CS 594 Foundations of Blockchains
Fal, 2021
Intructors:
Anastasios Sidiropoulos
Time:
Tue Thu, 11:00am-12:15pm
Location:
ARC 239
Syllabus
Relevant textbooks
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A. Antonopoulos, Mastering Bitcoin: Programming the Open Blockchain.
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A. Antonopoulos, Mastering Ethereum: Building Smart Contracts and DApps.
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J. Song, Programming Bitcoin: Learn How to Program Bitcoin from Scratch.
Homework
Lectures
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Lecture 1: Introduction. [Slides]
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Lecture 2:
The genesis of bitcoin.
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A. Back.
Hashcash - A Denial of Service Counter-Measure.
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C. Dwork and M. Naor.
Pricing via Processing.
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S. Habert and W. S. Stornetta.
How to Time-Stamp a Digital Do cument.
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S. Nakamoto.
Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System.
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Lecture 3:
Block rewards and selfish mining.
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I. Eyal and E. G. Sirer.
Majority is not Enough: Bitcoin Mining is Vulnerable.
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A. Sapirshtein, Y. Sompolinsky, and A. Zohar.
Optimal Selfish Mining Strategies in Bitcoin.
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M. Carlsten, H. Kalodner, M. Weinberg, and A. Narayanan.
On the Instability of Bitcoin Without the Block Reward.
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Lecture 4:
Fruitchains.
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R. Pass and E. Shi.
FruitChains: A Fair Blockchain.
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Lecture 5:
Mathematical models for blockchains.
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J. A. Garay, A. Kiayias, and N. Leonardos.
The Bitcoin Backbone Protocol: Analysis and Applications.
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R. Pass, L. Seeman, and a. shelat.
Analysis of the Blockchain Protocol in Asynchronous Networks.
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Lecture 6:
Game-theoretic modeling of block rewards and mining incentives.
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X. Chen, C. Papadimitriou, and T. Roughgarden.
An Axiomatic Approach to Block Rewards.
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Lecture 7:
Proof of stake.
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J. Chen, and S. Micali.
Algorand.
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Lecture 8:
Game-theoretic aspects of decentralization.
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Y. Kwon, J. Liu, M. Kim, D. Song, Y. Kim.
Impossibility of Full Decentralization in Permissionless Blockchains.
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Lecture 9:
Succinct proofs of inclusion and light blockchain clients.
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R. Merkle.
A Digital Signature Based on a Conventional Encryption Function.
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A. Kiayias, A. Miller, and D. Zindros.
Non-Interactive Proofs of Proof-of-Work.
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Lecture 10:
Game-theoretic aspects of transaction fees.
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S. Leonardos, B. Monnot, D. Reijsbergen, S. Skoulakis, and G. Piliouras.
Dynamical Analysis of the EIP-1559 Ethereum Fee Market.
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T. Roughgarden.
Transaction Fee Mechanism Design for the Ethereum Blockchain: An Economic Analysis of EIP-1559.
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M. V. X. Ferreira, D. J. Moroz, D. C. Parkes, and M. Stern.
Dynamic Posted-Price Mechanisms for the Blockchain Transaction-Fee Market.
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Lecture 11:
Zerocash.
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E. Ben-Sasson, A. Chiesa, C. Garman, M. Green, I. Miers, E. Tromer, and M. Virza.
Zerocash Decentralized Anonymous Payments from Bitcoin.
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E. Ben-Sasson, A. Chiesa, E. Tromer, and M. Virza.
Succinct Non-Interactive Zero Knowledge for a von Neumann Architecture.
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E. Ben-Sasson, A. Chiesa, M. Green†, E. Tromer, and M. Virza.
Secure Sampling of Public Parameters for Succinct Zero Knowledge Proofs.
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Lecture 12:
Eclipse attacks.
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E. Heilman, A. Kendler, A. Zohar, and S. Goldberg.
Eclipse Attacks on Bitcoin’s Peer-to-Peer Network.
