BRC-20 (short for Bitcoin Request for Comment 20) token mania was a key storyline in the middle of 2023. Setting it apart from conventional ERC-20 token standards on Ethereum, BRC-20 introduces non-fungibility to Bitcoin through an editable field in each satoshi (0.00000001 Bitcoin, the smallest unit), making them unique. In this paper, we pioneer the exploration of this concept, covering its intricate mechanisms, features, and state-of-the-art applications. By analyzing the multi-dimensional data spanning over months with factual investigations, we conservatively comment that while BRC-20 expands Bitcoin's functionality and applicability, it may still not match Ethereum's abundance of decentralized applications and similar ecosystems.
ANDREI BOGDAN STANESCU, CATALIN VAJAIALA, Dragoş Cocîrlea
Abstract In the current digital world, ensuring efficient storage capabilities and increased data privacy, as well as high data availability and redundancy, are critical key performance indicators for organizations striving for customer excellence. To achieve these, a modern two-layer technical architecture is proposed in this study. The core layer of the solution is an InterPlanetary File System (IPFS) Cluster that leverages the distributed storage concept, and the second is an Ethereum-based blockchain that leverages privacy and immutability mechanisms. Next, the two-layer architecture is implemented and deployed to enhance data protection, as well as optimize data storage and access for a mid-size organization. The results reveal the enhancement of IPFS to overcome its privacy concerns via role-based access and cryptographic techniques. Moreover, the benefits of utilizing IPFS for data redundancy, efficient storage, and transfer through its distributed nature were reported. Finally, the integration of the IPFS Cluster with the Ethereum-based blockchain, as well as the overall benefits, we described.
Abstract This paper presents a quantitative model to assess the performance of a NFT (Non-Fungible Token)-centered chain as referred to as a NFT Chain in this paper. The model was introduced in [17] and more extensive simulations are conducted and the results are presented in this work. NFT chain in general stores its data distributed across on chain (e.g., NFT registration ledger data and an address pointing at the data located off chain such as meta data table and ultimate digital asset's data) due to the high cost to store the potentially high volume of data for digital assets. Therefore, it is expected that the overall performance of NFT chain is primarily to be dominated and bound by the off-chain performance. The proposed performance model employing an embedded Markovian queueing process model, tracks a bivariate state of the NFT chain such that \(\left(\varvec{i},\varvec{j}\right)\) where \(\varvec{i}\) stochastically tracks the number of slots of the transactions executed on chain and \(\varvec{j}\) stochastically tracks the number of transactions off chain as well, and the states transition as determined by \({\varvec{\lambda }}_{\varvec{o}\varvec{n}}\), \({\varvec{\lambda }}_{\varvec{o}\varvec{f}\varvec{f}}\), \(\varvec{\mu }\), and the number of slots in the current block. Extensive numerical simulations are performed to validate the efficacy of the model. The primary set of variables used in the simulations consists of \({\varvec{\lambda }}_{\varvec{o}\varvec{n}}\), \({\varvec{\lambda }}_{\varvec{o}\varvec{f}\varvec{f}}\), \(\varvec{\mu }\) and the average number of slots of the transactions during a block posting, \(\varvec{L}\), is simulated based on both \({\varvec{L}}_{\varvec{o}\varvec{n}}\)and \({\varvec{L}}_{\varvec{o}\varvec{f}\varvec{f}}\); and the average waiting time \(\varvec{W}\) based on both \({\varvec{W}}_{\varvec{o}\varvec{n}}\)and \({\varvec{W}}_{\varvec{o}\varvec{f}\varvec{f}}\), in an intermingled manner in order to take into account of the nature of NFT transactions executed across on- and off-chain without loss of generality. The simulation results in [17] has demonstrated a good agreement with the expected and intuitive trends. The results of more extensive simulations are presented in this paper to further demonstrate the efficacy and versatility of the proposed model. Ultimately, the proposed NFT chain model will serve as a sound theoretical foundation for the design of NFT chains from the performance's perspective.
Blockchain has been widely deployed in various fields, such as finance, education, and public services. Blockchain has decentralized mechanisms with persistency and auditability and runs as an immutable distributed ledger. However, blockchain systems suffer from critical scalability issues. In this paper, we present three challenges of the scalability issues, namely, poor data synchronization, time-consuming query process, and excessive data load, and discuss possible research directions from the storage hierarchy perspective.
