Blockchain Papers

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1,300 papersLast indexed Aug 31, 2026
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Jul 15, 2025·ResearchHub Technologies, Inc.
0 cites
Chimera: An Autonomic, Intent-Centric Architecture for Verifiable Decentralized Intelligence

Rafael Oliveira

Current decentralized architectures, while powerful, operate in silos.Intent-centric protocols solve for user expression but create trust assumptions for off-chain solvers. 1 Verifiable computation markets address this trust but lack a native framework for complex, goal-oriented coordination. 2Formal verification methods provide security for individual components but struggle with the emergent complexity of their composition. 3 This paper introduces Chimera, a novel protocol architecture that unifies these disparate paradigms.Chimera integrates generalized intent-centricity, a decentralized market for verifiable AI agents (zk-Agents), and autonomic governance inspired by closed-loop control theory, all within a framework of provable composability.We argue that by treating all network actions-from swaps to governance-as intents fulfilled by verifiable AI agents, and by governing the system with an autonomic management layer that monitors and adapts its own parameters, Chimera enables a new class of self-organizing, intelligent, and provably secure decentralized applications.We present the full architectural design and demonstrate its power through case studies in verifiable AI-driven finance and autonomic public goods funding.

Open access
Distributed systems and fault tolerance
Original source
Jul 15, 2025·Acta Cybernetica
0 cites
Smart Contract in the Loop

Bertalan Zoltán Péter, Zsófia Ádám, Zoltán Micskei, Imre Kocsis

Due to their decentralized and trustless nature, blockchain and distributed ledger technologies are increasingly used in several domains, including critical applications. The behavior of such blockchain-integrated systems is typically driven by smart contracts. However, smart contracts are application-specific software and may contain faults with severe system-level impacts. This is especially true in the case of the extensively used Hyperledger Fabric (HLF) platform, where smart contracts are written in general-purpose languages (Java, among others), and applications can go far beyond handling virtual-currency-like assets. In this work, we present a novel formal-verification-based approach to smart contract verification and a high-level empirical model of the HLF platform. Our Smart Contract in the Loop (SCIL) method uses a model checker (Java Pathfinder) to check whether specific error properties hold for a given smart contract, while a predefined combination of platform-level fault modes is active. We facilitate the checking of HLF smart contracts without modification and enable the propagation or non-propagation of platform faults through the smart contracts to the system failure level.

Open access
Blockchain Technology Applications and Security
Security and Verification in Computing
Distributed systems and fault tolerance
Original source
Jul 11, 2025·arXiv
0 cites
Modeling Wallet-Level Behavioral Shifts Post-FTX Collapse: An XAI-Driven GLM Study on Ethereum Transactions

Benjamin Gillen, Rashmi Ranjan Bhuyan, Gourab Mukherjee, Austin Pollok

The Ethereum blockchain plays a central role in the broader cryptocurrency ecosystem, enabling a wide range of financial activity through the use of smart contracts. This paper investigates how individual Ethereum wallets responded to the collapse of FTX, one of the largest centralized cryptocurrency exchanges. Moving beyond price-based event studies, we adopt a bottom-up approach using granular wallet-level data. We construct a representative sample of Ethereum addresses and analyze their transaction behavior before and after the collapse using an explainable artificial intelligence (XAI) framework. Our proposed framework addresses data scarcity in high-resolution wallet-level daily transactions by employing a calibrated zero-inflated generalized linear fixed effects model. Our analysis quantifies distinct shifts in transaction intensity and stablecoin usage, highlighting a flight to safety within the ecosystem. These findings underscore the value of a bottom-up methodology for quantifying the user-level impact of blockchain-based shocks, offering insights beyond traditional price-level analysis through wallet-level data.

