Related papers: SoK: Speedy Secure Finality
Ethereum's current Gasper consensus mechanism, which combines the Latest Message Driven Greediest Heaviest Observed SubTree (LMD-GHOST) fork choice rule with the probabilistic Casper the Friendly Finality Gadget (FFG) finality overlay,…
Gasper, the consensus protocol currently employed by Ethereum, typically requires 64 to 95 slots -- the units of time during which a new chain extending the previous one by one block is proposed and voted -- to finalize. This means that…
Currently, Gasper, the implemented consensus protocol of Ethereum, takes between 64 and 95 slots to finalize blocks. Because of that, a significant portion of the chain is susceptible to reorgs. The possibility to capture MEV (Maximum…
A Confirmation Rule, within blockchain networks, refers to an algorithm implemented by network nodes that determines (either probabilistically or deterministically) the permanence of certain blocks on the blockchain. An example of…
Motivated by proof-of-stake (PoS) blockchains such as Ethereum, two key desiderata have recently been studied for Byzantine-fault tolerant (BFT) state-machine replication (SMR) consensus protocols: Finality means that the protocol retains…
The CAP theorem says that no blockchain can be live under dynamic participation and safe under temporary network partitions. To resolve this availability-finality dilemma, we formulate a new class of flexible consensus protocols,…
Blockchain enables peer-to-peer transactions in cyberspace without a trusted third party. The rapid growth of Ethereum and smart contract blockchains generally calls for well-designed Transaction Fee Mechanisms (TFMs) to allocate limited…
Classic BFT consensus protocols guarantee safety and liveness for all clients if fewer than one-third of replicas are faulty. However, in applications such as high-value payments, some clients may want to prioritize safety over liveness.…
Solidity, the dominant smart contract language for Ethereum, has rapidly evolved with frequent version updates to enhance security, functionality, and developer experience. However, these continual changes introduce significant challenges,…
Immediate settlement, or single-slot finality (SSF), is a long-term goal for Ethereum. The growing active validator set size is placing an increasing computational burden on the network, making SSF more challenging. EIP-7251 aims to reduce…
As 6G networks evolve, inter-provider agreements become crucial for dynamic resource sharing and network slicing across multiple domains, requiring on-demand capacity provisioning while enabling trustworthy interaction among diverse…
Achieving low-latency consensus in geographically distributed systems remains a key challenge for blockchain and distributed database applications. To this end, there has been significant recent interest in State-Machine-Replication (SMR)…
We investigate automated model-checking of the Ethereum specification, focusing on the Accountable Safety property of the 3SF consensus protocol. We select 3SF due to its relevance and the unique challenges it poses for formal verification.…
Solidity is the dominant programming language for Ethereum smart contracts. This paper presents a high-level formalization of the Solidity language with a focus on the memory model. The presented formalization covers all features of the…
The use of blockchain and smart contracts have not stopped growing in recent years. Like all software that begins to expand its use, it is also beginning to be targeted by hackers who will try to exploit vulnerabilities in both the…
Ethereum represents new innovation in the fields of cryptocurrency which has become relatively stagnate, promising many things, including an entire programming language and development enviroment built into the network. However the current…
In recent publications, we presented a novel formal symbolic process virtual machine (FSPVM) framework that combined higher-order theorem proving and symbolic execution for verifying the reliability and security of smart contracts developed…
Many prominent smart-contract applications such as payment channels, auctions, and voting systems often involve a mechanism in which some party must respond to a challenge or appeal some action within a fixed time limit. This pattern of…
Modern cryptocurrency systems, such as Ethereum, permit complex financial transactions through scripts called smart contracts. These smart contracts are executed many, many times, always without real concurrency. First, all smart contracts…
Solidity is an object-oriented and high-level language for writing smart contracts that are used to execute, verify and enforce credible transactions on permissionless blockchains. In the last few years, analysis of smart contracts has…