Related papers: Payment Channels with Proofs
Proof-of-Work (PoW) is a popular consensus protocol used by Bitcoin since its inception. PoW has the well-known flaw of assigning all the reward to the single miner (or pool) that inserts the new block. This has the consequence of making…
Bitcoin mining is a wasteful and resource-intensive process. To add a block of transactions to the blockchain, miners spend a considerable amount of energy. The Bitcoin protocol, named 'proof of work' (PoW), resembles a lottery and the…
Bitcoin, Ethereum and other blockchain-based cryptocurrencies, as deployed today, cannot scale for wide-spread use. A leading approach for cryptocurrency scaling is a smart contract mechanism called a payment channel which enables two…
Blockchain is rapidly emerging as an important class of network application, with a unique set of trust, security and transparency properties. In a blockchain system, participants record and update the `server-side' state of an application…
Cryptocurrency off-chain networks such as Lightning (e.g., Bitcoin) or Raiden (e.g., Ethereum) aim to increase the scalability of traditional on-chain transactions. To support nodes in learning about possible paths to route their…
Q&A websites rely on user-generated responses, with incentives such as reputation scores or monetary rewards often offered. While some users may find it intrinsically rewarding to assist others, studies indicate that payment can improve the…
The Lightning Network (LN) is one of the most promising off-chain scaling solutions for Bitcoin, as it enables off-chain payments which are not subject to the well-known blockchain scalability limit. In this work, we introduce CLoTH, a…
Payment channel networks are a highly discussed approach for improving scalability of cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin. As they allow processing transactions off-chain, payment channel networks are referred to as second layer technology,…
Today, payment paths in Bitcoin's Lightning Network are found by searching for shortest paths on the fee graph. We enhance this approach in two dimensions. Firstly, we take into account the probability of a payment actually being possible…
Cryptocurrencies are distributed systems that allow exchanges of native (and non-) tokens among participants. The complete historical bookkeeping and its wide availability opens up an unprecedented possibility, i.e. that of understanding…
The Lightning Network, known for its millisecond settlement speeds and low transaction fees, offers a compelling alternative to traditional payment processors, which often have higher fees and longer processing times. This is particularly…
We examine a protocol $\pi_{\text{beacon}}$ that outputs unpredictable and publicly verifiable randomness, meaning that the output is unknown at the time that $\pi_{\text{beacon}}$ starts, yet everyone can verify that the output is close to…
A hard-fork reconfiguration of the peer to peer Bitcoin network is described that substitutes tamper-evident logs and proof-of-stake consensus for proof-of-work consensus. The block creation rewards and transaction fees are reallocated to…
Cryptocurrencies have gained popularity due to their transparency, security, and accessibility compared to traditional financial systems, with Bitcoin, introduced in 2009, leading the market. Bitcoin's security relies on blockchain…
Layer 1 (L1) blockchains such as Ethereum are secured under an "honest supermajority of stake" assumption for a large pool of validators who verify each and every transaction on it. This high security comes at a scalability cost which not…
Bitcoin is the most secure blockchain in the world, supported by the immense hash power of its Proof-of-Work miners. Proof-of-Stake chains are energy-efficient, have fast finality but face several security issues: susceptibility to…
Payment channel is a protocol which allows cryptocurrency users to route multiple transactions through network without committing them to the main blockchain network (mainnet). This ability makes them the most prominent solution to…
Payment networks, also known as channels, are a most promising solution to the throughput problem of cryptocurrencies. In this paper we study the design of capital-efficient payment networks, offline as well as online variants. We want to…
Cryptocurrency networks such as Bitcoin have emerged as a distributed alternative to traditional centralized financial transaction networks. However, there are major challenges in scaling up the throughput of such networks. Lightning…
Bitcoin mining presents a significant economic incentive for efficient hashing and broadcast of data, both parameters stemming from the Proofs of Work used to advance the network. This incentive has led to the development of Bitcoin…