Blockchain Papers

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151 papersLast indexed Aug 31, 2026
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Apr 9, 2026·Proceedings of the ACM Web Conference 2026
1 cites
BIND: Enabling Continuous Transaction Processing During Account Migration in Sharded Blockchains

Jiahao Qi, Dian Ding, Jie Li, Jiannong Cao · 7 authors

Account migration in sharded blockchains presents a critical trade-off between optimization effectiveness and system availability. While dynamically reallocating accounts across shards can significantly reduce cross-shard transaction overhead, existing migration mechanisms cause service disruptions that intensify as state data volumes grow. To address this challenge, we propose BIND, a batch-wise account migration protocol that eliminates service interruptions by enabling continuous transaction processing throughout migration. BIND introduces a dual transaction pool architecture that isolates transactions involving migrating accounts while allowing non-migrating accounts to operate uninterrupted. To optimize migration efficiency, we design a reverse greedy heuristic algorithm that partitions accounts into batches based on community cohesion, maximizing intra-batch connectivity to front-load cross-shard communication reduction. We evaluate BIND using real Ethereum transactions, demonstrating superior performance over existing mechanisms. BIND achieves 12% higher overall throughput, reduces migration time to 23.6%-39.3% of the one-shot baseline (across 1-10Gbps bandwidth), and lowers cross-shard transaction rates by 24.1% compared to random batching. These results confirm BIND as a practical solution for large-scale, non-disruptive account migration in production sharded blockchains.

Open access
Software System Performance and Reliability
Cloud Computing and Resource Management
Distributed systems and fault tolerance
Original source
Apr 9, 2026·Preprints.org
0 cites
Zero-Knowledge Proofs and Behavioural Analytics Mitigating Insider Threats in Contemporary Software Ecosystems

Thangamari D

Insider threats pose a persistent and evolving challenge to contemporary software ecosystems, where privileged users can exploit access for malicious purposes, often evading traditional perimeter-based defences. This paper introduces a novel hybrid framework that synergistically integrates zero-knowledge proofs (ZKPs) and behavioural analytics to detect and mitigate such threats with enhanced privacy and precision. ZKPs enable secure authentication and data verification without revealing sensitive information, ensuring compliance with privacy regulations like GDPR while thwarting unauthorized access. Complementarily, our behavioural analytics engine employs advanced machine learning models, including graph neural networks and unsupervised anomaly detection (e.g., isolation forests), to profile user behaviours across software pipelines, identifying deviations indicative of insider malice. The proposed architecture is deployed in a microservices-based ecosystem, demonstrating scalability via containerized components on Kubernetes. Extensive evaluations on benchmark datasets (e.g., CERT Insider Threat) and simulated enterprise environments yield a 95% detection accuracy, with 40% fewer false positives than state-of-the-art methods like UEBA systems. Latency remains under 50ms for real-time operations, preserving performance in high-throughput scenarios. Our framework outperforms baselines by 25% in F1-score, validated through rigorous ablation studies. By bridging cryptographic privacy with AI-driven intelligence, this work advances proactive security for modern software, offering deployable solutions against sophisticated insiders. Future extensions explore quantum-resistant ZKPs for post-quantum resilience.

Open access
Software System Performance and Reliability
Security and Verification in Computing
Information and Cyber Security
Original source
Apr 9, 2026·Preprints.org
0 cites
A Comprehensive Survey on Web-Based Stress Testing Frameworks for Blockchain Systems: Architectures, Metrics, and Future Directions

Krish Mithra Nagamothu

As blockchain technology evolves from specialized financial tools to foundational infrastructure for Web3, the necessity for rigorous performance validation becomes paramount. Stress testing—defined as the evaluation of system stability under extreme workloads—is critical for identifying bottlenecks in consensus mechanisms and peer-to-peer communication. This survey provides an exhaustive analysis of web-based stress testing frameworks. Unlike traditional CLI-based tools, web-based frameworks provide real-time telemetry and distributed orchestration capabilities essential for modern decentralized applications. We categorize existing literature into three generations of benchmarking, evaluate ten prominent frameworks based on a multi-dimensional rubric, and identify significant research gaps including the lack of standardized cross-chain stress protocols and AI-integrated anomaly detection. This work aims to provide a roadmap for researchers and DevOps engineers to select and implement robust testing environments for enterprise-grade blockchain deployments.