Open access
2 source records
stat.AP
Distributed systems and fault tolerance
Digital Platforms and Economics
Original source
Jul 6, 2025·Herald of Kazakh-British technical university
0 cites
TOKENIZATION DYNAMICS: BLOCKCHAIN-BASED ISSUANCE AND DECENTRALIZED EXCHANGE INTEGRATION

N. Kemelbekov, Yenlik Begimbayeva, Olga Ussatova

In this article, we explore the complexities surrounding token issuance within blockchain networks and their integration with decentralized exchanges (DEXs). With the swift evolution of cryptocurrency and blockchain technologies, token issuance has become a prevalent means of funding initiatives and creating novel digital assets. This journey involves tackling a spectrum of technical and organizational hurdles, ranging from choosing the right token standard to crafting, testing, and deploying smart contracts on the Ethereum blockchain. Further, we explore the integration of issued tokens with decentralized exchanges, highlighting the importance of such platforms in enabling token trading without reliance on centralized intermediaries. The technical solutions required for this integration, along with considerations of the unique aspects of exchange protocols, are critically analyzed. We pay special attention to the ERC-20 standard for token creation, detailing the process of smart contract development and deployment on the Ethereum network. Additionally, the advantages and limitations of integrating tokens with DEXs are examined, providing a comprehensive understanding of both the opportunities and challenges within the rapidly evolving digital asset ecosystem. This study extends the current understanding of token dynamics by incorporating an in-depth analysis of scalability challenges, cross-chain interoperability, and the evolving regulatory landscape affecting token issuance and trading. By offering practical recommendations for overcoming identified hurdles, this research guides practitioners and policymakers in navigating the complexities of the decentralized finance (DeFi) space, making a significant contribution to the field of blockchain technology and digital finance.

Open access
Blockchain Technology Applications and Security
Distributed systems and fault tolerance
Original source
Jul 3, 2025·Proceedings of the 30th ACM Symposium on Access Control Models and Technologies
0 cites
A Policy-Based Mitigation of Transaction Exclusion in Ethereum [Work in Progress Paper]

Patrick Spiesberger, Jan Droll, Hannes Hartenstein

In the Ethereum system, the exclusion of specific transactions is currently feasible with minimal effort due to a power imbalance among entities. This censorship opportunity threatens the dependability of time-sensitive services deployable on Ethereum. In this paper, we look at this threat from an access control perspective and attribute it to a lack of accountability for censorship, a lack of policy definition and enforcement, as well as to the lack of disincentivization of policy violation. We propose an approach to enforceable policies in Ethereum. Furthermore, we demonstrate how a specific policy can address the shortcomings of existing censorship mitigation techniques, particularly Inclusion Lists. Under the assumption that block assemblers are unwilling to incur significant financial penalties as well as that the local view on the network messages is sufficiently consistent, the proposed approach guarantees the inclusion of a transaction in a block within 27 seconds in a non-saturated network. The empirical validation of sufficiently consistent views on outstanding transactions is currently in progress.

Open access
Caching and Content Delivery
Advanced Data Storage Technologies
Distributed systems and fault tolerance
Original source
Jul 1, 2025·arXiv (Cornell University)
0 cites
PANDAS: Peer-to-peer, Adaptive Networking for Data Availability Sampling within Ethereum Consensus Timebounds

Matthieu Pigaglio, Onur Ascigil, Michał Król, Sergi Reñé · 9 authors

Layer-2 protocols can assist Ethereum's limited throughput, but globally broadcasting layer-2 data limits their scalability. The Danksharding evolution of Ethereum aims to support the selective distribution of layer-2 data, whose availability in the network is verified using randomized data availability sampling (DAS). Integrating DAS into Ethereum's consensus process is challenging, as pieces of layer-2 data must be disseminated and sampled within four seconds of the beginning of each consensus slot. No existing solution can support dissemination and sampling under such strict time bounds. We propose PANDAS, a practical approach to integrate DAS with Ethereum under Danksharding's requirements without modifying its protocols for consensus and node discovery. PANDAS disseminates layer-2 data and samples its availability using lightweight, direct exchanges. Its design accounts for message loss, node failures, and unresponsive participants while anticipating the need to scale out the Ethereum network. Our evaluation of PANDAS's prototype in a 1,000-node cluster and simulations for up to 20,000 peers shows that it allows layer-2 data dissemination and sampling under planetary-scale latencies within the 4-second deadline.

