The rapid expansion of the Internet of Things (IoT) has necessitated a shift to distributed Edge environments, rendering traditional perimeter security obsolete and exposing scalability bottlenecks in centralized Zero-Trust Architecture (ZTA). This paper proposes a novel, decentralized ZTA framework that integrates Directed Acyclic Graph (DAG) distributed ledgers with Attribute-Based Access Control (ABAC) to eliminate single points of failure. By leveraging asynchronous DAG protocols (e.g., IOTA Tangle, Obyte) instead of linear blockchains and using lightweight Elliptic Curve Cryptography (ECC) for resource-constrained devices, the system enables fee-less, parallel transaction processing. Quantitative analysis demonstrates the framework's superior performance, achieving over 1,000 transactions per second (TPS), sub-second finality, and 15ms encryption times on commodity hardware, thereby establishing a robust, partition-tolerant security model for the future Internet of Everything.
Current agent payment standards enable transactions across varied infrastructure, including card systems, banking channels, and blockchain platforms, through cryptographic mandates binding user intentions to agent actions. These mandates create authorization structures while revealing critical vulnerabilities in transaction privacy protection, fine-grained delegation management, and cohesive governance implementation across multiple payment infrastructures. Zero-Knowledge Mandates introduce cryptographic techniques allowing agents to demonstrate compliance with spending restrictions while concealing constraint details from verifiers. Agents demonstrate compliance with spending caps, approved vendors, and time restrictions while keeping financial details and payment channel choices hidden. The system uses compact cryptographic proofs that allow verification without exposing mandate terms, user account information, or transaction routing. Core security guarantees include execution unlinkability, preventing transaction correlation, and verifiable compliance, ensuring constraint adherence. Technical implementation utilizes efficient proof systems, maintaining real-time transaction processing requirements. Evaluation addresses computational performance, information leakage boundaries, and practical deployment considerations across heterogeneous payment networks. The resulting architecture provides the first comprehensive privacy-preserving authorization primitive for autonomous commercial agents operating across multiple financial infrastructures simultaneously.
This paper proposes the Physical Law-Based Security System (PLBSS), a novel distributed ledger paradigm that anchors digital records to irreversible astrophysical events rather than computational assumptions. By deriving absolute timestamps from the past light cones of phenomena such as supernovae or gravitational waves, PLBSS achieves physically irreversible, non-consensus-based data integrity. The system combines probabilistic event anchoring and quantum-based node verification, rendering retroactive tampering physically impossible under known laws of nature.
This paper extends the classical Avellaneda-Stoikov framework for optimal market making to blockchain networks with directed acyclic graph (DAG) structure. In DAG-based consensus protocols such as GHOSTDAG, multiple blocks are produced in parallel, creating a branching time structure that fundamentally alters the market maker's optimization problem. We derive a DAG-extended Hamilton-Jacobi-Bellman equation that incorporates the probability distribution over transaction acceptance, showing that optimal spreads depend on the anticipated ordering of parallel blocks. Our main theoretical result demonstrates that market makers achieve O(1/n) variance reduction in inventory risk by distributing quotes across n parallel execution paths, exploiting the transaction-level mutual exclusivity inherent to GHOSTDAG ordering. We extend the framework to K correlated assets (proving portfolio-level variance reduction of O(K/n)) and provide adversarial robustness analysis under bounded hash power attacks. Implementation analysis for the Kaspa network (10 BPS, k=124 post-Crescendo) addresses practical constraints including direct-to-miner submission requirements, fee incentive compatibility, and latency bounds. Monte Carlo simulations validate theoretical predictions, showing Sharpe ratio improvements of 40-82% over single-path strategies under realistic network conditions. This work establishes foundational theory for high-frequency decentralized finance applications on DAG-based blockchains.
본 논문은 장애, 공격, 검열, 네트워크 분할과 같은 "중단 사건" 이후 분산 원장 및 합의 시스템이 어떻게 재수렴하는지 분석하기 위한 개념적 프레임워크로 흐름 복원력(Flow-Resilience )을 제안합니다 . "칼로 물을 베어도 물은 계속 흐른다"는 고전 속담에 기반하여, 본 논문은 속담과 프로토콜 간의 매핑 템플릿과 흐름→축소→분할→재흐름 단계 모델을 제시하고, 나카모토식 합의, 팍소스 계열 합의, BFT 복제 방식 간의 재수렴 경로를 비교합니다. 단, 구현상의 민감한 세부 정보는 공개하지 않습니다. License and Usage Notice Proprietary — All Rights Reserved This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0). To view a copy of this license, visit: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ Key Constraints: Attribution: You must give appropriate credit to the author (Jeongchoon Lee). Non-Commercial: You may not use this material for commercial purposes (including corporate-funded research or patent filings by third parties). NoDerivatives (No-Derivs): If you remix, transform, or build upon the material, you may not distribute the modified material. The production of derivative works—including academic papers that hybridize this theory with other frameworks—is strictly prohibited without the express written consent of the author.