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Lecture 13:
The Lightning Network.
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J. Poon, and T. Dryja.
The Bitcoin Lightning Network: Scalable Off-Chain Instant Payments.
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Lecture 14:
Routing in the Lightning Network.
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C. Grunspan, and R. Perez-Marco.
Ant Routing Algorithm for the Lightning Network.
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J. Kleinberg.
The Small-World Phenomenon An Algorithmic Perspective.
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P. Maymounkov, and D. Mazieres.
Kademlia.
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O. Osuntokun, W. Paulino, C. Fromknecht, O. Gugger, and J. Halseth.
Lightning Pool: A Non-Custodial Channel Lease Marketplace.
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P. Prihodko, S. Zhigulin, M. Sahno, A. Ostrovskiy, and O. Osuntokun.
Flare: An Approach to Routing in Lightning Network.
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Lecture 15:
Ethereum.
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G. Wood.
Ethereum Yellow Paper.
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Lecture 16:
Automated Market Makers.
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G. Angeris, and T. Chitra.
Improved Price Oracles Constant Function Market Makers.
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J. Abernethy, Y. Chen, and J. W. Vaughan.
An Optimization-Based Framework for Automated Market-Making.
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T. Chitra.
Competitive equilibria between staking and on-chain lending.
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A. Evans, G. Angeris, and T. Chitra.
Optimal Fees for Geometric Mean Market Makers.
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D. Engel, and M. Herlihy.
Composing Networks of Automated Market Makers.
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R. Hanson.
Combinatorial Information Market Design.
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B. Krishnamachari, Q. Feng, and E. Grippo.
Dynamic Curves for Decentralized Autonomous Cryptocurrency Exchanges.
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F. Martinelli, and N. Mushegian.
Balancer Whitepaper.
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Lecture 17:
The Oracle Problem.
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S. Ellis, A. Juels, and S. Nazarov.
Chainlink white paper.
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A. Shamir.
How To Share A Secret.
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Lecture 18:
DAG-based concensus.
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C. Li, P. Li, D. Zhou, W. Xu, F. Long, and A. Yao.
Scaling nakamoto consensus to thousands of transactions per second.
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Y. Lewenberg, Y. Sompolinsky, and A. Zohar.
Inclusive blockchain protocols.
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Y. Sompolinsky, Y. Lewenberg, and A. Zohar.
SPECTRE - A Fast and Scalable Cryptocurrency Protocol.
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Y. Sompolinsky, S. Wyborski, and A. Zohar.
PHANTOM and GHOSTDAG.
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Y. Sompolinsky, and A. Zohar.
Secure High-Rate Transaction Processing in Bitcoin.
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Lecture 19:
The Consensus Number of a Cryptocurrency.
Lecture by Muhammad Abrar Tariq.
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Lecture 20:
Thorchain.
Lecture by Aditya, Dhwanit.
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Lecture 21:
Ethereum's transition from Proof of Work to Proof of Stake.
Lecture by Lokesh, Akshay, Rohit and Vignan.
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Lecture 22:
Sushiswap.
Lecture by Alekh Meka, Aniket.
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Lecture 23:
The Compound Protocol.
Lecture by Rahul, Harsh.
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Lecture 24:
Counting Down Thunder: Timing Attacks on Privacy in Payment Channel Networks.
Lecture by Heemani, Justyna, Neil.
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Lecture 25:
Polkadot.
Lecture by Prith, Tse-En.
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Lecture 26:
Solana.
Lecture by Pallavi Krishna Bhat, Shweta Srinivasan.
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Lecture 27:
Proof of Space.
Lecture by David Woloch.
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Lecture 28:
Social Recovery Wallets.
Lecture by Cosimo Sguanci, Andrea Giarduz, Luca Cellamare.
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Lecture 29:
Stablecoins 2.0.
Lecture by Sarang Gawane, Wenshao Zhong, Sushen Kumar.