SmartPool: Practical decentralized pooled mining Luu et al., USENIX Security 2017 Say you wanted to implement a mining pool that didn't place power in the hands of centralized pool operators. If only there was some fully decentralised way of establishing trust and coordinating activities according to a policy, in which anyone could participate... Oh, wait, … Continue reading SmartPool: Practical decentralized mining
Tag: Blockchain
Crypocurrencies and other applications of blockchain technology.
REM: Resource-efficient mining for blockchains
REM: Resource-efficient mining for blockchains Zhang et al., USENIX Security 2017 The proof-of-work (PoW) used in most blockchains could just as easily be called proof-of-wasted-energy. All that hashing serves no useful end beyond electing the next block in the chain. The combined energy waste is actually pretty staggering: PoWs serve no useful purpose beyond consensus … Continue reading REM: Resource-efficient mining for blockchains
Step by step towards creating a safe smart contract: lessons from a cryptocurrency lab
Step by step towards creating a safe smart contract: lessons and insights from a cryptocurrency lab Delmolino et al., 2015. This is an experience report from teaching a smart contract programming course to undergraduates at the University of Maryland, back in the Fall of 2014. Of course that's a very long time ago in the … Continue reading Step by step towards creating a safe smart contract: lessons from a cryptocurrency lab
Adding concurrency to smart contracts
Adding concurrency to smart contracts Dickerson et al., PODC'17 Yesterday we looked at how analogies from concurrent objects could help us understand smart contract behaviour. In today's paper choice from PODC'17 (which also has one Maurice Herlihy on the author list) we get to borrow some ideas from concurrent objects to increase the concurrency of … Continue reading Adding concurrency to smart contracts
A concurrent perspective on smart contracts
A concurrent perspective on smart contracts Sergey & Hobor, Workshop on Trusted Smart Contracts, 2017 Maurice Herlihy gave a keynote on 'Blockchains and the future of distributed computing' at PODC'17. In his slides (I wasn't there to hear the talk in person), he recommends reading 'A concurrent perspective on smart contracts.' And here we are! … Continue reading A concurrent perspective on smart contracts
Blockbench: a framework for analyzing private blockchains
Blockbench: a framework for analyzing private blockchains Dinh et al., SIGMOD'17 Here's a paper which delivers way more than you might expect from the title alone. First we get a good discussion of private blockchains and why interest in them is growing rapidly. Then the authors analyse the core layers in a private blockchain, and … Continue reading Blockbench: a framework for analyzing private blockchains
Hijacking Bitcoin: routing attacks on cryptocurrencies
Hijacking Bitcoin: routing attacks on cryptocurrencies Apostolaki et al., IEEE Security and Privacy 2017 The Bitcoin network has more than 6,000 nodes, responsible for up to 300,000 daily transactions and 16 million bitcoins valued at roughly $17B. Given the amount of money at stake, Bitcoin is an obvious target for attackers. This paper introduces a … Continue reading Hijacking Bitcoin: routing attacks on cryptocurrencies
On decentralizing prediction markets and order books
On decentralizing prediction markets and order books Clark et al., 13th Annual Workshop on the Economics of Information Security, 2014 This is the last of five papers in the ACM Queue Research for Practice series on 'Cryptocurrencies, Blockchains, and Smart Contracts .' It serves as a good example of repurposing block chains as a foundation … Continue reading On decentralizing prediction markets and order books
Making smart contracts smarter
Making smart contracts smarter Luu et al., CCS 2016 This is the fourth in a series of papers from the ACM Queue Research for Practice 'Cryptocurrencies, Blockchains and Smart Contracts' selections, in which Luu at al. look at smart contracts in Ethereum. Smart contracts are a really intriguing idea and have generated a lot of … Continue reading Making smart contracts smarter
A first look at the usabilty of Bitcoin key management
A first look at the usability of Bitcoin key management Eskandari et al., USEC 2015 This is the third of five papers from the ACM Queue Research for Practice selections on 'Cryptocurrencies, Blockchains, and Smart Contracts.' And thankfully it's much easier to read and understand than yesterdays! The authors point out that a cryptocurrency intended … Continue reading A first look at the usabilty of Bitcoin key management
the morning paper 