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Documents authored by Ceresa, Martín

Document
DOI: 10.4230/OASIcs.FMBC.2026.7
Future Monitors in Optimistic Rollups

Authors: Margarita Capretto, Martín Ceresa, and César Sánchez

Published in: OASIcs, Volume 142, 7th International Workshop on Formal Methods for Blockchains (FMBC 2026)

Abstract
Blockchains are decentralized systems that provide trustable execution guarantees. Most modern blockchains offer smart contracts, programs governing the functionality and logic of blockchain transactions. The model of computation of smart contracts is typically transactional: either transactions immediately revert or immediately commit. When transactions commit, the effect of executing them becomes permanent and cannot be undone. Future monitors were proposed as a defense mechanism that enables smart contracts to state properties across multiple transactions. By delaying the consolidation of a transaction, future monitors wait for future transactions to occur before committing or failing. Optimistic Rollups provide the perfect environment to implement future monitors. These systems are layer-2 solutions proposed for scaling blockchains, and they delay transaction effects in order to allow observers to challenge and remove malicious block proposals. In this paper, we describe an implementation of future monitors in Optimistic Rollups. We propose a succinct way to encode all potential future states in rollup blocks. We provide novel fraud-proof mechanisms designed to arbitrate the high-level algorithm that determines the effect of transactions using future monitors. Finally, we present winning strategies for honest players, proving that our fraud-proof mechanisms preserve the guarantees of Optimistic Rollups while enabling future monitor capabilities.
Cite as

Margarita Capretto, Martín Ceresa, and César Sánchez. Future Monitors in Optimistic Rollups. In 7th International Workshop on Formal Methods for Blockchains (FMBC 2026). Open Access Series in Informatics (OASIcs), Volume 142, pp. 7:1-7:18, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2026)

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@InProceedings{capretto_et_al:OASIcs.FMBC.2026.7,
  author =	{Capretto, Margarita and Ceresa, Mart{\'\i}n and S\'{a}nchez, C\'{e}sar},
  title =	{{Future Monitors in Optimistic Rollups}},
  booktitle =	{7th International Workshop on Formal Methods for Blockchains (FMBC 2026)},
  pages =	{7:1--7:18},
  series =	{Open Access Series in Informatics (OASIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-424-6},
  ISSN =	{2190-6807},
  year =	{2026},
  volume =	{142},
  editor =	{Bartoletti, Massimo and Marmsoler, Diego},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/OASIcs.FMBC.2026.7},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-257043},
  doi =		{10.4230/OASIcs.FMBC.2026.7},
  annote =	{Keywords: Optimistic Rollups, Layer-2, Fraud Proof, Monitorability, Future}
}
Artifact
Software
DOI: 10.4230/artifacts.23003
Fraud Proof Games

Authors: Martín Ceresa and César Sánchez

Abstract
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Martín Ceresa, César Sánchez. Fraud Proof Games (Software). Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2025)

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@misc{dagstuhl-artifact-23003,
   title = {{Fraud Proof Games}}, 
   author = {Ceresa, Mart{\'\i}n and S\'{a}nchez, C\'{e}sar},
   note = {Software, version 1., swhId: \href{https://archive.softwareheritage.org/swh:1:dir:761ba38f606c1b4a0a9e202e6518d092d51ff381;origin=https://gitlab.software.imdea.org/martin.ceresa/leanfpgames;visit=swh:1:snp:fac56d84158cb280cdb40d50d82de3afae8bc491;anchor=swh:1:rev:7d12774f898db347810efdabd41c8a81b867222f}{\texttt{swh:1:dir:761ba38f606c1b4a0a9e202e6518d092d51ff381}} (visited on 2025-05-16)},
   url = {https://gitlab.software.imdea.org/martin.ceresa/leanfpgames},
   doi = {10.4230/artifacts.23003},
}
Document
DOI: 10.4230/OASIcs.FMBC.2025.5
Towards a Mechanization of Fraud Proof Games in Lean

Authors: Martín Ceresa and César Sánchez

Published in: OASIcs, Volume 129, 6th International Workshop on Formal Methods for Blockchains (FMBC 2025)

Abstract
Arbitration games from Referee Delegation of Computations are central to layer two optimistic rollup architectures (L2), one of the most prominent mechanisms for scaling blockchains. L2 blockchains operate on the principle that computations are valid unless proven otherwise. Challenging incorrect computations requires users to construct fraud proofs through a dispute resolution process that involves two opposing players. Fraud proofs are objects that establish when proposed computations are invalid, and they are so computationally small and cheap that can be checked by the underlying trusted blockchain. Arbitration games, this challenging process, involve one player posing strategic questions and another player revealing details about computations. Arbitration games start from the posting of Disputable Assertions (DAs), DAs contain partial information about computations including their result. Since there is no trust between players, hashes are posted as compact witnesses of knowledge. One player provides information decomposing hashes while the other decides which "path" to take navigating the computation trace. When a path is exhausted, all the required information to compute the result from the data provided following the path has been revealed and the path can be proven to be faulty or correct. We explore in this paper the formalization of arbitration games in Lean4, introducing the first machine-checkable strategies that honest players can play guaranteeing success. These strategies ensure: on one side, the successful debunking of dishonest computations via the construction of fraud proofs, while in the other, the successful navigation of the challenge process through correct answers. In short, these are the winning strategies that honest players (on both sides) can follow. We explore in this paper formal abstractions to capture disputable assertions, arbitration games on finite binary trees asserting data-availability and membership, game transformations, and then discuss how to work towards a general formal framework for referee delegation of computations.
Cite as

