15 Search Results for "Kannan, Sreeram"


Document
Decentralized Data Archival: New Definitions and Constructions

Authors: Elaine Shi, Rose Silver, and Changrui Mu

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 362, 17th Innovations in Theoretical Computer Science Conference (ITCS 2026)


Abstract
We initiate the study of a new abstraction called incremental decentralized data archival (iDDA). Specifically, imagine that there is an ever-growing, massive database such as a blockchain, a comprehensive human knowledge base like Wikipedia, or the Internet archive. We want to build a decentralized archival system for such datasets to ensure long-term robustness and sustainability. We identify several important properties that an iDDA scheme should satisfy. First, to promote heterogeneity and decentralization, we want to encourage even weak nodes with limited space (e.g., users' home computers) to contribute. The minimum space requirement to contribute should be approximately independent of the data size. Second, if a collection of nodes together receive rewards commensurate with contributing a total of m blocks of space, then we want the following reassurances: 1) if m is at least the database size, we should be able to reconstruct the entire dataset; and 2) these nodes should actually be committing roughly m space in aggregate - specifically, when m is much larger than the data size, these nodes cannot store only one copy of the database, and be able to impersonate arbitrarily many pseudonyms and get unbounded rewards. We propose new definitions that mathematically formalize the aforementioned requirements of an iDDA scheme. We also devise an efficient construction in the random oracle model which satisfies the desired security requirements. Our scheme incurs only Õ(1) audit cost, as well as Õ(1) update cost for both the publisher and each node, where Õ(⋅) hides polylogarithmic factors. Further, the minimum space provisioning required to contribute is as small as polylogarithmic. Our construction exposes several interesting technical challenges. Specifically, we show that a straightforward application of the standard hierarchical data structure fails, since both our security definition and the underlying cryptographic primitives we employ lack the desired compositional guarantees. We devise novel techniques to overcome these compositional issues, resulting in a construction with provable security while still retaining efficiency. Finally, our new definitions also make a conceptual contribution, and lay the theoretical groundwork for the study of iDDA. We raise several interesting open problems along this direction.

Cite as

Elaine Shi, Rose Silver, and Changrui Mu. Decentralized Data Archival: New Definitions and Constructions. In 17th Innovations in Theoretical Computer Science Conference (ITCS 2026). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 362, pp. 116:1-116:22, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2026)


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@InProceedings{shi_et_al:LIPIcs.ITCS.2026.116,
  author =	{Shi, Elaine and Silver, Rose and Mu, Changrui},
  title =	{{Decentralized Data Archival: New Definitions and Constructions}},
  booktitle =	{17th Innovations in Theoretical Computer Science Conference (ITCS 2026)},
  pages =	{116:1--116:22},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-410-9},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2026},
  volume =	{362},
  editor =	{Saraf, Shubhangi},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.ITCS.2026.116},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-254037},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.ITCS.2026.116},
  annote =	{Keywords: Decentralized Data Archival}
}
Document
BlindPerm: Efficient MEV Mitigation with an Encrypted Mempool and Permutation

Authors: Alireza Kavousi, Duc V. Le, Philipp Jovanovic, and George Danezis

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 361, 29th International Conference on Principles of Distributed Systems (OPODIS 2025)


Abstract
Maximal Extractable Value (MEV) is a crucial challenge in blockchains and cryptocurrencies. A principal countermeasure is using encrypted mempools to hide the transaction payloads until they are committed in a block. However, the existing approaches based on encrypted mempools remain vulnerable to metadata leakage and may not provide sufficient mitigation against block producers due to their sole control in block preparation. In this paper, we propose techniques that utilize randomized permutation on the committed block, offering a multi-layer solution. With a focus on proof-of-stake (PoS) committee-based consensus, we then introduce BlindPerm, a framework that enhances an encrypted mempool with permutation and present various optimizations. Notably, we propose a construction where this enhancement comes at essentially no overhead by piggybacking on the encrypted mempool and without relying on any external entity such as randomness beacon. Further, we illustrate the effectiveness of our solutions by running simulations using historical Ethereum data.