Open access
Software System Performance and Reliability
Blockchain Technology Applications and Security
IoT and Edge/Fog Computing
Original source
Apr 8, 2026·International Journal for Research in Applied Science and Engineering Technology
0 cites
Cloud Cost Optimization Using Smart Contracts and Unsupervised Machine Learning

Infant Mercy A

Cloud computing underpins modern IT infrastructure by delivering scalable, on-demand resource provisioning, yet controlling cloud expenditure remains a pressing challenge. Dynamic pricing structures, unpredictable workloads, and billing pipelines that lack real-time visibility create conditions in which unauthorized consumption and anomalous usage spikes routinely escape timely detection. This paper presents CloudPay, a blockchain-integrated cloud storage billing system that unifies unsupervised machine learning with smart contract execution to deliver verifiable, fine-grained, and fraud-resistant cost governance. The system converts user storage activity into time-series representations and applies the Isolation Forest algorithm to detect abnormal consumption spikes without any labelled training data. Flagged events are routed through an owner confirmation protocol that validates suspicious uploads before billing proceeds, preventing unauthorized charges from entering the settlement pipeline. Smart contracts autonomously compute GB-time-based charges, execute tokenized payments, and anchor every transaction to an immutable SHA-256 blockchain ledger. Experimental results confirm that the system achieves 94.4% anomaly detection accuracy, 99.7% billing precision, and an 18.4% reduction in overall cloud expenditure relative to static allocation baselines. These results demonstrate that integrating unsupervised anomaly detection with cryptographically enforced billing logic is a viable path toward tamper-evident, real-time cost governance in multi-tenant cloud environments.

Open access
Blockchain Technology Applications and Security
Cloud Computing and Resource Management
Software System Performance and Reliability
Original source
Apr 8, 2026·Figshare
0 cites
ANÁLISE DE CUSTO DE DEPLOY EM DIFERENTES EVMS

Tiago Ferreira Cavazin

Este artigo apresenta um esboço estruturado sobre “Análise de Custo de Deploy em Diferentes EVMs.”. O objetivo é analisar os fundamentos técnicos e econômicos do custo de implantação de contratos inteligentes em Ethereum L1, diversas Layer‑2 (rollups) e outras chains EVM‑compatíveis, discutindo implicações para o ecossistema Web3 e tendências de mercado. A metodologia baseia‑se em revisão bibliográfica e análise de casos práticos, com foco na decomposição do custo de deploy em componentes de gas (execução, armazenamento de código, dados de transação) e em como upgrades recentes – como Cancun/Deneb e a introdução de blobs de dados – alteram a estrutura de custos, especialmente para rollups que publicam dados em L1. Estudos mostram que, enquanto o gas é uma unidade abstrata consistente, o custo econômico por byte de código e por transação varia significativamente entre L1 (onde picos históricos chegaram a dezenas de dólares por transação) e L2s, onde taxas médias frequentemente ficam abaixo de centavos, especialmente após a redução em até 94% do custo por byte de dados com blobs. Ao mesmo tempo, análises de mercado indicam que L2 fees são estruturalmente compostas por uma parcela L1 (custo de dados e liquidação) mais uma parcela L2 (execução local), de modo que mudanças na economia de gas da L1 impactam indiretamente o custo de deploy e operação nas L2s. Conclui‑se que decisões de arquitetura e de escolha de EVM para deploy devem considerar não apenas o custo imediato de gas, mas também a herança de segurança, a volatilidade das taxas e a dependência em upgrades de protocolo que alteram a economia de dados e execução.<br>

Open access
2 source records
Software System Performance and Reliability
Cloud Computing and Resource Management
Information Technology Governance and Strategy
Original source
Apr 7, 2026·Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
0 cites
A Proposed Architecture for Testing Consensus Mechanisms

Muni Kousic Kumar Reddy Thavva

The correct and resilient operation of distributed systems—spanning global financial ledgers, decentralized autonomous organizations, and peer-to-peer energy microgrids—depends fundamentally on the correctness of their underlying consensus mechanisms. These protocols must guarantee agreement on shared state among a collection of potentially faulty or adversarial nodes, upholding the dual properties of safety and liveness even under hostile conditions. Despite the growing diversity of consensus algorithms, from classical crash-fault tolerant approaches such as Paxos and Raft to modern Byzantine fault-tolerant (BFT) variants and Directed Acyclic Graph (DAG)-based structures, the research community lacks a unified architecture for their systematic, cross-platform evaluation. This paper proposes a modular, extensible framework called the Consensus Evaluation and Resilience Framework (CERF) to fill this gap. CERF integrates five core components: a high-fidelity network emulation layer, a pluggable system-under-test (SUT) adapter, a fault injection engine (FIE) capable of simulating both benign and Byzantine failure modes, a multi-dimensional performance monitoring unit (PMU), and a formal consistency checker. By decoupling the testing infrastructure from protocol implementation, CERF enables fair comparisons of throughput, latency, energy efficiency, and scalability. The proposed architecture draws on insights from seminal benchmarking works including BlockBench, Jepsen, and ByzzBench, and extends evaluation criteria to address modern challenges in IoT environments, post-quantum security, and DAG-based ledgers. Graph-theoretical principles are incorporated at the topology design stage to model network vulnerabilities and guide adversarial scenario construction.