Open access
2 source records
cs.DC
cs.NI
cs.PF
Original source
Jun 22, 2025·Reproducibility Reports of the 2025 International Conference on Management of Data
0 cites
Reproducibility Report for ACM SIGMOD 2025 Paper: 'InTime: Towards Performance Predictability In Byzantine Fault Tolerant Proof-of-Stake Consensus'

William Zhang, Qing Chen

We present the availability and reproducibility report of the ACM SIGMOD 2025 paper titled ''InTime: Towards Performance Predictability In Byzantine Fault Tolerant Proof-of-Stake Consensus''. Following the instructions provided the authors, we evaluated the artifacts hosted on Github. The reviewers confirmed that the codebase is functional and evaluatable. Reproducibility was straightforward as the authors provided automated scripts that simplified the execution of experiments. Experiments on single machine were reproduced while experiments requiring a large cluster of machines are constrained by limited resource capacity and instructions. Hence, the paper's core claims were partially reproduced.

Open access
Distributed systems and fault tolerance
Software System Performance and Reliability
Software Reliability and Analysis Research
Original source
Jun 16, 2025·arXiv (Cornell University)
0 cites
On Immutable Memory Systems for Artificial Agents: A Blockchain-Indexed Automata-Theoretic Framework Using ECDH-Keyed Merkle Chains

Craig Wright

This paper presents a formalised architecture for synthetic agents designed to retain immutable memory, verifiable reasoning, and constrained epistemic growth. Traditional AI systems rely on mutable, opaque statistical models prone to epistemic drift and historical revisionism. In contrast, we introduce the concept of the Merkle Automaton, a cryptographically anchored, deterministic computational framework that integrates formal automata theory with blockchain-based commitments. Each agent transition, memory fragment, and reasoning step is committed within a Merkle structure rooted on-chain, rendering it non-repudiable and auditably permanent. To ensure selective access and confidentiality, we derive symmetric encryption keys from ECDH exchanges contextualised by hierarchical privilege lattices. This enforces cryptographic access control over append-only DAG-structured knowledge graphs. Reasoning is constrained by formal logic systems and verified through deterministic traversal of policy-encoded structures. Updates are non-destructive and historied, preserving epistemic lineage without catastrophic forgetting. Zero-knowledge proofs facilitate verifiable, privacy-preserving inclusion attestations. Collectively, this architecture reframes memory not as a cache but as a ledger - one whose contents are enforced by protocol, bound by cryptography, and constrained by formal logic. The result is not an intelligent agent that mimics thought, but an epistemic entity whose outputs are provably derived, temporally anchored, and impervious to post hoc revision. This design lays foundational groundwork for legal, economic, and high-assurance computational systems that require provable memory, unforgeable provenance, and structural truth.

Open access
2 source records
cs.CR
cs.AI
cs.DC
Original source
Jun 11, 2025·arXiv (Cornell University)
0 cites
On the Performance of Cloud-based ARM SVE for Zero-Knowledge Proving Systems

Dumitrel Loghin, Shuang Liang, S. Liu, Xiong Liu · 6 authors

Zero-knowledge proofs (ZKP) are becoming a gold standard in scaling blockchains and bringing Web3 to life. At the same time, ZKP for transactions running on the Ethereum Virtual Machine require powerful servers with hundreds of CPU cores. The current zkProver implementation from Polygon is optimized for x86-64 CPUs by vectorizing key operations, such as Merkle tree building with Poseidon hashes over the Goldilocks field, with Advanced Vector Extensions (AVX and AVX512). With these optimizations, a ZKP for a batch of transactions is generated in less than two minutes. With the advent of cloud servers with ARM which are at least 10% cheaper than x86-64 servers and the implementation of ARM Scalable Vector Extension (SVE), we wonder if ARM servers can take over their x86-64 counterparts. Unfortunately, our analysis shows that current ARM CPUs are not a match for their x86-64 competitors. Graviton4 from Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Axion from Google Cloud Platform (GCP) are 1.6X and 1.4X slower compared to the latest AMD EPYC and Intel Xeon servers from AWS with AVX and AVX512, respectively, when building a Merkle tree with over four million leaves. This low performance is due to (1) smaller vector size in these ARM CPUs (128 bits versus 512 bits in AVX512) and (2) lower clock frequency. On the other hand, ARM SVE/SVE2 Instruction Set Architecture (ISA) is at least as powerful as AVX/AVX512 but more flexible. Moreover, we estimate that increasing the vector size to 512 bits will enable higher performance in ARM CPUs compared to their x86-64 counterparts while maintaining their price advantage.