Martín Ceresa and César Sánchez. Towards a Mechanization of Fraud Proof Games in Lean. In 6th International Workshop on Formal Methods for Blockchains (FMBC 2025). Open Access Series in Informatics (OASIcs), Volume 129, pp. 5:1-5:17, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2025)

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@InProceedings{ceresa_et_al:OASIcs.FMBC.2025.5,
  author =	{Ceresa, Mart{\'\i}n and S\'{a}nchez, C\'{e}sar},
  title =	{{Towards a Mechanization of Fraud Proof Games in Lean}},
  booktitle =	{6th International Workshop on Formal Methods for Blockchains (FMBC 2025)},
  pages =	{5:1--5:17},
  series =	{Open Access Series in Informatics (OASIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-371-3},
  ISSN =	{2190-6807},
  year =	{2025},
  volume =	{129},
  editor =	{Marmsoler, Diego and Xu, Meng},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/OASIcs.FMBC.2025.5},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-230327},
  doi =		{10.4230/OASIcs.FMBC.2025.5},
  annote =	{Keywords: blockchain, formal methods, layer-2, optimistic rollups, arbitration games}
}
Document
DOI: 10.4230/OASIcs.FMBC.2022.5
Multi: A Formal Playground for Multi-Smart Contract Interaction

Authors: Martín Ceresa and César Sánchez

Published in: OASIcs, Volume 105, 4th International Workshop on Formal Methods for Blockchains (FMBC 2022)

Abstract
Blockchains are maintained by a network of participants, miner nodes, that run algorithms designed to maintain collectively a distributed machine tolerant to Byzantine attacks. From the point of view of users, blockchains provide the illusion of centralized computers that perform trustable verifiable computations, where all computations are deterministic and the results cannot be manipulated or undone. Every blockchain is equipped with a crypto-currency. Programs running on blockchains are called smart-contracts and are written in a special-purpose programming language with deterministic semantics. Each transaction begins with an invocation from an external user to a smart contract. Smart contracts have local storage and can call other contracts, and more importantly, they store, send and receive cryptocurrency. Once installed in a blockchain, the code of the smart-contract cannot be modified. Therefore, it is very important to guarantee that contracts are correct before deployment. However, the resulting ecosystem makes it very difficult to reason about program correctness, since smart-contracts can be executed by malicious users or malicious smart-contracts can be designed to exploit other contracts that call them. Many attacks and bugs are caused by unexpected interactions between multiple contracts, the attacked contract and unknown code that performs the exploit. Moreover, there is a very aggressive competition between different blockchains to expand their user base. Ideas are implemented fast and blockchains compete to offer and adopt new features quickly. In this paper, we propose a formal playground that allows reasoning about multi-contract interactions and is extensible to incorporate new features, study their behaviour and ultimately prove properties before features are incorporated into the real blockchain. We implemented a model of computation that models the execution platform, abstracts the internal code of each individual contract and focuses on contract interactions. Even though our Coq implementation is still a work in progress, we show how many features, existing or proposed, can be used to reason about multi-contract interactions.
Cite as

Martín Ceresa and César Sánchez. Multi: A Formal Playground for Multi-Smart Contract Interaction. In 4th International Workshop on Formal Methods for Blockchains (FMBC 2022). Open Access Series in Informatics (OASIcs), Volume 105, pp. 5:1-5:16, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2022)

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@InProceedings{ceresa_et_al:OASIcs.FMBC.2022.5,
  author =	{Ceresa, Mart{\'\i}n and S\'{a}nchez, C\'{e}sar},
  title =	{{Multi: A Formal Playground for Multi-Smart Contract Interaction}},
  booktitle =	{4th International Workshop on Formal Methods for Blockchains (FMBC 2022)},
  pages =	{5:1--5:16},
  series =	{Open Access Series in Informatics (OASIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-250-1},
  ISSN =	{2190-6807},
  year =	{2022},
  volume =	{105},
  editor =	{Dargaye, Zaynah and Schneidewind, Clara},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/OASIcs.FMBC.2022.5},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-171868},
  doi =		{10.4230/OASIcs.FMBC.2022.5},
  annote =	{Keywords: blockchain, formal methods, theorem prover, smart-contracts}
}
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