Issue #33
Paper of the Week:
Paper Title: Game-Theoretic Analysis of Mining Strategy in Bitcoin-NG Blockchain Protocol.
TLDR:
As of August 2019, Bitcoin has become the 11th largest currency in the world and has become a cutting-edge technology in FinTech, Internet of Things (IoT), and supply chains, thanks to fact that its data are i) replicated and stored in a decentralized manner in many locations; ii) tamper-proof; and iii) traceable.
Despite its strong security and privacy protection, Bitcoin network faces a significant scalability problem, i.e., the speed at which the network can handle transactions is restricted by the block size and block interval.
The Bitcoin-NG blockchain protocol has attracted much attention in solving the blockchain scalability problem and its compatibility with the current Bitcoin network as it introduces two types of blocks: key blocks and micro blocks.
However, Bitcoin-NG blockchain is prone to advanced mining attack that compromises its security. Without considering the joint effect of mining-time length, the mint coins contained in the key block, the transaction fee contained in the micro blocks, the original design of Bitcoin- NG blockchain is not robust against advanced mining attack.
Therefore, this work presents a thoughtful analysis of the advanced mining behavior of miners in Bitcoin-NG blockchain, by taking all the relevant factors into account.
It analyzes the the scenario where an attacker can mine the next key block in advance, while other miners in the network follow the honest mining. It also analyzes the scenario where the whole network is divided into two mining pools, and both mining pools can adopt advanced mining.
Lastly, it extend the two-player game to anN-player game which models the general scenario ofN > 2 mining pools showing that there always exists a Nash equilibrium for this N-player game.
Authors: Taotao Wang*, Xiaoqian Bai*, Hao Wang†, Soung Chang Liew‡, and Shengli Zhang*,
Affiliations: * Shenzhen University, † Stanford University, and ‡ The Chinese University of Hong Kong.
Security:
1. Paper Title: SAVER: Snark-friendly, Additively-homomorphic, and Verifiable Encryption and decryption with Rerandomization.
Summary: A new technique to detach encryption from the zk-SNARK circuit while maintaining the connectivity between them.
Authors: Jiwon Lee*, Jaekyoung Choi†, Jihye Kim†, and Hyunok Oh*,
Affiliations: * Hanyang University and † Kookmin University.
Privacy:
1. Paper Title: WaterCarver: Anonymous Confidential Blockchain System based on Account Model.
Summary: A novel transaction mix protocol, which provides confidentiality and, moreover, anonymity to account-model-based blockchain systems.
Authors: Jiajun Xin*, Pei Huang†, Lei Chen*, Xin Lai*, Xiao Zhang*, Wulu Li*, Yongcan Wang*,
Affiliations: * Shenzhen Onething Technologies Co and † Clemson University.
Scalability:
1. Paper Title: XBlock-ETH: Extracting and Exploring Blockchain Data From Etherem.
Summary: This paper introduces a well-processed up-to-date on-chain dataset of Ethereum, namely XBlock-ETH, which includes the data of the Ethereum blockchain, smart contracts and cryp- tocurrencies.
Authors: Peilin Zheng*, Zibin Zheng*, and Hong-Ning Dai*,
Affiliations: * Sun Yat-sen University.
2. Paper Title: MPro: Combining Static and Symbolic Analysis for Scalable Testing of Smart Contract.
Summary: A technique to analyze depth-n vulnerabilities in an efficient and scalable way by combining symbolic execution and data dependency analysis.
Authors: William Zhang*, Vijay Ganesh*, Sebastian Banescu†, Leodardo Pasos†, and Steven Stewart†,
Affiliations: * University of Waterloo and † Quantstamp Inc.
3. Paper Title: Transparent Downsampling Blockchain Algorithm.
Summary: This paper reduces the storage overhead of nodes by down- sampling history data.
Authors: Qin Huang*, Li Quan*, and Shengli Zhang†,
Affiliations: * Beihang University and † Shenzhen University.
Proofs:
No papers.
Consensus Protocols:
No papers.
Tokenomics:
1. Paper Title: The Public Blockchain Ecosystem: An Empirical Analysis.
Summary: An overview of the public blockchain ecosystem with an emphasis on consensus protocols.
Authors: Franz J. Hinzen*, Felix Irresberger†, Kose John*, Fahad Saleh‡,
Affiliations: * NYU, † Leeds University, and ‡ McGill University.
2. Paper Title: Regulation by Selective Enforcement: The SEC and Initial Coin Offerings.
Summary: Despite the general success of its ICO efforts, the SEC should acknowledge that many questions remain with respect to when a digital asset is a security.
Authors: James J. Park* and Howard H. Park*,
Affiliations: * UCLA.
Upcoming Conferences:
Nov 11-15 - ACM Conference on Computer and Communications Security (London)
Feb 10-14 - Financial Cryptography and Data Security 2020 (Malaysia)
Feb 19-21 - Stanford Blockchain Conference 2020 (Palo Alto)
March 07-08 - Cryptoeconomic Systems Conference 2020 by MIT Press (Boston)
April 13-16 - The 2nd IEEE International Conference on Decentralized Applications and Infrastructures (IEEE DAPPS 2020) (Oxford)
Past Conferences’ Videos:
Jobs:
“Significant research in the blockchain space is constantly being achieved by academic researchers. Unfortunately, a lot of this research is overlooked due to the massive numbers of papers being generated and the way they are being promoted and published. We’ve put together a categorized list of academic papers that can guide our subscribers and keep them up to date.”
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