Issue #51
Paper of the Week:
Paper Title: A PoR/PoS-Hybrid Blockchain: Proof of Reputation with Nakamoto Fallback.
TLDR:
This work leverages the power of reputation systems to establish a reliable, permissionless blockchain.
The design goals are two-fold: (1) to rely on the reputation system to build a simple, highly scalable decentralized ledger with optimized finality, communication, and computation, and with a formal proof that relates the quality of the system to the quality of the reputation system; (2) to back the ledger’s safety with a fall-back mechanism that ensures that even if the reputation estimate is flawed, the ledger protocol does not create indefinite forks.
The proposed protocol proceeds in synchronous rounds and relies on a reputation system to select a set of leaders (parties that will propose the contents of the next block) and endorsers (parties that vote on the next block) that advance the blockchain.
To capture feasibility of proof-of-reputation PoR-based consensus, this work introduces the notion of a feasible reputation system which for static reputation systems requires that there is a party sampling algorithm, such that the probability that a super-majority of the selected parties is honest is overwhelming.
In order to allow for adversaries that have partial adaptivity, ideas from the adaptive and/or mobile adversaries literature are used and introducing a stricter feasibility condition which require a fraction of 3/4 honest parties in each committee.
Of prime importance in this construction, and a novelty of the PoR-lottery, is a mechanism which ensures an appropriate version of egalitarianism. This work proposes an appropriate notion of reputation fairness, termed PoR-fairness.
The blockchain construction addresses the subjective nature of reputation systems—e.g., inaccuracies due to the fact that the reputation estimator might be flawed and/or dis- honest parties might behave honestly until they build sufficient reputation to attack.
Authors: Leonard Kleinrock*, Rafail Ostrovsky*, and Vassilis Zikas†,
Affiliations: * UCLA and † University of Edinburgh.
Security:
1. Paper Title: Probing Channel Balances in the Lightning Network.
Summary: This work shows that an attacker can easily discover channel balances using probing.
Authors: Sergei Tikhomirov*, Rene Pickhardt†, Alex Biryukov *, and Mariusz Nowostawski*,
Affiliations: * University of Luxembourg and † Norwegian University of Science and Technology.
2. Paper Title: Attacking with bitcoin: Using Bitcoin to Build Resilient Botnet Armies.
Summary: This paper focuses on the problem of botnet orchestration and discusses how attackers can leverage decentralized technologies to dynamically control botnets with the goal of having botnets that are resilient against hostile takeovers.
Authors: Dimitri Kamenski*, Arash Shaghaghi*†, Matthew Warren*, and Salil S. Kanhere†,
Affiliations: * Deakin University and † The University of New South Wales.
Privacy:
1. Paper Title: SmartCoAuth: Smart-Contract privacy preservation mechanism on querying sensitive records in the cloud.
Summary: A framework based on Blockchain technology to enable privacy-preservation in a secured, decentralized, transparent and trustless environment.
Authors: Muhammed Siraj*, Mohd. Izuan Hafez Hj. Ninggal*, Nur Izura Udzir, Muhammad Daniel Hafiz Abdullah*, and Aziah Asmawi*,
Affiliations: * Universiti Putra Malaysia.
Scalability:
No papers.
Proofs:
No papers.
Consensus:
No papers.
Tokenomics:
1. Paper Title: The Coronavirus Lesson: Do Cryptocurrencies offer a Counter-cyclical Hedge?
Summary: This working paper tests the claim of whether cryptocurrencies truly offer a hedge against traditional instruments during market turmoil, using data from the initial phase of the 2020 coronavirus recession.
Authors: Usman W. Chohan*,
Affiliations: * UNSW.
2. Paper Title: Smart (Legal) Contracts, or: Which (Contract) Law for Smart Contracts?
Summary: This work argues, first, that smart contracts need contract law just as other, traditional contracts, and, second, that the applicable contract law can – at least in most cases – be determined with the help of the traditional rules of private international law.
Authors: Giesela Ruhl*,
Affiliations: * Humboldt-University of Berlin.
3. Paper Title: Decentralized Governance of Digital Platforms.
Summary: This paper draws on mechanism design theory to examine the benefits and limits of centralized and decentralized governance structures.
Authors: Yan Chen*, Igor Pereira†, and Pankaj C. Patel‡,
Affiliations: * Stevens Institute of Technology, † Florida State University, and ‡ Villanova University.
Conferences & CFPs:
August 3-6 - The 2nd IEEE International Conference on Decentralized Applications and Infrastructures (IEEE DAPPS 2020) (Oxford)
October 21-23 - The second ACM conference on Advances in Financial Technologies (AFT’20) (New York City)
Past Conferences’ Videos:
Jobs:
RFPs:
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