Cross-chain bridges constitute the single largest vector of systemic risk in Decentralized Finance (DeFi), accounting for over \$2.8 billion in losses since 2021. The fundamental vulnerability lies in the binary nature of existing bridge security models: a bridge is either fully operational or catastrophically compromised, with no intermediate state to contain partial failures. We present ASAS-BridgeAMM, a bridge-coupled automated market maker that introduces Contained Degradation: a formally specified operational state where the system gracefully degrades functionality in response to adversarial signals. By treating cross-chain message latency as a quantifiable execution risk, the protocol dynamically adjusts collateral haircuts, slippage bounds, and withdrawal limits. Across 18 months of historical replay on Ethereum and two auxiliary chains, ASAS-BridgeAMM reduces worst-case bridge-induced insolvency by 73% relative to baseline mint-and-burn architectures, while preserving 104.5% of transaction volume during stress periods. In rigorous adversarial simulations involving delayed finality, oracle manipulation, and liquidity griefing, the protocol maintains solvency with probability $>0.9999$ and bounds per-epoch bad debt to $<0.2%$ of total collateral. We provide a reference implementation in Solidity and formally prove safety (bounded debt), liveness (settlement completion), and manipulation resistance under a Byzantine relayer model.
AbstractContemporary blockchain architectures face a critical impasse defined herein as the "Tetra-Lemma"—a four-dimensional optimization problem comprising decentralization, security, scalability, and thermodynamic sustainability. Proof-of-Work networks confront diminishing security budgets, while Proof-of-Stake systems risk validator centralization. This paper presents a Unified Monetary-Supply Framework designed to resolve these structural conflicts. By deriving a closed-form solution for supply dynamics that integrates a deterministic "Customized Halving Mechanism" with probabilistic asset attrition models, we demonstrate a mathematical convergence that maintains thermodynamic security over a secular horizon. Key Quantitative Findings: Asymptotic Convergence: While effective circulating supply may experience a temporary peak (approx. 27 million RIN), all evaluated models are engineered to stabilize below the 21 million threshold (specifically converging to 20.88 million RIN). Secular Stability: The framework secures a deflationary emission schedule mirroring Bitcoin’s scarcity model over a multi-century horizon of 443–703 years. Publication Status & RoadmapThis manuscript (v1.5.0) is maintained as a Living Research Document. It serves as the foundational theoretical framework for the Rincoin protocol. Future iterations will formalize the consensus mechanisms required to govern these algorithmic parameters. Integrity & Provenance ArchitectureThe scientific integrity and existence of this document are secured by a Triple-Verification Layer: 1. Academic Provenance: Indexed via Zenodo (DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.17141922). 2. Thermodynamic Timestamping: Anchored to the Bitcoin blockchain via OpenTimestamps. 3. Identity Assurance: Digitally signed by the author via a third-party certification authority (GMO Sign). Note: Verification data and the "Certificate of Authenticity" are available in the supplementary files. CorrespondencePrimary Author: Michiru Tokino (also known as Aevust in the decentralized infrastructure community). Academic Inquiries: edu@aevust.org Community Governance: @aevustus (Discord) / @aevust (X/Telegram)
Christopher Blake, Chen Feng, Xuachao Wang, Qianyu Yu
Proof of work blockchain protocols using multiple hash types are considered. It is proven that the security region of such a protocol cannot be the AND of a 51\% attack on all the hash types. Nevertheless, a protocol called Merged Bitcoin is introduced, which is the Bitcoin protocol where links between blocks can be formed using multiple different hash types. Closed form bounds on its security region in the $Δ$-bounded delay network model are proven, and these bounds are compared to simulation results. This protocol is proven to maximize cost of attack in the linear cost-per-hash model. A difficulty adjustment method is introduced, and it is argued that this can partly remedy asymmetric advantages an adversary may gain in hashing power for some hash types, including from algorithmic advances, quantum attacks like Grover's algorithm, or hardware backdoor attacks.
