Related papers: Hornet Node and the Hornet DSL: A Minimal, Executa…
Datalog is a lightweight logic programming language, based on the logic of Horn clauses. Lean, on the other hand, is a proof assistant system and language based on the Calculus of Inductive Constructions (CIC). Datalog is more constrained…
Scalability is a common issue among the most used permissionless blockchains, and several approaches have been proposed to solve this issue. Tackling scalability while preserving the security and decentralization of the network is a…
Today's blockchains suffer from low throughput and high latency, which impedes their widespread adoption of more complex applications like smart contracts. In this paper, we propose a novel paradigm for smart contract execution. It…
Consensus is one of the most fundamental distributed computing problems. In particular, it serves as a building block in many replication based fault-tolerant systems and in particular in multiple recent blockchain solutions. Depending on…
Blockchain-based IoT systems can manage IoT devices and achieve a high level of data integrity, security, and provenance. However, incorporating the existing consensus protocols in many IoT systems limits scalability and leads to high…
Research in the field of blockchain technology and applications is increasing at a fast pace. Although the Bitcoin whitepaper by Nakamoto is already ten years old, the field can still be seen as immature and at an early stage. Current…
We present Carnot, a leader-based Byzantine Fault Tolerant (BFT) consensus protocol that is responsive and operates under the partially synchronous model. Responsive BFT consensus protocols exhibit wire-speed operation and deliver…
Bitcoin is built on a blockchain, an immutable decentralised ledger that allows entities (users) to exchange Bitcoins in a pseudonymous manner. Bitcoins are associated with alpha-numeric addresses and are transferred via transactions. Each…
Classical and contemporary distributed consensus protocols, may they be for binary agreement, state machine replication, or blockchain consensus, require all protocol participants in a peer-to-peer system to agree on exactly the same…
Reliable distributed systems require replication and consensus among distributed processes to tolerate process and communication failures. Understanding and assuring the correctness of protocols for replication and consensus have been a…
Blockchain technologies originate from cryptocurrencies. Thus, most blockchain technologies assume an environment with a fast and stable network. However, in some blockchain-based systems, e.g., supply chain management (SCM) systems, some…
Large-scale, fault-tolerant, distributed systems are the backbone for many critical software services. Since they must execute correctly in a possibly adversarial environment with arbitrary communication delays and failures, the underlying…
Byzantine Fault Tolerant (BFT) consensus forms the foundation of many modern blockchains striving for both high throughput and low latency. A growing bottleneck is transaction execution and validation on the critical path of consensus,…
This paper presents a mathematically rigorous formal analysis of Simplified Payment Verification (SPV) clients, as specified in Section 8 of the original Bitcoin white paper, versus non-mining full nodes operated by home users. It defines…
Sharding enhances blockchain scalability by dividing the network into shards, each managing specific unspent transaction outputs or accounts. As an introduced new transaction type, cross-shard transactions pose a critical challenge to the…
Ensuring the correctness of distributed system implementations remains a challenging and largely unaddressed problem. In this paper we present a protocol that can be used to certify the safety of consensus implementations. Our proposed…
There has been recently a lot of progress in designing efficient partially synchronous BFT consensus protocols that are meant to serve as core consensus engines for Proof of Stake blockchain systems. While the state-of-the-art solutions…
We present a toolchain for developing and verifying smart contracts that can be executed on Bitcoin. The toolchain is based on BitML, a recent domain-specific language for smart contracts with a computationally sound embedding into Bitcoin.…
We report our experience in the formal verification of the reference implementation of the Beacon Chain. The Beacon Chain is the backbone component of the new Proof-of-Stake Ethereum 2.0 network: it is in charge of tracking information…
Censorship resistance with short-term inclusion guarantees is an important feature of decentralized systems, missing from many state-of-the-art and even deployed consensus protocols. In leader-based protocols the leader arbitrarily selects…