Cite as

Alireza Kavousi, Duc V. Le, Philipp Jovanovic, and George Danezis. BlindPerm: Efficient MEV Mitigation with an Encrypted Mempool and Permutation. In 29th International Conference on Principles of Distributed Systems (OPODIS 2025). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 361, pp. 36:1-36:21, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2025)


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@InProceedings{kavousi_et_al:LIPIcs.OPODIS.2025.36,
  author =	{Kavousi, Alireza and Le, Duc V. and Jovanovic, Philipp and Danezis, George},
  title =	{{BlindPerm: Efficient MEV Mitigation with an Encrypted Mempool and Permutation}},
  booktitle =	{29th International Conference on Principles of Distributed Systems (OPODIS 2025)},
  pages =	{36:1--36:21},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-409-3},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2026},
  volume =	{361},
  editor =	{Arusoaie, Andrei and Onica, Emanuel and Spear, Michael and Tucci-Piergiovanni, Sara},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.OPODIS.2025.36},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-252091},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.OPODIS.2025.36},
  annote =	{Keywords: Encrypted mempool, maximal extractable value, distributed systems}
}
Document
Overlay Network Construction: Improved Overall and Node-Wise Message Complexity

Authors: Yi-Jun Chang, Yanyu Chen, and Gopinath Mishra

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 360, 45th IARCS Annual Conference on Foundations of Software Technology and Theoretical Computer Science (FSTTCS 2025)


Abstract
We consider the problem of constructing distributed overlay networks, where nodes in a reconfigurable system can create or sever connections with nodes whose identifiers they know. Initially, each node knows only its own and its neighbors' identifiers, forming a local channel, while the evolving structure is termed the global channel. The goal is to reconfigure any connected graph into a desired topology, such as a bounded-degree expander graph or a well-formed tree (WFT) with a constant maximum degree and logarithmic diameter, minimizing the total number of rounds and message complexity. This problem mirrors real-world peer-to-peer network construction, where creating robust and efficient systems is desired. We study the overlay reconstruction problem in a network of n nodes in two models: GOSSIP-reply and HYBRID. In the GOSSIP-reply model, each node can send a message and receive a corresponding reply message in one round. In the HYBRID model, a node can send O(1) messages to each neighbor in the local channel and a total of O(log n) messages in the global channel. In both models, we propose protocols for WFT construction with O (n log n) message complexities using messages of O(log n) bits. In the GOSSIP-reply model, our protocol takes O(log n) rounds while in the HYBRID model, our protocol takes O(log² n) rounds. Both protocols use O (n log² n) bits of communication. We obtain improved bounds over prior work: GOSSIP-reply: A recent result by Dufoulon et al. (ITCS 2024) achieved O(log⁵ n) round complexity and O (n log⁵ n) message complexity using messages of at least Ω(log² n) bits in GOSSIP-reply. With messages of size O(log n), our protocol achieves an optimal round complexity of O(log n) and an improved message complexity of O(n log n). HYBRID: Götte et al. (Distributed Computing 2023) showed an optimal O(log n)-round algorithm with O(log² n) global messages per round which incurs a message complexity of Ω(m), where m is the number of edges in the initial topology. At the cost of increasing the round complexity to O(log² n) while using only O(log n) messages globally, our protocol achieves a message complexity that is independent of m. Our approach ensures that the total number of messages for node v, with degree deg(v) in the initial topology, is bounded by O(deg(v) + log n), while the algorithm of Götte et al. requires O(deg(v) + (log⁴ n)/(log log n)) messages per node.