We present a lightweight, probabilistic mechanism for certifying aligned storage between participants in decentralized systems. Participants respond to randomized suffix queries by performing forward scans over their locally stored data and returning short response sequences. A verifier observes only overlap statistics between responses. We prove that the overlap probability is bounded above by the minimum storage density among participants, ensuring that high observed overlap implies all parties store a large fraction of the underlying dataset. This bound holds regardless of adversarial strategy: a single well-provisioned participant cannot "carry" an under-provisioned partner. The protocol's "+1" advancement rule introduces pointer desynchronization that causes naïve Binomial models to overestimate tail probabilities by 2–3×. We establish rigorous security bounds through systematic simulation of Poisson-walk dynamics. For example, observing 10 or more matches out of 12 recorded elements rules out minimum density below 0.6 at the 2.4% significance level. Independent repetition amplifies confidence exponentially. The mechanism requires no cryptographic commitments per element, no global verifier, and reveals only O(m) randomly-selected elements per interaction. We analyze several natural adversarial strategies—fabrication, selective answering, collusion, Sybil attacks—and show that none can increase overlap probability beyond what storage density allows. From a mechanism-design perspective, repeated suffix-walk interactions induce a game where aligned storage is the dominant strategy, enabling emergent consensus without central coordination. The protocol serves as a foundation for proof-of-aligned-storage in distributed systems and provides consensus weight based on demonstrated storage rather than computational power or stake. Throughout this paper, "proof" refers to statistical evidence under a well-validated probabilistic model, not a cryptographic zero-knowledge proof.
Permissionless consensus protocols require a scarce resource to regulate leader election and provide Sybil resistance. Existing paradigms such as Proof of Work and Proof of Stake instantiate this scarcity through parallelizable resources like computation or capital. Once acquired, these resources can be subdivided across many identities at negligible marginal cost, making linear Sybil cost fundamentally unattainable. We introduce Proof of Commitment (PoCmt), a consensus primitive grounded in a non-parallelizable resource: real-time human engagement. Validators maintain a commitment state capturing cumulative human effort, protocol participation, and online availability. Engagement is enforced through a Human Challenge Oracle that issues identity-bound, time-sensitive challenges, limiting the number of challenges solvable within each human window. Under this model, sustaining multiple active identities requires proportional human-time effort. We establish a cost-theoretic separation showing that protocols based on parallelizable resources admit zero marginal Sybil cost, whereas PoCmt enforces a strictly linear cost profile. Using a weighted-backbone analysis, we show that PoCmt achieves safety, liveness, and commitment-proportional fairness under partial synchrony. Simulations complement the analysis by isolating human-time capacity as the sole adversarial bottleneck and validating the predicted commitment drift and fairness properties. These results position PoCmt as a new point in the consensus design space, grounding permissionless security in sustained human effort rather than computation or capital.
Address verification and spend limit checks in card and instant payment systems expose cardholder ZIP codes and velocity histories to gateways and intermediaries, which increases the privacy impact of breaches. At the same time, issuers rely on these checks to control fraud within strict two to three hundred millisecond authorization budgets. This paper presents ZK-AVS, a design that replaces plaintext AVS and spend limit evaluation with zero knowledge proofs produced on the customer device and verified at the payment gateway. The issuer stores commitments to the cardholder ZIP and per window spend counters, and the device proves that its ZIP matches the committed value and that the proposed transaction keeps cumulative spend within the configured limit, without revealing the underlying values. We instantiate a synthetic workload of fifty thousand transactions and show that AVS mismatch and limit pressure carry useful fraud signal that can be exposed as proof outcomes. The design is structured to fit within sub three hundred millisecond budgets on commodity devices, while removing direct exposure of address and spend history data at the gateway and keeping changes largely at endpoints.
This paper proposes a Decentralized Autonomous Intelligence (DAI) architecture that overcomes the self-referential limitations of conventional AI and Web3 systems by dynamically grounding collective intelligence in physical reality. By coupling internal consensus with high-fidelity external data such as environmental, biological, and economic signals, the framework prevents value drift, Sybil manipulation, and speculative bias. The result is a reality-aligned, secure, and scalable intelligence system optimized for real-world utility and immediate deployment.