Open access
2 source records
Distributed systems and fault tolerance
Cloud Computing and Resource Management
Cloud Data Security Solutions
Original source
Jun 10, 2025·Data in Brief
4 cites
A decentralised architecture for secure exchange of assets in data spaces: The case of SEDIMARK

Erika Duriakova, Diarmuid O’Reilly-Morgan, Maroua Bahri, Maxime Costalonga · 16 authors

The European Union's (EU) data strategy aims to create a single market for seamless data flow while ensuring proper governance, privacy, and data protection. In this paper, we present SEDIMARK, an EU project, that builds on this strategy by developing a fully decentralised, secure data marketplace. The goal of SEDIMARK is to build a complete toolbox that enables users to purchase and process data assets. The toolbox includes tools for data cleaning, decentralised machine learning models and secure data exchange. SEDIMARK offers users full control over data assets by enabling them to keep their data locally and thus removing the need for central servers. With customisable pipelines and tools, SEDIMARK supports a wide range of users, from novices to experts, promoting seamless collaboration and fair access to high-quality datasets across Europe. The decentralised connectivity in SEDIMARK is achieved with the use of Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT). Furthermore, SEDIMARK's architecture features a unique Connector component using Self Sovereign Identities (SSI), fostering trust and secure interactions. Transactions in SEDIMARK are stored in a Registry, a decentralised, immutable, non-repudiable and permissionless database. Together the technologies used in SEDIMARK ensure privacy, trust and data quality for secure management, sharing, and monetisation of assets in data spaces.

Open access
Advanced Data Storage Technologies
Privacy-Preserving Technologies in Data
Distributed systems and fault tolerance
Original source
Jun 4, 2025·arXiv (Cornell University)
0 cites
Depermissioning Web3: a Permissionless Accountable RPC Protocol for Blockchain Networks

Weihong Wang, Tom Van Cutsem

In blockchain networks, so-called "full nodes" serve data to and relay transactions from clients through an RPC interface. This serving layer enables integration of "Web3" data, stored on blockchains, with "Web2" mobile or web applications that cannot directly participate as peers in a blockchain network. In practice, the serving layer is dominated by a small number of centralized services ("node providers") that offer permissioned access to RPC endpoints. Clients register with these providers because they offer reliable and convenient access to blockchain data: operating a full node themselves requires significant computational and storage resources, and public (permissionless) RPC nodes lack financial incentives to serve large numbers of clients with consistent performance. Permissioned access to an otherwise permissionless blockchain network raises concerns regarding the privacy, integrity, and availability of data access. To address this, we propose a Permissionless Accountable RPC Protocol (PARP). It enables clients and full nodes to interact pseudonymously while keeping both parties accountable. PARP leverages "light client" schemes for essential data integrity checks, combined with fraud proofs, to keep full nodes honest and accountable. It integrates payment channels to facilitate micro-payments, holding clients accountable for the resources they consume and providing an economic incentive for full nodes to serve. Our prototype implementation for Ethereum demonstrates the feasibility of PARP, and we quantify its overhead compared to the base RPC protocol.

Open access
3 source records
Cloud Data Security Solutions
Blockchain Technology Applications and Security
Cryptography and Data Security
Original source
May 30, 2025·arXiv (Cornell University)
0 cites
Talking Transactions: Decentralized Communication through Ethereum Input Data Messages (IDMs)

Xihan Xiong, Zhipeng Wang, Qin Wang, Liu, Endong · 6 authors

Can you imagine, blockchain transactions can talk! In this paper, we study how they talk and what they talk about. We focus on the input data field of Ethereum transactions, which is designed to allow external callers to interact with smart contracts. In practice, this field also enables users to embed natural language messages into transactions. Users can leverage these Input Data Messages (IDMs) for peer-to-peer communication. This means that, beyond Ethereum's well-known role as a financial infrastructure, it also serves as a decentralized communication medium. We present the first large-scale analysis of Ethereum IDMs from the genesis block to February 2024 (3134 days). We filter IDMs to extract 867,140 transactions with informative IDMs and use LLMs for language detection. We find that English (95.4%) and Chinese (4.4%) dominate the use of natural languages in IDMs. Interestingly, English IDMs center on security and scam warnings (24%) with predominantly negative emotions, while Chinese IDMs emphasize emotional expression and social connection (44%) with a more positive tone. We also observe that longer English IDMs often transfer high ETH values for protocol-level purposes, while longer Chinese IDMs tend to involve symbolic transfer amounts for emotional intent. Moreover, we find that the IDM participants tend to form small, loosely connected communities (59.99%). Our findings highlight culturally and functionally divergent use cases of the IDM channel across user communities. We further examine the security relevance of IDMs in on-chain attacks. Many victims use them to appeal to attackers for fund recovery. IDMs containing negotiations or reward offers are linked to higher reply rates. We also analyze IDMs' regulatory implications. Their misuse for abuse, threats, and sexual solicitation reveals the urgent need for content moderation and regulation in decentralized systems.