Open access
3 source records
Distributed systems and fault tolerance
Software-Defined Networks and 5G
Software System Performance and Reliability
Original source
Mar 28, 2026·International Journal of Network Security & Its Applications
0 cites
CONCURRENCY AND PERFORMANCE CHALLENGES IN LARGE-SCALE DISTRIBUTED APPLICATIONS

Matvii Horskyi

The article presents an analysis of concurrent execution issues and delivered performance in large-scale distributed applications deployed in cloud-native environments. The relevance of this direction is driven by the accelerated diffusion of the microservice paradigm and container-orchestration practices, within which classical synchronization and coordination approaches often become the dominant factor behind throughput degradation and latency growth. The text identifies baseline patterns of state management and state processing and then examines–at a detailed level–the causes and enabling conditions of data races in asynchronous execution loops. A separate emphasis is placed on the specificity of Kubernetes operators and on the requirement of idempotent reconciliation cycles as a key prerequisite for predictable system behavior under repeated triggers, partial failures, and mismatches between the observed and desired state. The research goal is formulated as the development of recommendations aimed at reducing latency and increasing reliability under concurrent access to shared resources and shared entities. To achieve this goal, methods of systems analysis are applied, architectural-pattern modeling is performed, and retrospective reflection on recurring failure patterns observed in production systems. The theoretical foundation relies on works devoted to distributed ledgers, while the applied part is supported by operational guidelines and engineering practices for running NoSQL solutions. The outcome is a description of the distinctive properties of a model for handling concurrent requests, designed to improve the resilience and controllability of distributed-component behavior. The findings presented in this work are expected to be of practical interest to system architects, DevOps engineers, and researchers working in the field of distributed computing.

Open access
Software System Performance and Reliability
Advanced Data Processing Techniques
Distributed systems and fault tolerance
Original source
Mar 19, 2026·arXiv (Cornell University)
0 cites
In the Margins: An Empirical Study of Ethereum Inscriptions

Xihan Xiong, Minfeng Qi, Shiping Chen, Guangsheng Yu · 6 authors

Ethereum Inscriptions (Ethscriptions) repurpose Ethereum calldata into a persistent inscription channel by embedding \texttt{data:}~URI payloads. These transactions typically target externally owned accounts, allowing the payload to bypass EVM execution while remaining permanently replicated across full nodes. Although calldata was originally designed for compact smart-contract parameters, this repurposing enables structured data embedding with long-term storage consequences. We present the first large-scale empirical study of Ethscriptions, treating them as a distinct \emph{calldata-resident workload} rather than merely a subset of general calldata usage. Our analysis focuses on the \textit{Ethscription} operational subset, which consists of payloads that decode to JSON and conform to a token-operation grammar (e.g., \texttt{p}, \texttt{op}, \texttt{tick}, \texttt{amt}). From $6.27$ million Ethscription candidates (\Uone), we extract $4.75$ million Ethscription operations (\Utwo, $75.8\%$ of \Uone). This result shows that structured token-like activity dominates the ecosystem. Our measurements further reveal (i) a complete workload lifecycle compressed into nine months (bootstrap, expansion, saturation), (ii) proliferation of $30$+ competing protocols without convergence toward a dominant standard, (iii) a lifecycle funnel exhibiting $201\times$ deploy-to-mint amplification and a $57.6{:}1$ mint-to-transfer collapse indicative of speculative minting, (iv) extreme participation inequality (Gini~$0.86$), and (v) a measurable permanent data footprint imposed on the Ethereum network.

Open access
3 source records
Distributed systems and fault tolerance
Scientific Computing and Data Management
Software System Performance and Reliability
Original source
Mar 6, 2026·Proceedings of the ACM on Programming Languages
0 cites
When Specifications Meet Reality: Uncovering API Inconsistencies in Ethereum Infrastructure