The rigorous security model of Bitcoin's UTXO architecture often comes at the cost of developer usability, forcing a reliance on manual stack manipulation that leads to critical financial vulnerabilities like signature malleability, unspendable states and unconstrained execution paths. Industry standards such as Miniscript provide necessary abstractions for policy verification but do not model the full imperative logic required for complex contracts, leaving gaps in state management and resource liveness. This paper introduces Bithoven, a high-level language designed to bridge the gap between expressiveness and formal safety. By integrating a strict type checker and a resource liveness analyzer with a semantic control-flow analyzer, Bithoven eliminates major categories of consensus and logic defects defined in our fault model prior to deployment. Our results indicate that this safety comes at modest cost: Bithoven compiles to Bitcoin Script with efficiency comparable to hand-optimized code, demonstrating that type-safe, developer-friendly abstractions are viable even within the strict byte-size constraints of the Bitcoin blockchain.
Nur Haliza Abdul Wahab, Juniardi Nur Fadila, Nur Faszha Razali, Keng Yinn Wong
High transaction costs remain a major barrier to the scalability of Ethereum-based decentralized applications (DApps), particularly when smart contracts are computationally inefficient. Although the Solidity compiler optimizer can reduce bytecode size and improve some low-level patterns, it does not fully address structural inefficiencies in storage layout and state mutation. This study introduces controlled empirical research on the topic of manual smart contract refactoring approaches with the aim of quantifying their impact on gas usage and execution cost in the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM). The Remix Integrated Development Environment (IDE) and a synchronized Go-Ethereum (Geth) node (version 1.13.5) were configured to create a controlled experimental environment. This environment was connected to the Sepolia Testnet to approximate conditions similar to the Ethereum Mainnet. The role of high-cost storage operations such as SSTORE was analyzed using opcode-level transaction traces, which were collected using debug_traceTransaction. The proposed refactoring plan implies the alignment of storage slots by systematically packing the variables and data location optimization (calldata and memory) to minimize unnecessary memory allocation. The experiments show gas reductions of up to 40.68% for storage-intensive functions, with an average reduction of 28.5% across all evaluated test cases. Moreover, the findings at the opcode level have shown that it is possible to reduce the costs of unnecessary storage writes without impacting the correct functional performance of the execution. Overall, the findings show that storage-aware manual refactoring is a viable strategy for improving runtime efficiency and reducing the execution cost of Layer-1 smart contracts.
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. 🕊️
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. 🕊️
This thesis deals with the implementation of a system for acquiring and processing transactions from various cryptocurrency blockchains. The aim of the thesis is to design and implement a system as a library that provides a unified interface for working with multiple blockchain networks. A key feature of the proposed system is its modularity, which enables future expansion to support additional cryptocurrencies. The thesis describes the architecture of selected blockchains and analyzes existing methods of obtaining data from these networks. Based on an analysis of available tools, Tatum.io was chosen as a suitable platform, as it offers interfaces for communication with a large number of blockchains. Subsequently, a general library model with an adapter-type architecture was designed, where each adapter ensures communication with a specific blockchain. The implementation was carried out in the Typescript language. The resulting library allows the user to track transactions based on specified parameters, which are: tracked address, time range (or block range), and blockchain type. The contribution of this work is the creation of a universal interface between the user and various blockchains without the need for detailed knowledge of them.
Spot trading on decentralized exchanges (DEXs) remains materially inferior to centralized exchanges (CEXs) in throughput, latency, and market-maker tooling, ceding global spot liquidity to opaque, non-custodial intermediaries. We present Vela, a spot exchange engine designed from first principles to recover CEX-grade performance while preserving the verifiability and self-custody properties of a DEX. The core engine is an optimized Rust state machine running entirely in memory, achieving a median per-operation latency of 1.08 microseconds (p50) — 4.7 times faster than the prior state of the art — and 57,300 operations per second under a realistic mixed market-making simulation across ten simultaneous markets. Exchange state is maintained in a Merkle Patricia Trie whose root is periodically committed to an underlying blockchain, anchoring state integrity to an external consensus mechanism. Verifiability is achieved through an optimistic zero-knowledge proving scheme: state updates are assumed valid by default, with a seven-day challenge window during which any party may submit a proof of incorrect execution, and an on-demand fast-finality path for users requiring immediate settlement. We introduce two features novel to DEX design: (1) a market-maker credit system enabling capital-efficient cross-market quoting analogous to CEX credit lines, implemented natively within the matching engine's state transition function with atomic collateral enforcement; and (2) private L3 market data feeds authenticated via server-issued nonce challenges and wallet signatures, substantially reducing market-maker exposure to adverse selection. We describe the full architecture, five performance optimizations including a Delta elimination that reduces p99.9 tail latency by 73%, flamegraph profiling findings, and decentralization mechanisms including forced inclusion via a delayed inbox. The Vela engine is released as open-source software under the MIT license at github.com/arpjw/vela.