Open access
2 source records
cs.CR
Distributed systems and fault tolerance
Business Process Modeling and Analysis
Original source
May 19, 2025·Anais do XLIII Simpósio Brasileiro de Redes de Computadores e Sistemas Distribuídos (SBRC 2025)
0 cites
Indo além da primeira camada: Modelagem e Avaliação de Desempenho de ZK-Rollups na plataforma Ethereum

Carlos Melo, José Miqueias, Glauber Dias Gonçalves, Francisco Airton Silva · 6 authors

Embora a transição da plataforma Ethereum para Proof-of-Stake e o surgimento de sidechains ofereçam soluções parciais para os problemas de escalabilidade, essas abordagens apresentam trade-offs entre segurança e complexidade de implementação. Para mitigar esses desafios, os ZK-Rollups surgiram como soluções de escalabilidade de Layer-2, combinando computação off-chain com verificação on-chain, garantindo segurança e descentralização na plataforma Ethereum. Este artigo propõe uma abordagem baseada em Redes de Petri Estocásticas para avaliar a viabilidade dos ZK-Rollups, considerando os principais fatores que impactam métricas de desempenho essenciais, como vazão e latência. Também analisamos a relação entre custo e benefício, incluindo o custo médio por transação e como este é impactado pelas métricas de desempenho. Os resultados mostram que uma maior adoção de transações na Layer-2 pode aumentar a vazão do sistema em até 20%, passando de 85 tps em um ambiente sem Layer-2 para 105 tps quando 90% das transações seguem por esse caminho. Por outro lado, a latência pode sofrer um aumento superior a 100% com a utilização de batches maiores na Layer-2.

Open access
Blockchain Technology Applications and Security
Distributed systems and fault tolerance
Scheduling and Optimization Algorithms
Original source
May 12, 2025·NOMS 2025-2025 IEEE Network Operations and Management Symposium
0 cites
Causal Analysis of GossipSub Mesh Parameters Over the XRP Ledger

Flaviene Scheidt de Cristo, Jorge Augusto Meira, Jean-Philippe Eisenbarth, Radu State

Several distributed systems based on unstructured p2p networks, such as blockchains, rely on underlying protocols to disseminate messages in a fast and reliable way. As the state-of-the-art for message dissemination in blockchains, GossipSub guarantees delivery and resilience against attacks and byzantine faults by scaling pubsub dissemination without exceeding bandwidth or overloading peers. Although GossipSub relies heavily on the way its mesh is constructed, there is little insight into how different configuration parameters impact the overall performance of the system. This study analyzes the relationships between the configuration and the performance of GossipSub from a causal point of view using the concrete case of the XRPL. By employing graphical causal methods to investigate the strength of those connections, this study goes towards the direction of finding the best configuration for GossipSub for different domains, without the need for excessive empirical tests.

Open access
Distributed systems and fault tolerance
Software System Performance and Reliability
Cloud Computing and Resource Management
Original source
May 8, 2025·arXiv (Cornell University)
0 cites
Blockchain Transaction Conflicts: A Historical Perspective

Parwat Singh Anjana, Srivatsan Ravi, Herlihy, Maurice

This paper presents a comprehensive analysis of historical data across two popular blockchain networks: Ethereum and Solana. Our study focuses on two key aspects: transaction conflicts and the maximum theoretical parallelism within historical blocks. We aim to quantify the degree of transaction parallelism and assess how effectively it can be exploited by systematically examining block-level characteristics, both within individual blocks and across different historical periods. In particular, this study is the first of its kind to leverage historical transactional workloads to evaluate conflict patterns. By offering a structured approach to analyzing these conflicts, our research provides valuable insights and an empirical basis for developing more efficient parallel execution techniques for smart contracts in the Ethereum and Solana. Our empirical analysis reveals that historical Ethereum blocks frequently achieve high independence, with over 50\% independent transactions in more than 50\% of blocks, while, on average, Solana blocks contain longer conflict chains $\sim$58\%, compared to $\sim$18\% in Ethereum, reflecting fundamentally different parallel execution dynamics.