Jie Ma, Ningyu He, Jinwen Xi, Mingzhe Xing · 11 authors

The Ethereum ecosystem, which secures over $381 billion in assets, fundamentally relies on client APIs as the sole interface between users and the blockchain. However, these critical APIs suffer from widespread implementation inconsistencies, which can lead to financial discrepancies, degraded user experiences, and threats to network reliability. Despite this criticality, existing testing approaches remain manual and incomplete: they require extensive domain expertise, struggle to keep pace with Ethereum’s rapid evolution, and fail to distinguish genuine bugs from acceptable implementation variations. We present APIDiffer , the first specification-guided differential testing framework designed to automatically detect API inconsistencies across Ethereum’s diverse client ecosystem. APIDiffer transforms API specifications into comprehensive test suites through two key innovations: (1) specification-guided test input generation that creates both syntactically valid and invalid requests enriched with real-time blockchain data, and (2) specification-aware false positive filtering that leverages large language models to distinguish genuine bugs from acceptable variations. Our evaluation across all 11 major Ethereum clients reveals the pervasiveness of API bugs in production systems. APIDiffer uncovered 72 bugs, with 90.28% already confirmed or fixed by developers, including one critical error in the official specifications themselves. Beyond these raw numbers, APIDiffer achieves up to 89.67% higher code coverage than existing tools and reduces false positive rates by 37.38%. The Ethereum community’s response validates our impact: developers have integrated our test cases, expressed interest in adopting our methodology, and escalated one bug to the official Ethereum Project Management meeting. By making APIDiffer open-source, we enable continuous validation of Ethereum client API implementations, thereby strengthening the foundational integrity of the entire Ethereum ecosystem.

Open access
4 source records
Software System Performance and Reliability
Software Testing and Debugging Techniques
Software Engineering Research
Original source
Feb 26, 2026·International Journal of Computational and Experimental Science and Engineering
0 cites
Temporal Consistency Models for Financial Data Processing in Distributed Systems

Janardhan Reddy Chejarla

For most distributed financial systems, the constraints imposed by the CAP (Consistency, Availability, Partition Tolerance) theorem must be reconciled against the ordering constraints needed to satisfy regulatory requirements and meet the performance requirements of real-time transaction processing. This paper presents the Temporal Sequence Barrier consistency model for asynchronous high-throughput ledger systems. Combining logical vector clocks with epoch-based orchestration patterns imposes a strict causal ordering of events across multiple geographic regions without sacrificing availability. Its database-centric architecture allows stateful routing and selective replication of entities in order to achieve linearizability of causally related transactions while allowing independent sets of entities to be processed in parallel. We provide a detailed evaluation that shows that we can provide causal consistency at latency bounds equal to or better than existing systems using clever buffering and adaptive timeouts, while also addressing the classic challenges in distributed transaction management and operator complexity.

Open access
2 source records
Distributed systems and fault tolerance
Advanced Database Systems and Queries
Constraint Satisfaction and Optimization
Original source
Feb 25, 2026·Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
0 cites
Template-Based Endpoint Verification via Logprob Order-Statistic Geometry

