunately, when such a permissioned blockchain runs…
Blockchain technology enables secure, transparent data management in decentralized systems, supporting applications from cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin to tokenizing real-world assets like property. Its scalability and sustainability hinge…
The progress of deep learning (DL), especially the recent development of automatic design of networks, has brought unprecedented performance gains at heavy computational cost. On the other hand, blockchain systems routinely perform a huge…
Proof-of-Stake (PoS) consensus protocols often face a trade-off between performance and security. Protocols that pre-elect leaders for subsequent rounds are vulnerable to Denial-of-Service (DoS) attacks, which can disrupt the network and…
Proof-of-Stake (PoS) is a prominent Sybil control mechanism for blockchain-based systems. In "e-PoS: Making PoS Decentralized and Fair," Saad et al. (TPDS'21) introduced a new Proof-of-Stake protocol, e-PoS, to enhance PoS applications'…
The consensus algorithm is crucial in blockchain for ensuring the validity and security of transactions across the decentralized network. However, achieving consensus among nodes and packaging blocks in blockchain networks is a complex task…
As smart contract platforms autonomously manage billions of dollars of capital, quantifying the portfolio risk that investors engender in these systems is increasingly important. Recent work illustrates that Proof of Stake (PoS) is…
The Ethereum blockchain network is a decentralized platform enabling smart contract execution and transactions of Ether (ETH) [1], its designated cryptocurrency. Ethereum is the second most popular cryptocurrency with a market cap of more…