Open access
2 source records
cs.DC
cs.ET
Blockchain Technology Applications and Security
Original source
May 1, 2025·Universiti Sains Malaysia Institutional Repository (Universiti Sains Malaysia)
0 cites
An Optimized Resource-Efficient Redaction Mechanism With Integrity Validation Support For Redactable Blockchain

Abd Ali Shams Mhmood Abd Ali

Blockchain technology introduces a new decentralized paradigm era avoiding the reliance on trusted third parties. It is a transparent and distributed ledger which is designed fundamentally for digital cryptocurrencies but has since been extended to various industries. However, its immutability obligates significant challenges including storing illicit contents, privacy regulations violations, and restricting data management flexibility. Therefore, redactable blockchain has emerged as a leading solution enabling controlled immutable contents amendment. Transaction-level redaction reinforced by fine-grained access control forms the cornerstone of the current redaction mechanisms. This redaction concept essentially depends on modifying mutable transactions governed by predefined access policies specified by the transaction owner. Modifiers equipped with necessary rewriting privileges and who fulfil the associated access policy are enabled to perform modifications. However, the existing redaction mechanisms infrastructures are inefficient. For instance, the chameleon hash ephemeral trapdoor (chet),

Open access
Blockchain Technology Applications and Security
Distributed systems and fault tolerance
Cryptography and Data Security
Original source
May 1, 2025·Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE)
1 cites
Mitigating Tails Switching in Multibranch Proof-of-Stake Systems: A Quantum-Inspired Approach

Shujaatali Badami

This paper explores the dynamics of multibranch forging algorithms within Proof-of-Stake (PoS) systems, focusing on the tails switching effect and its associated risks, such as the Nothing-at-Stake (N@S) attack. The study introduces a series of modifications to the traditional single-branch approach, drawing inspiration from quantum mechanics to enhance system security and efficiency. By analyzing the impact of smooth and direct measure functions on the cumulative measure of blockchain branches, the paper demonstrates that direct measures effectively reduce tails switching and stabilize the network. Additionally, the introduction of single-branch nodes is shown to stabilize the best chain, reducing the likelihood of history rewrites. The results suggest a promising pathway for improving multibranch PoS systems, emphasizing the need for further investigation into delayed propagation, transaction processing, and measure combinations.

Open access
2 source records
Blockchain Technology Applications and Security
Distributed systems and fault tolerance
Advanced Data Storage Technologies
Original source
Apr 30, 2025·International Journal of Multidisciplinary Research in Science, Engineering and Technology.
0 cites
Resource-Conscious Secure Storage Model for Ethereum-Based Decentralized Clouds

Aashish Kumar Jha, Mohammed Nihar N R, J Sankalpa, Chetana Prakash

ABSTRACT: As statistics is the backbone of the digital financial system dependence on centralized cloud storage structures makes users prone to troubles concerning statistics breaches operational price and lack of control this paper examines the deployment of a decentralized cloud storage DCS framework with the use of interplanetary file system IPFS and Ethereum blockchain clever contracts to triumph over those drawbacks the gadget proposed here improves protection and information availability by incorporating aes-256 encryption sharding of records and decentralized metadata control by the introduction of a working prototype based on react.js, Ethereum wallet, ether.js and solidity this mission illustrates the viability of a decentralized statistics garage whilst resolving troubles with latency user adoption and value effectiveness experimental consequences affirm enhancements in safety and availability establishing a strong platform for additional research on decentralized storage architectures

Open access
Cloud Computing and Resource Management
Cloud Data Security Solutions
Distributed systems and fault tolerance
Original source
Apr 24, 2025·Lecture notes in computer science
2 cites
Operational Semantics for Crystality: A Smart Contract Language for Parallel EVMs

