Related papers: Private MEV Protection RPCs: Benchmark Stud
In blockchain systems operating under the Proof-of-Stake (PoS) consensus mechanism, fairness in transaction processing is essential to preserving decentralization and maintaining user trust. However, with the emergence of Maximal…
Decentralized finance (DeFi) markets spread across Layer-1 (L1) and Layer-2 (L2) blockchains rely on arbitrage to keep prices aligned. Today most price gaps are closed against centralized exchanges (CEXes), whose deep liquidity and fast…
Demand for blockchains such as Bitcoin and Ethereum is far larger than supply, necessitating a mechanism that selects a subset of transactions to include "on-chain" from the pool of all pending transactions. This paper investigates the…
Ethereum has undergone a recent change called \textit{the Merge}, which made Ethereum a Proof-of-Stake blockchain, shifting closer to BFT consensus. Ethereum, which wished to keep the best of the two protocol designs (BFT and…
Blockchains protect an ecosystem worth more than $500bn with strong security properties derived from the principle of decentralization. Is today's blockchain decentralized? In this paper, we empirically studied one of the least…
Liquid staking has become the largest category of decentralized finance protocols in terms of total value locked. However, few studies exist on its implementation designs or underlying risks. The liquid staking protocols allow for earning…
Financial speculators often seek to increase their potential gains with leverage. Debt is a popular form of leverage, and with over 39.88B USD of total value locked (TVL), the Decentralized Finance (DeFi) lending markets are thriving.…
This paper studies the effects of unexpected changes in US monetary policy on digital asset returns. We use event study regressions and find that monetary policy surprises negatively affect BTC and ETH, the two largest digital assets, but…
Blockchains offer strong security guarantees, but they cannot protect the ordering of transactions. Powerful players, such as miners, sequencers, and sophisticated bots, can reap significant profits by selectively including, excluding, or…
Decentralized Finance (DeFi) is a new paradigm in the creation, distribution, and utilization of financial services via the integration of blockchain technology. Our research conducts a comprehensive introduction and meticulous…
With the promise of greater decentralization and sustainability, Ethereum transitioned from a Proof-of-Work (PoW) to a Proof-of-Stake (PoS) consensus mechanism. The new consensus protocol introduces novel vulnerabilities that warrant…
Layer 2 rollups are rapidly absorbing DeFi activity, securing over $40 billion and accounting for nearly half of Ethereum's DEX volume by Q1 2025, yet their MEV dynamics remain understudied. We address this gap by defining and quantifying…
Lending protocols are one of the main applications of Decentralized Finance (DeFi), enabling crypto-assets loan markets with a total value estimated in the tens of billions of dollars. Unlike traditional lending systems, these protocols…
Ethereum has emerged as a leading platform for decentralized applications (dApps) due to its robust smart contract capabilities. One of the critical issues in the Ethereum ecosystem is Maximal Extractable Value (MEV), a concept that has…
Decentralized Finance (DeFi) took shape in 2020. An unprecedented amount of over 14 billion USD moved into DeFi projects offering trading, loans and insurance. But its growth has also drawn the attention of malicious actors. Many projects…
In this paper, we analyze various Decentralized Finance (DeFi) protocols in terms of their token distributions. We propose an iterative mapping process that allows us to split aggregate token holdings from custodial and escrow contracts and…
Scam contracts on Ethereum have rapidly evolved alongside the rise of DeFi and NFT ecosystems, utilizing increasingly complex code obfuscation techniques to avoid early detection. This paper systematically investigates how obfuscation…
Achieving the equilibrium between scalability, sustainability, and security while keeping decentralization has prevailed as the target solution for decentralized blockchain applications over the last years. Several approaches have been…
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…
As the confidentiality and scalability of smart contracts have become a crucial demand of blockchains, off-chain contract execution frameworks have been promising. Some have recently expanded off-chain contracts to Multi-Party Computation…