Anthony Coslett

We study what model-identifying information leaks through commercial language-model APIs that expose top-k token log probabilities. Building on extreme-value theory predictions for logit order-statistic gaps, we confirm that the normalized third logit gap (δ norm) remains near the Gumbel-class constant ≈0.318 across 6 models from 3 providers (OpenAI, Google Vertex AI, xAI) and 3 independent measurement sessions, demonstrating that output-layer universality persists through API truncation and quantization. We introduce a PPP-residualization transform that removes the dominant tail scale factor and reveals a low-dimensional but stable endpoint-specific geometry in the remaining gap spectrum. Contrary to common assumption, "provider" is not a geometrically coherent label: models do not cluster by corporate origin under these observables, but they do separate by model identity across independent sessions. Using a challenge-response protocol with centroid averaging and per-model thresholds, we demonstrate cross-session endpoint verification with a 0.83% breach rate (119/120 correct identifications across three temporal sessions); per-model thresholds eliminate all breaches on this dataset. We observe a robustness phase transition governed by enrollment depth. Under single-session enrollment, prompt selection is load-bearing: the majority of bootstrapped banks fail to separate the six endpoints. Under two-session enrollment, bank sensitivity collapses on this dataset, and a bank compiler produces small compiled banks that exceed the margin of larger uncompiled banks. A dimensionless robustness parameter SNR(K,S) unifies both axes: prompt count K and enrollment depth S jointly govern the transition from bank-sensitive to bank-robust verification. We discuss operational implications for re-enrollment cadence and template management in production deployments. Addendum (02/26/2026): Post-publication results extend this framework in two directions. A distillation experiment across six training protocols demonstrates that a model's structural fingerprint (weight-geometry regime) is completely invariant to knowledge distillation, while its functional fingerprint (PPP-residual template) converges 31--52% toward the teacher's — enabling forensic detection of distillation provenance through API measurements alone. A conditional impossibility theorem, machine-checked in Coq (41 theorems, 0 Admitted), proves that no standalone model can spoof another's PPP-residual template across independent challenge prompts without exhausting its KL divergence budget, under four explicit trust assumptions. Technical Note: Gap Invariance: Why PPP Measurements Are Domain-Independent by Construction (DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.19275524) The Neural Network Identity Series — Mathematical foundations, empirical validation, and governance frameworks for verifying which model is running Newest addition: Technical Note: The Disappearing Window — AI Logprob Access Withdrawal and the Structural Verifiability of Frontier Model Contracts (DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.20362098) Paper 1: The δ-Gene: Inference-Time Physical Unclonable Functions from Architecture-Invariant Output Geometry (DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.18704275) Paper 2: Template-Based Endpoint Verification via Logprob Order-Statistic Geometry (DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.18776711) Paper 3: The Geometry of Model Theft: Distillation Forensics, Adversarial Erasure, and the Illusion of Spoofing (DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.18818608) Paper 4: Provenance Generalization and Verification Scaling for Neural Network Forensics (DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.18872071) Paper 5: Beneath the Character: The Structural Identity of Neural Networks — Mathematical Evidence for a Non-Narrative Layer of AI Identity (DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.18907292) Paper 6: Which Model Is Running?: Structural Identity as a Prerequisite for Trustworthy Zero-Knowledge Machine Learning (DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.19008116) Paper 7: The Deformation Laws of Neural Identity (DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.19055966) Paper 8: What Counts as Proof? — Admissible Evidence for Neural Network Identity Claims (DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.19058540) Paper 9: Composable Model Identity — Formal Hardening of Structural Attestations in the Enterprise Identity Stack (DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.19099911) Paper 10:Where Identity Comes From: Path Sensitivity and Endpoint Underdetermination in Neural Network Training (DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.19118807) Paper 11: Post-Hoc Disclosure Is Not Runtime Proof: Model Identity at Frontier Scale (DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.19216634) Paper 12: Family-Dependent Response to Reasoning Distillation Across Structural and Functional Identity Layers (DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.19298857) Paper 13: Safety-Alignment Removal as a Model-Identity Failure — Structural Evidence from Published Weight-Level Mutation Checkpoints (DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.19383019) Technical Note: Agent Identity Is Not Model Identity (DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.19240883) Technical Note: Measured Model Substitution Under Valid Agent Credentials (DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.19342848) Technical Note: Artifact Identity Is Not Runtime Identity — Trustfall Lite and the Boundary of File-Level Model Verification (DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.20019127) Formal Verification Stack for Neural Network Structural Identity (IT-PUF Coq Proofs) (DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.18930621) Copyright (c) 2026 Anthony Ray Coslett / Fall Risk AI, LLC. All Rights Reserved. Confidential and Proprietary. Patent Pending (Applications 63/982,893, 63/990,487, 63/996,680, 64/003,244).

Open access
2 source records
Software System Performance and Reliability
Data Quality and Management
Software Engineering Research
Original source
Feb 17, 2026·International Journal of Engineering & Technology
0 cites
Techniques for Using Server-side Node.js Modules with the Truffle Ethereum Development Framework

Hyunmin Eom, Jae-Hwan Jin, Myung-Joon Lee

Truffle is a framework that provides compiling, testing and systematic project management for developing Ethereum decentralized applications. As of now, Truffle provides a way to easily deal with bundling node.js modules of decentralized application using the webpack tool. However, due to the Truffle project structure, server-side node.js modules such as network communication modules are not usable in a direct way. In this paper, to address this issue, we propose a method to use server-side node.js modules through Ethereum smart contracts and event processing mechanism. In the proposed method, a separate node application is associated to the server-side module to execute the module in response to the request of the decentralized application. To this end, we introduce the notion of function gateway, a smart contract for connecting two applications with Ethereum's event-watch processing technique. Also, to use the function gateway contract in a robust way, we introduce a robust function gateway that includes the process of confirming whether or not the event-watch has occurred and the node.js module function has been executed. In addition, we present a decentralized application using node.js module for sending actual e-mails based on the function gateway.

Open access
Software System Performance and Reliability
Service-Oriented Architecture and Web Services
Robotics and Automated Systems
Original source
Feb 15, 2026·Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
0 cites
DLT-DSA: Design and Verification of a Local Autonomous Integrity Verification Model Using Adaptive Verification Intensity

Gwangsik Jo

Suggested Citation: Jo, Gwangsik. (2026). DLT-DSA: Design and Verification of a Local Autonomous Integrity Verification Model Using Adaptive Verification Intensity. Zenodo. AbstractIn some distributed ledger systems, transaction verification requires consensus procedures and network synchronization, and previous studies have reported that verification overhead tends to scale with increasing request frequency. This paper proposes a lightweight architecture, DLT-DSA (Distributed Ledger Technology – Decentralized Sovereign Access), designed to reduce dependence on global consensus and to pre-determine request integrity at the node level. The model adopts a multi-stage local verification structure using a context-aware mechanism: normal requests undergo lightweight verification based on ROA (Reduced Overhead Access), while anomalous conditions trigger autonomous integrity verification based on SHV (Self-Hash Verification). Proof-of-Concept (PoC) experiments show that the execution time of the verification logic remains within a stable range independent of variations in network round-trip time (RTT) and exhibits deterministic resource utilization under varying load conditions. These observations suggest that partial relocation of verification procedures to local processing can serve as a viable design alternative in real-time response environments. For more information about the author's professional background and ongoing projects, please visit: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gwangsik-jo-3295a43b5 ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0008-5702-8940

