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Issue #100
Paper of the Week:
Paper Title: Rinocchio: SNARKs for Ring Arithmetic.
TLDR:
Succinct non-interactive arguments of knowledge (SNARKs) enable non-interactive efficient verification of NP computations and admit short proofs.
However, all current SNARK constructions assume that the statements to be proven can be efficiently represented as either Boolean or arithmetic circuits over finite fields.
For most constructions, the choice of the prime field Fp is limited by the existence of groups of matching order for which secure bilinear maps exist.
This work overcomes such restrictions and enables verifying computations over rings.
It constructs the first designated-verifier SNARK for statements which are represented as circuits over a broader kind of commutative rings, namely those containing big enough exceptional sets.
Exceptional sets consist of elements such that their pairwise differences are invertible.
The contribution is threefold: (i) introduction of Quadratic Ring Programs (QRPs) as a characterization of NP where the arithmetic is over a ring, (ii) SNARKs designed over rings in a modular way, (iii) two applications for the proposed SNARKs.
Authors: Chaya Ganesh*, Anca Nitulescu†, and Eduardo Soria-Vazquez‡,
Affiliations: * Indian Institute of Science, † Protocol Labs, ‡ Cryptography Research Centre, Technology Innovation Institute.
Security:
1. Paper Title: Selfish Mining Attacks Exacerbated by Elastic Hash Supply.
Summary: An empirical analysis showing that there is a statistically significant correlation between the profitability of mining and the total hash rate, confirming that miners indeed respond to changing profitability.
Authors: Yoko Shibuya*, Go Yamamoto*, Fuhito Kojima*, Elaine Shi†, Shin’ichiro Matsuo*‡, and Aron Laszka§,
Affiliations: * NTT Research, † Cornell University, ‡ Georgetown University, and § University of Houston.
2. Paper Title: 0.
Summary: This article discusses crypto bugs in four BLS signatures’ libraries (ethereum/py ecc, supranational/blst, herumi/bls, sigp/milagro_bls) that revolve around 0.
Authors: Nguyen Thoi Minh Quan*,
Affiliations: * undisclosed.
3. Paper Title: Formal Modelling and Security Analysis of Bitcoin’s Payment Protocol.
Summary: The first formal model of the protocol and formalise the refund address security goals for the protocol, namely refund address authentication and secrecy.
Authors: Paolo Modestia*, Siamak F. Shahandashtib†, Patrick McCorry‡, Feng Haod§,
Affiliations: * Teesside University, † University of York, ‡ PISA Research, and § University of Warwick.
4. Paper Title: EtherSolve: Computing an Accurate Control-Flow Graph from Ethereum Bytecode.
Summary: This paper presents a novel static analysis algorithm based on the symbolic execution of the Ethereum operand stack that allows us to resolve jumps in Ethereum bytecode and to construct an accurate control-flow graph (CFG) of the compiled smart contracts.
Authors: Filippo Contro*, Marco Crosara*, Mariano Ceccato*, and Mila Dalla Preda*,
Affiliations: * University of Verona.
Privacy:
1. Paper Title: Veksel: Simple, efficient, anonymous payments with large anonymity sets from well-studied assumptions.
Summary: A concrete construction for a cryptocurrency with privacy-preserving properties that supports arbitrary-sized anonymity sets.
Authors: Matteo Campanelli* and Mathias Hall-Andersen*,
Affiliations: * Aarhus University.
2. Paper Title: Two Efficient Regulatory Confidential Transaction Schemes.
Summary: Two regulatory and efficient confidential transaction schemes using homomorphic encryption and zero-knowledge proofs.
Authors: Min Yang*†, Changtong Xu*†, Zhe Xia‡, Li Wang§, and Qingshu Meng§,
Affiliations: * Wuhan University, † Key Laboratory of Aerospace Information Security and Trust Computing, ‡ Wuhan University of Technology, and § Wuhan Tianyu Information Industry Co.
3. Paper Title: Security and Privacy of Lightning Network Payments with Uncertain Channel Balances.
Summary: This work introduces and applies a mathematical framework to model the uncertainty of channel balances in the LN using probability theory.
Authors: Rene Pickhardt*, Sergei Tikhomirov†, Alex Biryukov†, and Mariusz Nowostawski*,
Affiliations: * Norwegian University of Science and Technology and † University of Luxembourg.
Scalability:
No papers.
Proofs:
1. Paper Title: Merkle Trees Optimized for Stateless Clients in Bitcoin.
Summary: A systematic study of Merkle tree based accumulators, with a focus on factors that reduce the proof size.
Authors: Bolton Bailey* and Suryanarayana Sankagiri*,
Affiliations: * University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.
Consensus:
No papers.
Tokenomics:
1. Paper Title: Quantum Crypto-Economics: BlockchainPrediction Markets for the Evolution of Quantum Technology.
Summary: Quantum hackers could falsify blocks being added to a blockchain and/or double spend tokens on any given blockchain depending on the features of the blockchain.
Authors: Peter P. Rohde*, Vijay Mohan†, Sinclair Davidson†, Chris Berg†, Darcy Allen†, Gavin Brennen‡, and Jason Potts†,
Affiliations: * University of Technology Sydney, † RMIT University, and ‡ Macquarie University.
2. Paper Title: Central Bank Digital Currency with Asymmetric Privacy.
Summary: The economic rationale for, and the technical feasibility of, a new form of CBDC.
Authors: Katrin Tinn* and Christophe Dubach*,
Affiliations: * McGill University.
3. Paper Title: A Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO) of DAOs.
Summary: This article examines the core features of a possible DAO of DAOs design, its ability to expand the DAO ecosystem, and the design’s uses in business and society.
Authors: Wulf A. Kaal*,
Affiliations: * University of St. Thomas.
Upcoming Events:
Decentralising the Internet with IPFS and Filecoin workshop at IFIP Networking 2021.
Call for Papers: ACM Advances in Financial Technologies (AFT 2021)
Jobs:
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