Srivatsan Sridhar, Onur Ascigil, Navin V. Keizer, François Genon · 8 authors
The InterPlanetary File System (IPFS) is currently the largest decentralized storage solution in operation, with thousands of active participants and millions of daily content transfers. IPFS is used as remote data storage for numerous blockchain-based smart contracts, Non-Fungible Tokens (NFT), and decentralized applications. We present a content censorship attack that can be executed with minimal effort and cost, and that prevents the retrieval of any chosen content in the IPFS network. The attack exploits a conceptual issue in a core component of IPFS, the Kademlia Distributed Hash Table (DHT), which is used to resolve content IDs to peer addresses. We provide efficient detection and mitigation mechanisms for this vulnerability. Our mechanisms achieve a 99.6\% detection rate and mitigate 100\% of the detected attacks with minimal signaling and computational overhead. We followed responsible disclosure procedures, and our countermeasures are scheduled for deployment in the future versions of IPFS.
Blockchains face many challenges in time, among which the ever-growing storage needs for blockchains’ data. In particular, Ethereum is quickly approaching the 1 TB storage limit for a node, what may significantly reduce the candidates able to run an Ethereum fullnode. In this paper, we propose a new synchronization and storage strategy for Ethereum that takes full advantage of the Distributed Hash Table implemented in all clients but left unused. By digging into the history of Ethereum’s synchronization and storage strategies, we justify why such distribution of storage duties among peers makes much sense today. We implemented our solution in the official Ethereum client Geth and validated its smooth operation on a private Ethereum instance. Our solution can save around 60% of the storage of a node (360 GB) which represents a total of 12 PB of data at the network scale, while being fully backward compatible with current clients.
Lucian Trestioreanu, Wazen M. Shbair, Flaviene Scheidt de Cristo, Radu State
Recent technologies such as inter-ledger payments, non-fungible tokens, and smart contracts are all fruited from the ongoing development of Distributed Ledger Technologies. The foreseen trend is that they will play an increasingly visible role in daily life, which will have to be backed by appropriate operational resources. For example, due to increasing demand, smart contracts could soon face a shortage of knowledgeable users and tools to handle them in practice. Widespread smart contract adoption is currently limited by security, usability and costs aspects. Because of a steep learning curve, the handling of smart contracts is currently performed by specialised developers mainly, and most of the research effort is focusing on smart contract security, while other aspects like usability being somewhat neglected. Specific tools would lower the entry barrier, enabling interested non-experts to create smart contracts. In this paper we designed, developed and tested Blockly2Hooks, a solution towards filling this gap even in challenging scenarios such as when the smart contracts are written in an advanced language like C. With the XRP Ledger as a concrete working case, Blockly2Hooks helps interested non-experts from the community to learn smart contracts easily and adopt the technology, through leveraging well-proven teaching methodologies like Visual Programming Languages, and more specifically, the Blockly Visual Programming library from Google. The platform was developed and tested and the results are promising to make learning smart contract development smoother.
In this paper, we propose HybridCoin, a next-generation cryptocurrency that combines the advantages of both Bitcoin and Ethereum to create a highly versatile and efficient digital asset. The goal of HybridCoin is to unite Bitcoin’s proven store of value and robust security features with Ethereum’s powerful programmability and smart contract capabilities, thereby enabling a wide range of use cases and applications. We present the design and architecture of HybridCoin, with a focus on the consensus mechanism, scalability solutions, and smart contract functionality. We also discuss the security and privacy features of the proposed cryptocurrency, along with its potential use cases in digital payments, decentralized finance (DeFi), and asset management. Furthermore, we address the environmental sustainability and energy efficiency aspects of HybridCoin, offering strategies for sustainable blockchain operations. Finally, we explore the regulatory landscape and potential challenges faced by HybridCoin, including the impact of emerging trends, technological innovations, and the rise of Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs). By integrating the strengths of both Bitcoin and Ethereum, HybridCoin has the potential to revolutionize the cryptocurrency ecosystem and reshape the future of digital finance.
Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) are digital assets that provide unique ownership and authenticity of digital media such as art, music, and collectibles.NFT Marketplace is a blockchain-based platform that enables the creation, trading, and collecting of NFTs.The platform leverages blockchain technology to ensure the authenticity and ownership of NFTs, providing a secure and transparent way to transact digital assets.In this major project report, we explore the NFT Marketplace and its underlying blockchain technology.We provide an overview of the platform's features, including the ability to tokenize any digital asset, create customizable smart contracts, and sell NFTs with low fees and instant trades.We also discuss the advantages and disadvantages of the platform, including its ease of use, potential for fraud, and scalability challenges.The Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) have revolutionized the digital realm, redefining the concept of ownership and trade of unique digital assets.NFTs represent one-of-a-kind tokens, each verifiably and indelibly linked to a specific digital or physical asset, encompassing diverse forms of content, including video, audio, and images.These unique tokens have paved the way for creators to monetize their digital creations while providing collectors with an innovative means to invest, trade, and showcase their multimedia NFT collections.Central to the NFT ecosystem are NFT marketplaces, digital platforms designed to facilitate the creation, sale, and management of NFTs in various multimedia formats.These marketplaces have proliferated, providing creators with the means to mint NFTs, buyers with the opportunity to acquire them, and collectors with platforms to curate and trade their diverse NFT portfolios.We explore the multifaceted world of NFT marketplaces, focusing on their pivotal role in the creation, sale, and management of video, audio, and image NFTs.We analyze the economic implications, including pricing strategies and royalties, while addressing environmental sustainability concerns associated with NFTs.Challenges and opportunities encountered within this dynamic ecosystem are critically examined, including scalability, intellectual property rights, and the emergence of decentralized NFT marketplaces.Through in-depth case studies, we offer insights into the unique features and innovative approaches adopted by leading NFT marketplaces, shedding light on the transformative potential of this digital metaverse.This report serves as a valuable resource for those seeking a comprehensive understanding of NFT marketplaces catering to video, audio, and image NFTs, emphasizing the profound impact these tokens have on the creation, trade, and experience of digital content across various media formats.Navigating this dynamic digital frontier necessitates a nuanced perspective, and our survey aims to provide a holistic view of this rapidly evolving landscape.
Data synchronization in decentralized storage systems is essential to guarantee sufficient redundancy to prevent data loss. We present SNIPS, the first succinct proof of storage algorithm for synchronizing storage peers. A peer constructs a proof for its stored chunks and sends it to verifier peers. A verifier queries the proof to identify and subsequently requests missing chunks. The proof is succinct, supports membership queries, and requires only a few bits per chunk. We evaluated our SNIPS algorithm on a cluster of 1000 peers running Ethereum Swarm. Our results show that SNIPS reduces the amount of synchronization data by three orders of magnitude compared to the state-of-the-art. Additionally, creating and verifying a proof is linear with the number of chunks and typically requires only tens of microseconds per chunk. These qualities are vital for our use case, as we envision running SNIPS frequently to maintain sufficient redundancy consistently.
A non-fungible token (NFT) is a data unit stored on the blockchain. Nowadays, more and more investors and collectors (NFT traders), who participate in transactions of NFTs, have an urgent need to assess the performance of NFTs. However, there are two challenges for NFT traders when analyzing the performance of NFT. First, the current rarity models have flaws and are sometimes not convincing. In addition, NFT performance is dependent on multiple factors, such as images (high-dimensional data), history transactions (network), and market evolution (time series). It is difficult to take comprehensive consideration and analyze NFT performance efficiently. To address these challenges, we propose NFTVis, a visual analysis system that facilitates assessing individual NFT performance. A new NFT rarity model is proposed to quantify NFTs with images. Four well-coordinated views are designed to represent the various factors affecting the performance of the NFT. Finally, we evaluate the usefulness and effectiveness of our system using two case studies and user studies.
Block chain is the name of a distributed ledger system.Cryptocurrencies are by nature volatile since their prices shift often.To track the success of crypto-currencies, a platform was therefore considered.The software will monitor cryptocurrency performance and offer data on changes in the value of cryptocurrencies.In addition to using an API to obtain the cryptocurrency data, we built the platform using some of the most wellknown programming languages, including Python.With a user-friendly Interface, the platform we designed provides us with information about the performance of crypto-currencies.We get daily updates to the cryptocurrency data, which includes price movements for the previous day and the previous week.Cryptocurrency value is also a part of this.The major reason for developing this platform was to make it simple for users to get cryptocurrency insights.We designed our user interface (UI) so that users may easily and trouble-free navigate between all of the pages.