Open access
Distributed systems and fault tolerance
Software System Performance and Reliability
Cloud Computing and Resource Management
Original source
Feb 7, 2026·arXiv (Cornell University)
0 cites
SPECA: Specification-to-Checklist Agentic Auditing for Multi-Implementation Systems -- A Case Study on Ethereum Clients

Masato Kamba, Akiyoshi Sannai

Multi-implementation systems are increasingly audited against natural-language specifications. Differential testing scales well when implementations disagree, but it provides little signal when all implementations converge on the same incorrect interpretation of an ambiguous requirement. We present SPECA, a Specification-to-Checklist Auditing framework that turns normative requirements into checklists, maps them to implementation locations, and supports cross-implementation reuse. We instantiate SPECA in an in-the-wild security audit contest for the Ethereum Fusaka upgrade, covering 11 production clients. Across 54 submissions, 17 were judged valid by the contest organizers. Cross-implementation checks account for 76.5 percent (13 of 17) of valid findings, suggesting that checklist-derived one-to-many reuse is a practical scaling mechanism in multi-implementation audits. To understand false positives, we manually coded the 37 invalid submissions and find that threat model misalignment explains 56.8 percent (21 of 37): reports that rely on assumptions about trust boundaries or scope that contradict the audit's rules. We detected no High or Medium findings in the V1 deployment; misses concentrated in specification details and implicit assumptions (57.1 percent), timing and concurrency issues (28.6 percent), and external library dependencies (14.3 percent). Our improved agent, evaluated against the ground truth of a competitive audit, achieved a strict recall of 27.3 percent on high-impact vulnerabilities, placing it in the top 4 percent of human auditors and outperforming 49 of 51 contestants on critical issues. These results, though from a single deployment, suggest that early, explicit threat modeling is essential for reducing false positives and focusing agentic auditing effort. The agent-driven process enables expert validation and submission in about 40 minutes on average.

Open access
3 source records
cs.CR
Security and Verification in Computing
Access Control and Trust
Original source
Feb 5, 2026·arXiv (Cornell University)
0 cites
Proteus: Append-Only Ledgers for (Mostly) Trusted Execution Environments

Shubham Mishra, João Gonçalves, Chawinphat Tankuranand, Neil Giridharan · 7 authors

Distributed ledgers are increasingly relied upon by industry to provide trustworthy accountability, strong integrity protection, and high availability for critical data without centralizing trust. Recently, distributed append-only logs are opting for a layered approach, combining crash-fault-tolerant (CFT) consensus with hardware-based Trusted Execution Environments (TEEs) for greater resiliency. Unfortunately, hardware TEEs can be subject to (rare) attacks, undermining the very guarantees that distributed ledgers are carefully designed to achieve. In response, we present Proteus, a new distributed consensus protocol that cautiously trusts the guarantees of TEEs. Proteus carefully embeds a Byzantine fault-tolerant (BFT) protocol inside of a CFT protocol with no additional messages. This is made possible through careful refactoring of both the CFT and BFT protocols such that their structure aligns. Proteus achieves performance in line with regular TEE-enabled consensus protocols, while guaranteeing integrity in the face of TEE platform compromises.

Open access
3 source records
cs.DC
Distributed systems and fault tolerance
Security and Verification in Computing
Original source
Jan 29, 2026·Open MIND
0 cites
Is My RPC Response Reliable? Detecting RPC Bugs in Ethereum Blockchain Client under Context