Ziyun Xu, Hao Wang, Meng Sun

The increasing demand for scalable blockchain has driven research into parallel execution models for smart contracts. Crystality is a novel smart contract programming language designed for parallel Ethereum Virtual Machines (EVMs), enabling fine-grained concurrency through Programmable Contract Scopes and Asynchronous Functional Relay. This paper presents the first formal structural operational semantics for Crystality, providing a rigorous framework to reason about its execution. We mechanize the syntax and semantics of Crystality in the theorem-proving assistant Coq, enabling formal verification of correctness properties. As a case study, we verify a simplified token transfer function, demonstrating the applicability of our semantics in ensuring smart contract correctness. Our work lays the foundation for formally verified parallel smart contracts, contributing to the security and scalability of blockchain systems.

Open access
3 source records
cs.PL
Distributed systems and fault tolerance
Blockchain Technology Applications and Security
Original source
Apr 22, 2025·Proceedings of the ACM on Web Conference 2025
12 cites
AERO: Enhancing Sharding Blockchain via Deep Reinforcement Learning for Account Migration

Mingxuan Song, Pengze Li, Bohan Zhou, Shenglin Yin · 6 authors

Sharding blockchain networks face significant scalability challenges due to high frequencies of cross-shard transactions and uneven workload distributions among shards. To address these scalability issues, account migration offers a promising solution. However, existing migration solutions struggle with the high computational overhead and insufficient capture of complex transaction patterns. We propose AERO, a deep reinforcement learning framework to facilitate efficient account migration in sharding blockchains. AERO employs a prefix-based grouping strategy to enable group-level migration decisions and capture complex transaction patterns and relationships between accounts. We also implement a sharding blockchain system called AEROChain, which integrates AERO and aligns with the blockchain decentralization principle. Extensive evaluation with real Ethereum transaction data demonstrates that AERO improves the system throughput by 31.77% compared to existing solutions, effectively reducing cross-shard transactions and balancing shard workloads.

Open access
Blockchain Technology Applications and Security
Distributed systems and fault tolerance
Caching and Content Delivery
Original source
Apr 15, 2025·arXiv (Cornell University)
0 cites
Cartesian Merkle Tree

Artem Chystiakov, Oleh Komendant, Kyrylo Riabov

This paper introduces the Cartesian Merkle Tree, a deterministic data structure that combines the properties of a Binary Search Tree, a Heap, and a Merkle tree. The Cartesian Merkle Tree supports insertions, updates, and removals of elements in $O(\log n)$ time, requires $n$ space, and enables membership and non-membership proofs via Merkle-based authentication paths. This structure is particularly suitable for zero-knowledge applications, blockchain systems, and other protocols that require efficient and verifiable data structures.

Open access
2 source records
cs.CR
Distributed systems and fault tolerance
Cryptography and Data Security
Original source
Apr 12, 2025·Journal of Information Systems Engineering & Management
0 cites
Hybrid Data Integrity Verification for Real-Time IoT Systems Using AEAD and VRF with ECDSA

Harsh Kumar Verma

With the rapid growth of the Internet of Things (IoT), maintaining data integrity, confidentiality, and authentication is now an imperative challenge. Most conventional cryptographic solutions cannot satisfy the specific constraints of IoT environments, which include limited computational resources, energy efficiency, and scalability. This study proposes a lightweight hybrid cryptographic framework combining Authenticated Encryption with Associated Data (AEAD) and Verifiable Random Functions (VRF) with Elliptic Curve Digital Signature Algorithm (ECDSA). The hybrid framework is intended to offer robust data integrity, secure authentication, and efficient encryption mechanisms with minimal computational overhead. Our solution makes use of AEAD (AES-GCM or ChaCha20-Poly1305) in order to establish both confidentiality and integrity within a single encryption process and with much less processing time than in traditional approaches such as AES-CTR with HMAC. Use of VRF guarantees that cryptographic algorithms result in verifiable randomness that increases replay attack and unauthorized entry security. ECDSA is utilized for lightweight digital signatures, providing non-repudiation without the computational overhead being higher than RSA-based integrity mechanisms. To ensure the efficacy of our methodology, we performed thorough benchmarking tests comparing AEAD + VRF + ECDSA with conventional cryptographic methods like AES-CTR + HMAC and integrity verification based on RSA. It is revealed by our benchmarks that our hybrid solution considerably cuts down encryption time, minimizes CPU utilization, and maximizes memory usage, thus being very suitable for resource-poor IoT devices. In contrast to AES-CTR + HMAC, which needs independent encryption and authentication phases, AEAD's hybrid approach has the least storage footprint and computational overhead. Furthermore, avoiding a dedicated verification step (necessary in HMAC-based designs) adds to system responsiveness. Our work adds to the literature through a scalable, effective, and secure cryptographic framework optimized for IoT use cases such as secure messaging, sensor data encryption, and access control in distributed systems. Real-world deployment in IoT platforms, post-quantum cryptographic augmentation, and implementing zero-knowledge proofs (ZKPs) for improved privacy-preserving authentication are next steps. By solving major problems in IoT security, our hybrid approach provides an efficient yet reliable alternative to state-of-the-art cryptographic solutions to guarantee end-to-end data confidentiality and integrity within contemporary IoT infrastructures.

