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Voting algorithms have been widely used as consensus protocols in the realization of fault-tolerant systems. These algorithms are best suited for distributed systems of nodes with low computational power or heterogeneous networks, where…
Streamlined Byzantine Fault Tolerant (BFT) protocols, such as HotStuff [PODC'19], and weighted voting represent two possible strategies to improve consensus in the distributed systems world. Several studies have been conducted on both…
In a world where elections touch every aspect of society, the need for secure voting is paramount. Traditional safeguards, based on classical cryptography, rely on complex math problems like factoring large numbers. However, quantum…
Participatory budgeting (PB) is a democratic process for allocating funds to projects based on the votes of community members. PB outcomes are commonly evaluated for how they reflect voters preferences (e.g., social welfare) and the extent…
In the era of digital markets, the challenge for consumers is discerning quality amidst information asymmetry. While traditional markets use brand mechanisms to address this issue, transferring such systems to internet-based P2P markets,…
A verifiable random function (VRF in short) is a powerful pseudo-random function that provides a non-interactively public verifiable proof for the correctness of its output. Recently, VRFs have found essential applications in blockchain…
We study the complexity of candidate control in participatory budgeting elections. The goal of constructive candidate control is to ensure that a given candidate wins by either adding or deleting candidates from the election (in the…
Optimistic rollups provide scalable smart-contract execution but remain unsuitable for regulated financial applications due to three structural gaps: semantic legitimacy, cross-layer state consistency, and ordering fairness. We introduce…
Thanks to built-in immutability and persistence, the blockchain is often seen as a promising technology to certify information. However, when the information does not originate from the blockchain itself, its correctness cannot be taken for…
Blockchain protocols incentivize participation through monetary rewards, assuming rational actors behave honestly to maximize their gains. However, attackers may attempt to harm others even at personal cost. These denial of profit attacks…
In an era of increasing concerns over intellectual property rights, traditional peer review systems face challenges including plagiarism, malicious attacks, and unauthorized data access. BeerReview, a blockchain-enabled peer review…
Given the parallels between game theory and consensus, it makes sense to intelligently design blockchain or DAG protocols with an incentive-compatible-first mentality. To that end, we propose a new blockchain or DAG protocol enhancement…
Elections repeat commonly after a fixed time interval, ranging from months to years. This results in limitations on governance since elected candidates or policies are difficult to remove before the next elections, if needed, and allowed by…
This paper studies Generative Flow Networks (GFlowNets), which learn to sample objects proportionally to a given reward function through the trajectory of state transitions. In this work, we observe that GFlowNets tend to under-exploit the…
We consider a committee voting on whether to adopt a reform under a quota rule, where members differ in how much they value the reform some supporting it, others opposing it. We examine how members can influence each other's votes through…
Public confidence in democratic institutions has declined across many OECD countries over recent decades, while political participation and policy influence remain unevenly distributed across socioeconomic groups. Concurrently, democratic…
We discuss an algorithmic intervention aimed at increasing equity and economic efficiency at a crowdfunding platform that gives cash subsidies to grantees. Through a blend of technical and qualitative methods, we show that the previous…
In participatory budgeting we are given a set of projects---each with a cost, an available budget, and a set of voters who in some form express their preferences over the projects. The goal is to select---based on voter preferences---a…
Casting a ballot from a phone or laptop sounds appealing, but only if voters can be confident their choice remains secret and results cannot be altered in the dark. This paper proposes a hybrid blockchain-based voting model that stores…
Systems and blockchains often have security vulnerabilities and can be attacked by adversaries, with potentially significant negative consequences. Therefore, infrastructure providers increasingly rely on bug bounty programs, where external…