Zhijie Zhong, Yuhong Nan, Mingxi Ye, Qing Xue · 8 authors

Blockchain clients are fundamental software for running blockchain nodes. They provide users with various RPC (Remote Procedure Call) interfaces to interact with the blockchain. These RPC methods are expected to follow the same specification across different blockchain nodes, providing users with seamless interaction. However, there have been continuous reports on various RPC bugs that can cause unexpected responses or even Denial of Service weakness. Existing studies on blockchain RPC bug detection mainly focus on generating the RPC method calls for testing blockchain clients. However, a wide range of the reported RPC bugs are triggered in various blockchain contexts. To the best of our knowledge, little attention is paid to generating proper contexts that can trigger these context-dependent RPC bugs. In this work, we propose EthCRAFT, a Context-aware RPC Analysis and Fuzzing Tool for client RPC bug detection. EthCRAFT first proposes to explore the state transition program space of blockchain clients and generate various transactions to construct the context. EthCRAFT then designs a context-aware RPC method call generation method to send RPC calls to the blockchain clients. The responses of 5 different client implementations are used as cross-referring oracles to detect the RPC bugs. We evaluate EthCRAFT on real-world RPC bugs collected from the GitHub issues of Ethereum client implementations. Experiment results show that EthCRAFT outperforms existing client RPC detectors by detecting more RPC bugs. Moreover, EthCRAFT has found six new bugs in major Ethereum clients and reported them to the developers. One of the bug fixes has been written into breaking changes in the client's updates. Three of our bug reports have been offered a vulnerability bounty by the Ethereum Foundation.

Open access
3 source records
cs.SE
Software System Performance and Reliability
Distributed systems and fault tolerance
Original source
Jan 28, 2026·arXiv (Cornell University)
0 cites
Decentralized Identity in Practice: Benchmarking Latency, Cost, and Privacy

Abylay Satybaldy, Kamil Tylinski, Jiahua Xu

Decentralized Identifiers (DIDs) are increasingly deployed on distributed ledgers, yet systematic cross-platform evidence on their operational behavior remains limited. We present an empirical benchmarking study of three prominent ledger-based DID methods - Ethereum, Hedera, and XRP Ledger - using reference Software Development Kits (SDKs) under a unified experimental setup. We measure latency, transaction cost, and on-chain metadata exposure, normalizing latency by each platform's block or consensus interval and cost by its native value transfer fee. Privacy leakage is quantified using a Metadata-Leakage Score (MLS), an entropy-based measure expressed in bits per operation. Our results reveal distinct architectural trade-offs. Ethereum enables near-instant, off-chain DID creation, but incurs the highest latency and cost for on-chain lifecycle operations. XRPL delivers deterministic and stable latency with fixed, low fees, yet exhibits higher metadata leakage due to more verbose transaction payloads. Hedera achieves the lowest on-chain latency and low fees with minimal metadata leakage, while occasional variance arises from SDK-side processing and confirmation pipelines. Overall, the findings show that ledger architecture and SDK workflows play a major role in shaping DID latency, cost, and metadata exposure, complementing the effects of the underlying consensus mechanism. These results provide evidence-based insights to support informed selection and configuration of DID systems under performance and privacy constraints.

Open access
3 source records
cs.CR
cs.ET
Scientific Computing and Data Management
Original source
Jan 1, 2026·Open MIND
0 cites
Towards Property-Based Testing of Smart Contracts Using Gas Analysis (Short Paper)

Elvira Albert, Emanuele De Angelis, Marco Di Ianni, Fabio Fioravanti · 5 authors

Testing has become an integral part of the software development process in order to ensure the correct and safe execution of programs. A powerful approach to testing is property-based testing that aims at generating unit tests that verify that a certain property of interest holds. However, smart contracts are also characterized by important non-functional aspects, such as the gas consumption required to execute their functions. Static gas analyzers are able to obtain parametric gas bounds - that soundly over-approximate - the gas consumption of executing each of the public functions within a smart contract. This paper discusses our ideas towards combining both formal methods, property-based testing and gas analysis, in order to generate gas-aware unit tests that can ensure the gas requirements provided by the programmers.

Open access
Software Testing and Debugging Techniques
Web Application Security Vulnerabilities
Software System Performance and Reliability
Original source
Jan 1, 2026·Open MIND
0 cites
K501 FRAMES: STRUCTURAL FOUNDATIONS, SYSTEM HARMONY, AND SEMANTIC STABILIZATION

Patrick Robert Miller

K501 is a deterministic temporal-structural integration framework designed to provide append-only state anchoring, canonical serialization, and hash-bound integrity across heterogeneous systems. The framework does not replace existing infrastructures such as databases, version control systems, or distributed ledgers. Instead, it operates as an optional structural overlay layer that encapsulates states in a formally defined frame model with explicit time anchoring (UTC + Unix Epoch). K501 focuses on: Deterministic canonical serialization Append-only historical discipline Explicit temporal positioning Snapshot-based integrity Cross-system structural interoperability The specification defines minimal compliance requirements for structural integration without modifying internal operational semantics of integrated systems. K501 is intended as a neutral structural discipline for temporal knowledge stabilization and reproducible state documentation. Peace 🕊️ Frames stehen nicht isoliert! Das ist eine formal belastbare Beschreibung. Keine Überhöhung.Kein AGI.Keine Spekulation.Aber diese hier ist solide. 🕊️