Open access
Cloud Data Security Solutions
Advanced Data Storage Technologies
Distributed systems and fault tolerance
Original source
Apr 9, 2025·arXiv (Cornell University)
0 cites
Conthereum: Concurrent Ethereum Optimized Transaction Scheduling for Multi-Core Execution

Atefeh Zareh Chahoki, Maurice Herlihy, Marco Roveri

Conthereum is a concurrent Ethereum solution for intra-block parallel transaction execution, enabling validators to utilize multi-core infrastructure and transform the sequential execution model of Ethereum into a parallel one. This shift significantly increases throughput and transactions per second (TPS), while ensuring conflict-free execution in both proposer and attestor modes and preserving execution order consistency in the attestor. At the heart of Conthereum is a novel, lightweight, high-performance scheduler inspired by the Flexible Job Shop Scheduling Problem (FJSS). We propose a custom greedy heuristic algorithm, along with its efficient implementation, that solves this formulation effectively and decisively outperforms existing scheduling methods in finding suboptimal solutions that satisfy the constraints, achieve minimal makespan, and maximize speedup in parallel execution. Additionally, Conthereum includes an offline phase that equips its real-time scheduler with a conflict analysis repository obtained through static analysis of smart contracts, identifying potentially conflicting functions using a pessimistic approach. Building on this novel scheduler and extensive conflict data, Conthereum outperforms existing concurrent intra-block solutions. Empirical evaluations show near-linear throughput gains with increasing computational power on standard 8-core machines. Although scalability deviates from linear with higher core counts and increased transaction conflicts, Conthereum still significantly improves upon the current sequential execution model and outperforms existing concurrent solutions under a wide range of conditions.

Open access
2 source records
cs.CR
cs.DC
Distributed and Parallel Computing Systems
Original source
Apr 4, 2025·2025 IEEE International Conference on Blockchain and Cryptocurrency (ICBC), Pisa, Italy, 2025, pp. 1-5
1 cites
Commit-Reveal$^2$: Securing Randomness Beacons with Randomized Reveal Order in Smart Contracts

Suhyeon Lee, Euisin Gee, Najmeh Soroush, Muhammed Ali Bingol · 5 authors

Simple commit-reveal beacons are vulnerable to last-revealer strategies, and existing descriptions often leave accountability and recovery mechanisms unspecified for practical deployments. We present Commit-Reveal$^2$, a layered design for blockchain deployments that cryptographically randomizes the final reveal order, together with a concrete accountability and fallback mechanism that we implement as smart-contract logic. The protocol is architected as a hybrid system, where routine coordination runs off chain for efficiency and the blockchain acts as the trust anchor for commitments and the final arbiter for disputes. Our implementation covers leader coordination, on-chain verification, slashing for non-cooperation, and an explicit on-chain recovery path that maintains progress when off-chain coordination fails. We formally define two security goals for distributed randomness beacons, unpredictability and bit-wise bias resistance, and we show that Commit-Reveal$^2$ meets these notions under standard hash assumptions in the random-oracle model. In measurements with small to moderate operator sets, the hybrid design reduces on-chain gas by more than 80% compared to a fully on-chain baseline. We release a publicly verifiable prototype and evaluation artifacts to support replication and adoption in blockchain applications.

Open access
2 source records
cs.CR
Cryptography and Data Security
Blockchain Technology Applications and Security
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