| NSF Org: |
CNS Division Of Computer and Network Systems |
| Recipient: |
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| Initial Amendment Date: | June 29, 2015 |
| Latest Amendment Date: | June 5, 2017 |
| Award Number: | 1518779 |
| Award Instrument: | Continuing Grant |
| Program Manager: |
Nina Amla
namla@nsf.gov (703)292-7991 CNS Division Of Computer and Network Systems CSE Directorate for Computer and Information Science and Engineering |
| Start Date: | July 1, 2015 |
| End Date: | June 30, 2018 (Estimated) |
| Total Intended Award Amount: | $500,000.00 |
| Total Awarded Amount to Date: | $500,000.00 |
| Funds Obligated to Date: |
FY 2016 = $166,617.00 FY 2017 = $171,266.00 |
| History of Investigator: |
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| Recipient Sponsored Research Office: |
341 PINE TREE RD ITHACA NY US 14850-2820 (607)255-5014 |
| Sponsor Congressional District: |
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| Primary Place of Performance: |
107 Hoy Road Ithaca NY US 14853-7501 |
| Primary Place of
Performance Congressional District: |
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| Unique Entity Identifier (UEI): |
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| Parent UEI: |
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| NSF Program(s): | Secure &Trustworthy Cyberspace |
| Primary Program Source: |
01001617DB NSF RESEARCH & RELATED ACTIVIT 01001718DB NSF RESEARCH & RELATED ACTIVIT |
| Program Reference Code(s): |
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| Program Element Code(s): |
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| Award Agency Code: | 4900 |
| Fund Agency Code: | 4900 |
| Assistance Listing Number(s): | 47.070 |
ABSTRACT
Crypto-currencies and smart contracts are a new wave of disruptive technology that will shape the future of money and financial transactions. Today, crypto-currencies are a billion-dollar market, and hundreds of companies are entering this space, promising exciting new markets and eco-systems. Unfortunately, usage of crypto-currencies outstrips our understanding. Currently most crypto currencies rely on heuristic designs without a solid appreciation of the necessary security properties, or any formal basis upon which strong assurance of such properties might be achieved.
This work aims to establish a rigorous scientific foundation for crypto-currencies. To achieve this, this work blends cryptography, game theory, programming languages, and systems security techniques. Expected outcomes include new crypto-currency designs with provable security properties, financially enforceable cryptographic protocols whose security properties are backed by enforceable payments in case of a breach, smart contract systems that are easy to program and formally verifiable, as well as high-assurance systems for storing and handling high-value crypto-currencies and transactions. The project will provide solutions to some of the most difficult and important technical questions surrounding the current digital-money revolution. The investigators will organize a crypto-currency speaker series that will bring together technologists, economists, social scientists, and policy-makers to foster collaborations that will shape the future of digital currencies.
PUBLICATIONS PRODUCED AS A RESULT OF THIS RESEARCH
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PROJECT OUTCOMES REPORT
Disclaimer
This Project Outcomes Report for the General Public is displayed verbatim as submitted by the Principal Investigator (PI) for this award. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this Report are those of the PI and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation; NSF has not approved or endorsed its content.
This funding enabled us to make significant advances to the science and engineering of blockchains.
Intellectual Merits:
PIs made significant advances on understanding, characterizing, and inventing new blockchain technologies.
First, we wrote a widely-cited treatise on scalability of blockchain protocols, demonstrating that there are inherent scalability limits to Nakamoto consensus that do improve with technology, but can nevertheless not be overcome through protocol reparameterization alone. This provided much of the structure around the "block size debate" that has been at the heart of proof-of-work currencies.
Second, we developed the Bitcoin-NG protocol for sidestepping the critical scalability limitation of Nakamoto consensus. This work was a tour de force that not only introduced a new protocol that is strictly better than Nakamoto's original protocol on every front, but also introduced metrics for characterizing large scale consensus protocols, collected measurements from thousands of nodes, built a scale replica of the entire Bitcoin network, and emulated protocols on this new emulation testbed to demonstrate the benefits of this new protocol.
Third, we developed Covenants, a mechanism for creating digital assets with a vast array of uses, including using digital assets to represent real estate, gold, and other assets, with their own specific restrictions on how they can be traded. Using covenants, we constructed vaults, a mechanism for securing coins against theft and enabling stolen coins to be recovered without impacting their fungibility. This mechanism has been incorporated into multiple blockchains.
We performed the first study of decentralization in the Bitcoin and Ethereum networks, with the key finding that these systems suffer from centralization bottlenecks.
We designed a new cryptocurrency-driven, censorship-resilient system for disseminating timely financial information. This system was deployed and used for disseminating transaction and block data across the globe for multiple cryptocurrencies, and was later licensed to a company to commercialize for general use.
We built and evaluated Aspen, a multi-asset blockchain that scales by functionally separating concurrent, independent streams of data stored on a chain.
We were the first to call for "escape hatches" in smart contracts, a feature now common in responsibly-designed contracts. We developed a crowd-sourced, non-gameable escape hatch for DAO-like contracts.
We proposed new techniques for reducing centralization in mining, including the first instant of practical non-outsourcable puzzles for Nakamoto consensus.
Finally, we built Teechan/Teechain, an off-chain protocol for secure transfers of value. While our previous work on Bitcoin-NG has the capacity to increase Bitcoin's throughput by 10X, Teechan has the capacity to increase throughput by 100000X, just between two nodes, and for every pair of nodes in the network, simultaneously. We demonstrated Teechan with secure, trustless value transfers across the Atlantic, backed by the Bitcoin blockchain.
Broader Impact:
We were involved in various security issues affecting smart contracts. PIs identified fundamental flaws in the very first big Decentralized Application known as The DAO, warned the world about potential for loss, and predicted the heist that later followed, wherein a thief used a flaw he independently discovered in conjunction with one of the flaws we identified to steal tokens worth over $1B in today's prices. We played a key informative role in the recovery of these funds, worked with attorney generals offices in two states as well as federal law enforcement. Just as crucially, the fundamental issues we identified set out a new research agenda for autonomous organizations and governance.
The PIs earlier helped to co-founded the Initiative for Cryptocurrency and Contracts (IC3), the largest, cross-institutional effort that ties together blockchain researchers that span 8 institutions across 3 continents. We have held bootcamps, webinars, and retreats involving several hundred attendees, and sponsored symposia with a few hundred attendees. Our efforts are well-recognized within industry, to the point where we were the first blockchain effort to ring the opening bell on Nasdaq.
Last Modified: 05/27/2019
Modified by: Emin Sirer
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