Monika di Angelo, Thomas Durieux, João F. Ferreira, Gernot Salzer
Abstract Blockchain programs (also known as smart contracts) manage valuable assets like cryptocurrencies and tokens, and implement protocols in domains like decentralized finance (DeFi) and supply-chain management. These types of applications require a high level of security that is hard to achieve due to the transparency of public blockchains. Numerous tools support developers and auditors in the task of detecting weaknesses. As a young technology, blockchains and utilities evolve fast, making it challenging for tools and developers to keep up with the pace. In this work, we study the robustness of code analysis tools and the evolution of weakness detection on a dataset representing six years of blockchain activity. We focus on Ethereum as the crypto ecosystem with the largest number of developers and deployed programs. We investigate the behavior of single tools as well as the agreement of several tools addressing similar weaknesses. Our study is the first that is based on the entire body of deployed bytecode on Ethereum’s main chain. We achieve this coverage by considering bytecodes as equivalent if they share the same skeleton. The skeleton of a bytecode is obtained by omitting functionally irrelevant parts. This reduces the 48 million contracts deployed on Ethereum up to January 2022 to 248 328 contracts with distinct skeletons. For bulk execution, we utilize the open-source framework SmartBugs that facilitates the analysis of Solidity smart contracts, and enhance it to accept also bytecode as the only input. Moreover, we integrate six further tools for bytecode analysis. The execution of the 12 tools included in our study on the dataset took 30 CPU years. While the tools report a total of 1 307 486 potential weaknesses, we observe a decrease in reported weaknesses over time, as well as a degradation of tools to varying degrees.
Ali Menati, Yuting Cai, Rayan El Helou, Chao Tian · 5 authors
Proof-of-work computation used in cryptocurrencies has witnessed significant growth in the U.S. and many other regions around the world. One of the most significant bottlenecks for the scalable deployment of such computation is its energy demand. On the other hand, the electric energy system is increasing the need for flexibility for energy balancing and ancillary services due to the intermittent nature of many new energy resources such as wind and solar. In this work, we model the operation of a cryptomining facility with heterogeneous mining devices participating in ancillary services. We propose a general formulation for the cryptominers to maximize their profit by strategically participating in ancillary services and controlling the loss of mining revenue, which requires taking into account the disparity in the efficiency of the mining machines. The optimization formulation is considered for both offline and online scenarios, and optimal algorithms are proposed to solve these problems. As a special case of our problem, we investigate cryptominers' participation in frequency regulation, where the miners benefit from their fast-responding devices and contribute to grid stability. In the second special setting, a risk-aware algorithm is proposed to jointly minimize the cost and the risk of participating in ancillary services with homogeneous mining devices. Simulation results based on real-world Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) traces show more than 20\% gain in profit, highlighting the advantage of our proposed algorithms.
Currently, Gasper, the implemented consensus protocol of Ethereum, takes between 64 and 95 slots to finalize blocks. Because of that, a significant portion of the chain is susceptible to reorgs. The possibility to capture MEV (Maximum Extractable Value) through such reorgs can then disincentivize honestly following the protocol, breaking the desired correspondence of honest and rational behavior. Moreover, the relatively long time to finality forces users to choose between economic security and faster transaction confirmation. This motivates the study of the so-called single slot finality protocols: consensus protocols that finalize a block in each slot and, more importantly, that finalize the block proposed at a given slot within such slot. In this work we propose a simple, non-blackbox protocol that combines a synchronous dynamically available protocol with a partially synchronous finality gadget, resulting in a consensus protocol that can finalize one block per slot, paving the way to single slot finality within Ethereum. Importantly, the protocol we present can finalize the block proposed in a slot, within such slot.
Blockchain technology is one of the hottest internet techniques by far, and the NFT is a novel digital collection based on blockchain technology. In 2017, two interesting applications emerged on Ethereum, CryptonPunks, and CryptonKitties, As CryptonKitties is an example, each kitty has a unique DNA number, taking on a different appearance and temperament. These two applications have revolutionary significance for the non-fungible token proposal and practical scenario application. In this experiment, We used the Ethereum platform in the Solidity language to implement a set of digital currency systems based on NFT. It’s named CoinCoin.Smart contracts are the way we implement all the functions. Through the smart contract, it can realize its minting, trading, and other functions. The implementation of functions will be simulated on the Remix platform. Mastering NFT’s smart contract could be able to provide a new ecosystem for the encryption industry and have a profound impact on the digital asset across multiple industries, such as games, art, and digital assets. Our system can provide a reference for the implementation of the NFT smart contract and bring experiences for the further deeper research.
The Synchronic Web is a highly scalable notary infrastructure that provides tamper-evident data provenance for historical web data. In this document, we describe the applicability of this infrastructure for web archiving across three envisioned stages of adoption. We codify the core mechanism enabling the value proposition: a procedure for splitting and merging cryptographic information fluidly across blockchain-backed ledgers. Finally, we present preliminary performance results that indicate the feasibility of our approach for modern web archiving scales.
