Blockchain Systems and Applications
Stub. The applied, systems-building side of blockchain research: encrypted blockchain databases, achieving optimal-resilience asynchronous fault-tolerant computation, the availability-finality dilemma, forensic analysis of BFT protocol failures (and whether player replaceability and forensic support can coexist), EIP-1559's fee-market design in retrospect, resilience to selfish mining (Colordag), incentive analysis of Hashed Timelock Contracts (HTLCs), and decentralization of Ethereum's block-building market (the builder market, and removing relays via DPaaS).
Collects the applied/systems-oriented research that builds on the theoretical Nakamoto-consensus and blockchain foundations of nakamoto-consensus-and-blockchains. Covers encrypted blockchain databases (storing and querying sensitive data on a public, otherwise- transparent ledger), achieving asynchronous fault-tolerant computation with the best possible (optimal) resilience, and the availability- finality dilemma — a tension between a chain being always available to extend and parties ever being certain a block is permanently final. BFT protocol forensics asks how to diagnose and attribute blame after a real-world consensus failure, and a further post asks whether player replaceability (from the earlier blockchains note) and forensic support can be achieved at the same time. On the economic side: EIP-1559 (Ethereum’s fee-market redesign) evaluated in retrospect, Colordag’s approach to selfish-mining resilience, incentive analysis revisiting HTLCs (hashed timelock contracts, the cross-chain atomic-swap primitive), and the decentralization of Ethereum’s block- building market — the builder/proposer separation (PBS) ecosystem, and a proposal (DPaaS) for removing centralizing relay intermediaries from it.
Outline (TODO — flesh out each)
- Encrypted blockchain databases
- Asynchronous fault-tolerant computation with optimal resilience
- Resolving the availability-finality dilemma
- BFT protocol forensics
- Player replaceability and forensic support, simultaneously?
- EIP-1559 in retrospect
- Colordag — selfish mining resilience
- Revisiting incentives in HTLCs
- Decentralization of the Ethereum builder market
- DPaaS — removing relays in Ethereum PBS