Decentralized finance (DeFi) agents automate multi-transaction workflows such as swapping, lending, and vault management, but they also create process-level risk. A run can consist of individually valid calls while still becoming economically unsafe because an intermediate step leaves latent authority, weakens execution constraints, or accepts unverified external evidence. Existing defenses are often mismatched to this process-level risk. Off-chain preflight checks alone cannot protect against runtime deviations from the intended plan, and coarse on-chain allowlists are too weak to express the call-level intent that matters in DeFi. We present CheckpointAgent, a workflow-security architecture for checkpointed DeFi-agent execution. It composes manifest commitments, smart-account policy guards, post-state predicates, and attestation-gated advancement to constrain a run step by step and tie checkpoint advancement to verifiable evidence. Rather than judging safety only after a workflow finishes, CheckpointAgent checks whether each step remains consistent with the intended workflow and stops execution when the required conditions no longer hold. In the author-curated 27-scenario local-chain suite, the strongest evaluated setting preserves all 5 benign runs and prevents unsafe completion in all 22 adversarial runs, stopping them either through on-chain enforcement or through trusted-attestation advancement under the configured attester assumption. Under explicit trust assumptions and within the measured workflows and snapshots, checkpointed execution can materially reduce process-level risk without modifying target protocols.
<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.
This paper presents the post-quantum integrity architecture designed and being implemented within Smart Astro among the rst known platforms delivering Deterministic Engine Computed, AI-Narrated, Blockchain-Veried life guidance at scale. Smart Astro operates across 18 active life-decision intents and over 40 auspicious-timing categories, serving users globally through a real-time, pay-per-question model. Classical asymmetric cryptography underpinning current blockchain infrastructure is vulnerable to Shor's algorithm on fault-tolerant quantum computers. Smart Astro addresses this proactively by integrating NIST-standardised post-quantum cryptographic primitives FIPS 203 (ML-KEM), FIPS 204 (ML-DSA), and FIPS 205 (SLH-DSA) alongside a Solana-anchored proof chain already live in production. The central architectural contribution is a layered separation of concerns: the deterministic engine computes a structured, repeatable output; cryptographic proof generation runs asynchronously outside the delivery path; the AI narration layer is isolated from the proof chain; and only a commitment hash is written to the Solana ledger, with the full postquantum signature bundle stored o-chain. Every paid answer carries an independently veriable SA-PROOF identier with zero personally identiable information (PII) on-chain. A hybrid ML-DSA + SLH-DSA signature scheme provides defence in depth against both lattice cryptanalysis and harvest-now-decrypt-later adversaries. This architecture establishes a replicable standard for cryptographic integrity in AI-narrated deterministic knowledge systems.
We present Processual Memory Architecture (PMA), a computational framework that unifies data storage and computation by representing all information as transformation functions rather than static state, rendering the traditional ontological distinction between them architecturally unnecessary. In PMA, storing information means encoding it as a mathematical transformation that produces the data when applied to a standardized canonical input; reading means applying the transformation; and computing means composing transformations. This inversion of the conventional von Neumann paradigm yields five emergent architectural properties—structural auditability, transparent reasoning, enforced constraints, tamper evidence, and reversibility—that collectively enable verifiable computation: systems that can mathematically verify the integrity and correctness of their own reasoning chains. We provide a complete mathematical specification of PMA over Galois fields GF(2k) with roundtrip exactness guarantees, constructive algorithms for both invertible and non-invertible encoding modes, and a reference permutation-based embodiment with explicit bit-level storage formats. We analyze thermodynamic properties under reversible logic implementation, demonstrating that PMA operations on adiabatic substrates can approach within 10× of the Landauer limit at the localnode level. We then present the integration architecture for PMA with artificial general intelligence (AGI) safety frameworks, showing how transformation-based reasoning enables safety constraints that are structural rather than advisory—creating systems where unsafe behavior is computationally undefined rather than merely prohibited. We discuss applications to financial auditing, medical AI verification, and autonomous systems governance, and compare PMA's approach to verifiable computation with existing paradigms including blockchain, zero-knowledge proofs, and mechanistic interpretability.