Abstract: This paper suggests a decentralised web hosting solution based on Web3 Storage and the Interplanetary File System (IPFS). The IPFS platform is used to host websites and store data. To guarantee that the source codes of the websites and users’ data are preserved over the long term, all storage miner nodes on the IPFS network provide the pinning service. Websites must use an encryption technique for data storage that protects user privacy. The suggested model integrates the Web3 Storage and IPFS networks to create a platform that offers decentralised site hosting. The suggested platform guarantees the privacy, availability, and integrity.
Millions of smart contracts have been deployed onto the Ethereum platform, posing potential attack subjects. Therefore, analyzing contract binaries is vital since their sources are unavailable, involving identification comprising function entry identification and detecting its boundaries. Such boundaries are critical to many smart contract applications, e.g. reverse engineering and profiling. Unfortunately, it is challenging to identify functions from these stripped contract binaries due to the lack of internal function call statements and the compiler-inducing instruction reshuffling. Recently, several existing works excessively relied on a set of handcrafted heuristic rules which impose several faults. To address this issue, we propose a novel neural network-based framework for EVM bytecode Function Entries and Boundaries Identification (neural-FEBI) that does not rely on a fixed set of handcrafted rules. Instead, it used a two-level bi-Long Short-Term Memory network and a Conditional Random Field network to locate the function entries. The suggested framework also devises a control flow traversal algorithm to determine the code segments reachable from the function entry as its boundary. Several experiments on 38,996 publicly available smart contracts collected as binary demonstrate that neural-FEBI confirms the lowest and highest F1-scores for the function entries identification task across different datasets of 88.3 to 99.7, respectively. Its performance on the function boundary identification task is also increased from 79.4% to 97.1% compared with state-of-the-art. We further demonstrate that the identified function information can be used to construct more accurate intra-procedural CFGs and call graphs. The experimental results confirm that the proposed framework significantly outperforms state-of-the-art, often based on handcrafted heuristic rules.
A non-fungible token (NFT) references a data store location, typically, using a URL or another unique identifier. At the minimum, a NFT is expected to guarantee ownership and control over the tokenised asset. However, information stored on a third party data store may be copied and stolen. We propose a solution to give control back to the information owner by storing encrypted content on the data store and providing additional security against hacks and zero day exploits. The content on our data store is never decrypted or returned to its owner for decryption during rekeying. Also, the key size in our protocol does not increase with each rekeying. With this, we reduce the synchronisation steps and maintain a bounded key size.
Ye Lu, Caihua Liu, Meng Zhao, Xiaodong Duo · 7 authors
Transaction throughput is an important indicator of blockchain performance. However, many current smart contract virtual machines have low efficiency in executing smart contract transactions, which results in low transaction throughput of the blockchain. Some transaction parallel execution approaches have effectively improved transaction execution efficiency, but there are still problems such as low parallelism and large-scale transaction rollbacks. Therefore, we propose FSC, a fast execution approach for smart contract transactions based on fine-grained read-write analysis. The key idea is to obtain fine-grained read-write information from the smart contract compiler, and use this read-write information to group transactions at the blockchain platform layer, thereby improving the parallelism of transaction execution. FSC mainly includes three parts of work: 1) a fine-grained analysis method for read-write information at the contract state variable level based on the contract compiler; 2) a series of merging rules for merging read-write items; 3) a method to handle conflicting transactions. Our evaluation results show that FSC can accelerate the execution of smart contract transactions. Compared with before, FSC can reduce the overall transaction execution latency by 58.1%. In addition, FSC can shorten the longest execution path by 89.9% when the variation in transaction grouping latency is within 5.5%.
Blockchains can provide integrity and authenticity, but their limited storage capacity can be a challenge when it comes to storing large amounts of data. To address this issue, off-chain storage solutions such as the InterPlanetary File System (IPFS) can be utilized. This has led to the emergence of various applications that utilize both blockchain and IPFS. After reviewing a large body of literature utilizing blockchain and IPFS, we found that the coordinated interaction between blockchain and IPFS can help solve many problems and provide many research opportunities. Therefore, this survey paper aims to introduce the interaction mechanism between blockchain and IPFS. We first provide a general overview and comparison of different P2P data networks to help understand why IPFS is suitable as the storage layer for blockchains. Subsequently, we use select applications that leverage blockchain and IPFS to show how the mechanism works and explore new developments in this area. Specifically, we identify research areas and provide a qualitative comparison of these different applications. From the comparison, we derive research goals related to the interaction mechanism between blockchain and IPFS.