Blockchain Papers

Leopoldo Catania, Stefano Grassi

From the Washington University Senior Honors Thesis Abstracts (WUSHTA), 2017. Published by the Office of Undergraduate Research. Joy Zalis Kiefer, Director of Undergraduate Research and Associate Dean in the College of Arts & Sciences; Lindsey Paunovich, Editor; Helen Human, Programs Manager and Assistant Dean in the College of Arts and Sciences Mentors: Mina Lee and Li Yang

FC 2017 Sliema, Michael 1974- Brenner, Kurt Rohloff, Joseph Bonneau · 12 authors

No abstract is available for this record.

Feroz Ahmad Ahmad, Prashant Kumar, Gulshan Shrivastava, Med Salim Bouhlel

ON 12 JANUARY 2009 a pseudonymous entity signed a transaction that instructed a distributed network to transfer a small amount of digital currency to Hal Finney, one ofthe key figures of the cypherpunk movement. After a few minutes, the transaction was recorded on a distributed public ledger, permanently updating the balance ofbothparties. This transaction— the first Bitcoin transaction—marked the beginning of a new era of decentralized payment systems, ushering in a variety of financial Services that do not depend on any centralized clearinghouse or other financial middleman. Bitcoin is regarded by many as a powerful technological innovation that could disrupt many sectors, in the realm of finance and beyond. But the underlying technology on which the network operates, the Bitcoin blockchain can do much more than that. Just as the internet did in the early-1990s, blockchain technology carries with it a whole new range of promises concerning how decentralization can support and promote individual freedoms and autonomy. Blockchain proponents believe that Bitcoin and other cryptocurrency platforms will revolutionize mechanisms of value exchange in the same way that the internet transformed information sharing, by providing a platform for people to exchange digital resources, in a secure and decentralized manner without the need to rely on any intermediary or trusted authority. But this revolutionary potential also carries with it serious implications for censorship, intellectual property, and the regulated flow of information. A blockchain is a decentralized database of transactions maintained by a distributed network of computers, which all contribute to the verification and the validation of transactions. Once accepted, these transactions are recorded inside a “block” of transactions, which incorporates a reference to previous blocks. This creates a long chain of blocks—a “blockchain”—that stores the history of all transactions in a chronological order. Every block contains information about a particular set of transactions, a reference to the preceding block in the blockchain, and the answer to a complex mathematical puzzle that is used to validate the data associated with that block. A copy of the blockchain is stored on every computer in the network, making it virtually impossible for anyone unilaterally to modify the data stored on this decentralized database: if anyone tries to modify any transaction the fraud will be immediately detected by all other network participants.

Jarrod Long

All bettors, including the ???House,??? experience losing streaks and winning streaks. The House typically has a ???bankroll??? that is orders of magnitude larger than that of any individual bettor, and so can survive losing streaks without going bankrupt, thus remaining solvent long enough to win. Online wagering provides a new twist to this age-old scenario. We use elementary mathematical principles together with the idea of a virtual infinite sample size and the elimination of time as a constraint to develop a fail-proof system that generates the greatest possible exponential growth of capital. Let ?? (stake) be the amount you wish to invest or wager each time and ?? (return) be your return or odds on a proposition. Let n (number) be the sum of consecutive loosing investments or number of times you can loose on an identical proposition before depleting a specified amount of investment capital called ?? ( bankroll). The resultant equation, which I call the: Investment Betters Algorithm (click on thesis to view)
\nprovides the answer to remaining solvent long enough to outlast the irrationality of the simulated online ??? wagers open market ??? through a geometric progression. The augmented bankroll ?? , calculated slightly higher than the typical sum of the Geometric Series, can serve as a safeguard to capital ruin by it extreme disproportion to. Consider further the expected value of even money propositions, a virtual infinite sample size, and the elimination of time as a constraint and you have a no fail system to generate the greatest progressive exponential growth of capital. Current problems associated with financial return optimization algorithms are identified and discussed. Probable solutions to those problems are also prescribed along with improvements to diversified portfolio design.