BROUGHT TO YOU BY
Issue #103
Paper of the Week:
Paper Title: Pooling is not Favorable: Decentralize Mining Power of PoW Blockchain Using Age-of-Work.
TLDR:
If the aggregated computing power of the PoW pools form a substantial portion of the total computing power in the network, the pooled mining undermines the core spirit of blockchain, i.e., the decentralization, and harms its security.
To discourage the pooled mining, this work develops a new consensus protocol called Proof-of-Age (PoA) that builds upon the native PoW protocol.
The core idea of PoA lies in using Age-of-Work (AoW) to measure the effective mining period that the miner has devoted to maintaining the security of blockchain.
Unlike in the native PoW protocol, in PoA protocol, miners benefit from its effective mining period even if they have not successfully mined a block.
First a continuous time Markov chain (CTMC) is employed to model the block generation process of the PoA based blockchain.
Based on this CTMC model, block generation rates of the mining pool and solo miner are analyzed respectively.
The analytical results verify that under PoA, the block generation rates of miners in the mining pool are reduced compared to that of solo miners, thereby disincentivizing the pooled mining.
The mining process in the PoA blockchain is simulated to demonstrate the consistency of the analytical results.
Authors: Long Shi*, Taotao Wang†, Jun Li*, and Shengli Zhang†,
Affiliations: * Nanjing University of Science and Technology and † Shenzhen University.
Security:
No papers.
Privacy:
1. Paper Title: A Formal Analysis of the MimbleWimble Cryptocurrency Protocol.
Summary: An idealized model that is key in the verification process, and identify and precisely state sufficient conditions for the presented model to ensure the verification of relevant security properties of MW.
Authors: Adrián Silveira*, Gustavo Betarte*, Maximiliano Cristiá†, and Carlos Luna*,
Affiliations: * Universidad de la República and † Universidad Nacional de Rosario.
Scalability:
No papers.
Proofs:
1. Paper Title: Formal security analysis of MPC-in-the-head zero-knowledge protocols.
Summary: The first machine-checked security proof of a zero-knowledge protocol following the MPC-in-the-head paradigm.
Authors: Nikolaj Sidorenco*, Sabine Oechsner*, and Bas Spitters*†,
Affiliations: * Aarhus University and † Concordium Blockchain Research Center.
2. Paper Title: Generic Plaintext Equality and Inequality Proofs (Extended Version).
Summary: Generic protocols that can be instantiated with different encryption schemes.
Authors: Olivier Blazy*, Xavier Bultel†, Pascal Lafourcade‡ and Octavio Perez Kempner§✜,
Affiliations: * Universite de Limoges, † INSA Centre Val de Loire, ‡ University Clermont Auvergne, § École normale supérieure, and ✜ be-ys Research.
3. Paper Title: Stacking Sigmas: A Framework to Compose Σ-Protocols for Disjunctions.
Summary: Can we design a generic compiler that stacks any Σ-protocol without modification?
Authors: Aarushi Goel*, Matthew Green*, Mathias Hall-Andersen†, and Gabriel Kaptchuk‡,
Affiliations: * Johns Hopkins University, † Aarhus University, and ‡ Boston University.
Consensus:
No papers.
Tokenomics:
1. Paper Title: Is Non-fungible Token Pricing Driven by Cryptocurrencies?
Summary: Cryptocurrency pricing behaviours might be of some benefit in understanding NFT pricing patterns. However, the low volatility transmissions also indicate that NFTs can potentially be considered as a low-correlation asset class distinct from cryptocurrencies.
Authors: Michael M. Dowling*,
Affiliations: * Dublin City University Business School.
2. Paper Title: Blockchain Initiatives for Tax Administration.
Summary: This Article extends the study of blockchain to tax administration, evaluates the feasibility of incorporating blockchain within existing tax administrations, and provides policymakers with criteria to consider and some recommended designs for blockchain.
Authors: Young Ran (Christine) Kim*
Affiliations: * University of Utah.
3. Paper Title: Rent Seeking in BlockchainGovernance: The Awkward Transition From Market Decision Making to Non-market Decision Making.
Summary: This paper considers how to assess rentseeking in the context of blockchain governance.
Authors: Chris Berg*,
Affiliations: * RMIT University.
4. Paper Title: Decentralized Finance (DeFi): An Emergent Alternative Financial Architecture.
Summary: DeFi is mired in considerable difficulties including market manipulation, distortionary incentives, excess short-termism, Ponzi-schemes, and money-laundering challenges that also foment a considerable level of dissuasion against its wider adoption.
Authors: Usman W. Chohan*,
Affiliations: * UNSW Business School.
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:
Cryptography Researcher Position Lattice-Based Cryptography - Ethereum Foundation.
Cryptography Research Position Zero Knowledge Virtual Machines - Ethereum Foundation.
Thanks to our sponsor
Protocol Labs
Protocol Labs is an open-source research, development, and deployment laboratory. Projects include IPFS, Filecoin, libp2p, and many more. Protocol Labs aims to make human existence orders of magnitude better through technology.
The internet is humanity’s superpower, and they’re making it more dependable, equitable, and secure. Join the Protocol Labs team!
This newsletter is for informational purposes only. This content does not in any way constitute an offer or solicitation of an offer to buy or sell any investment solution or recommendation to buy or sell a security; nor it is to be taken as legal, business, investment, or tax advice. In fact, none of the information in this or other content on zk Capital should be relied on in any manner as advice. None of the authors, contributors, or anyone else connected with zk Capital, in any way whatsoever, can be responsible for your use of the information contained in this newsletter.