Open access
Distributed systems and fault tolerance
Software System Performance and Reliability
Security and Verification in Computing
Original source
Jan 1, 2026·Open MIND
0 cites
K501 Frames — Structural Integration Specification v1.0

Patrick Robert Miller

K501 is a deterministic temporal-structural integration framework designed to provide append-only state anchoring, canonical serialization, and hash-bound integrity across heterogeneous systems. The framework does not replace existing infrastructures such as databases, version control systems, or distributed ledgers. Instead, it operates as an optional structural overlay layer that encapsulates states in a formally defined frame model with explicit time anchoring (UTC + Unix Epoch). K501 focuses on: Deterministic canonical serialization Append-only historical discipline Explicit temporal positioning Snapshot-based integrity Cross-system structural interoperability The specification defines minimal compliance requirements for structural integration without modifying internal operational semantics of integrated systems. K501 is intended as a neutral structural discipline for temporal knowledge stabilization and reproducible state documentation. Peace 🕊️ Frames stehen nicht isoliert! Das ist eine formal belastbare Beschreibung. Keine Überhöhung.Kein AGI.Keine Spekulation.Aber diese hier ist solide. 🕊️

Open access
Software System Performance and Reliability
Distributed systems and fault tolerance
Security and Verification in Computing
Original source
Jan 1, 2026·Figshare
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State & Event Validation for Decentralized Systems

Steven Paul Nohr

<b><i>State and event validation</i></b> are fundamental for ensuring the correctness and integrity of system states as they transition across decentralized networks. In decentralized systems, such as blockchain or distributed ledgers, maintaining state consistency, triggering actions based on events, and validating those actions across nodes require robust consensus protocols. This paper explores the architecture of state and event validation mechanisms, addressing challenges such as node synchronization, consensus-based event ordering, and error handling in invalid state transitions. By examining the role of validation in maintaining trust and reliability, we highlight its importance in secure and scalable decentralized applications, including smart contracts, financial transactions, and IoT systems.

Open access
2 source records
Distributed systems and fault tolerance
Software System Performance and Reliability
Mobile Agent-Based Network Management
Original source
Jan 1, 2026·OSF Preprints (OSF Preprints)
0 cites
SARMF-Bench: Reproducible Smart Contract Vulnerability Benchmark Dataset

Mohit Tiwari

SARMF-Bench is a structured and reproducible benchmark dataset for smart contract vulnerability analysis. It consists of five minimal Solidity contracts representing canonical vulnerability classes: • Reentrancy • Arithmetic Overflow Behavior • Access Control Weakness • Unchecked External Call • Denial-of-Service Pattern Each contract is paired with machine-readable static analysis outputs generated using Slither v0.11.5. The dataset is designed to support controlled benchmarking experiments for: - Static analyzers - Symbolic execution engines - Fuzzers - AI-assisted smart contract security tools Related assets: GitHub repository: https://github.com/profmohit-edu/sarmf-framework Zenodo software DOI: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.18754015 Reproducibility protocol: https://doi.org/10.17504/protocols.io.bp216eyxdgqe/v1 Mendeley dataset DOI (pending moderation): https://doi.org/10.17632/kd3vcpnn9v.1 HAL record: https://hal.science

Open access
Security and Verification in Computing
Software System Performance and Reliability
Access Control and Trust
Original source
Jan 1, 2026·SSRN Electronic Journal
0 cites
Inference Battery Token (IBT): Failure Compensation as Training Signal

Austin Harshberger

This paper specifies the Inference Battery Token (IBT), an ERC-20 on Base that mints when the inference orchestrator verifies a failed AI response, compensating the subscriber and capturing a structured DPO preference pair in one operation. Minting occurs through two pathways: automatic spot-checks that re-execute sampled requests on trusted nodes, and subscriber-initiated flags confirmed through the same re-execution pipeline. Each verified failure mints tokens proportional to the compute cost wasted, ranging from 1 IBT for embeddings to 20 IBT for extended reasoning. Subscribers redeem IBT for battery credits, permanently burning tokens. A genesis allocation of 10,000,000 IBT bootstraps exchange liquidity, network operations, community grants, and early investor capital with 12-month vesting. Because minting depends on AI failure rates and redemption increases with adoption, circulating supply contracts as models improve. Contributors who serve compute earn platform credits and elect payouts in USD or IBT, with a 15% bonus for token election. Hardware contributors may also earn IBT by generating zero knowledge proofs for the verification system during idle GPU windows. Revenue from selling accumulated failure records to frontier labs through the data access tiers described in the companion paper provides fundamental backing for token value.

Open access
Software System Performance and Reliability
Distributed systems and fault tolerance
Software-Defined Networks and 5G
Original source