Cite as

Yi-Jun Chang, Yanyu Chen, and Gopinath Mishra. Overlay Network Construction: Improved Overall and Node-Wise Message Complexity. In 45th IARCS Annual Conference on Foundations of Software Technology and Theoretical Computer Science (FSTTCS 2025). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 360, pp. 21:1-21:21, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2025)


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@InProceedings{chang_et_al:LIPIcs.FSTTCS.2025.21,
  author =	{Chang, Yi-Jun and Chen, Yanyu and Mishra, Gopinath},
  title =	{{Overlay Network Construction: Improved Overall and Node-Wise Message Complexity}},
  booktitle =	{45th IARCS Annual Conference on Foundations of Software Technology and Theoretical Computer Science (FSTTCS 2025)},
  pages =	{21:1--21:21},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-406-2},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2025},
  volume =	{360},
  editor =	{Aiswarya, C. and Mehta, Ruta and Roy, Subhajit},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.FSTTCS.2025.21},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-251025},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.FSTTCS.2025.21},
  annote =	{Keywords: Distributed algorithms, Overlay networks, Expander graphs}
}
Document
Kudzu: Fast and Simple High-Throughput BFT

Authors: Victor Shoup, Jakub Sliwinski, and Yann Vonlanthen

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 356, 39th International Symposium on Distributed Computing (DISC 2025)


Abstract
We present Kudzu, a high-throughput atomic broadcast protocol with an integrated fast path. Our contribution is based on the combination of two lines of work. Firstly, our protocol achieves finality in just two rounds of communication if all but p out of n = 3f + 2p + 1 participating replicas behave correctly, where f is the number of Byzantine faults that are tolerated. Due to the seamless integration of the fast path, even in the presence of more than p faults, our protocol maintains state-of-the-art characteristics. Secondly, our protocol utilizes the bandwidth of participating replicas in a balanced way, alleviating the bottleneck at the leader, and thus enabling high throughput. This is achieved by disseminating blocks using erasure codes. Despite combining a novel set of advantages, Kudzu is remarkably simple: intricacies such as "progress certificates", complex view changes, and speculative execution are avoided.

Cite as

Victor Shoup, Jakub Sliwinski, and Yann Vonlanthen. Kudzu: Fast and Simple High-Throughput BFT. In 39th International Symposium on Distributed Computing (DISC 2025). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 356, pp. 42:1-42:19, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2025)


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@InProceedings{shoup_et_al:LIPIcs.DISC.2025.42,
  author =	{Shoup, Victor and Sliwinski, Jakub and Vonlanthen, Yann},
  title =	{{Kudzu: Fast and Simple High-Throughput BFT}},
  booktitle =	{39th International Symposium on Distributed Computing (DISC 2025)},
  pages =	{42:1--42:19},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-402-4},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2025},
  volume =	{356},
  editor =	{Kowalski, Dariusz R.},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.DISC.2025.42},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-248597},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.DISC.2025.42},
  annote =	{Keywords: Consensus, Blockchain, Byzantine Fault Tolerance, Fast Path, State Machine Replication}
}
Document
Mechanism Design for Automated Market Makers

Authors: T-H. Hubert Chan, Ke Wu, and Elaine Shi

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 354, 7th Conference on Advances in Financial Technologies (AFT 2025)


Abstract
Blockchains have popularized automated market makers (AMMs), applications that run on a blockchain, maintain a pool of crypto-assets, and execute trades with users governed by some pricing function. AMMs have also introduced a significant challenge known as the Miner Extractable Value (MEV). Specifically, miners who control the contents and sequencing of transactions in a block can extract value by front-running and back-running users' transactions, creating arbitrage opportunities that guarantee them risk-free returns. MEV not only harms ordinary users, but more critically, encourages miners to auction off favorable transaction placements to users and arbitragers. This has fostered a more centralized off-chain eco-system, departing from the decentralized equilibrium originally envisioned for the blockchain infrastructure layer. In this paper, we consider how to design AMM mechanisms that eliminate MEV opportunities. Specifically, we propose a new AMM mechanism that processes all transactions contained within a block according to some pre-defined rules, ensuring that some constant potential function is maintained after processing the batch. We show that our new mechanism satisfies two tiers of guarantees. First, for legacy blockchains where each block is proposed by a single (possibly rotating) miner, we prove that our mechanism satisfies arbitrage resilience, i.e., a miner cannot gain risk-free profit. Second, for blockchains where the block proposal process is decentralized and offers sequencing-fairness, we prove a strictly stronger notion called strategy proofness - roughly speaking, we guarantee that any individual user’s best response is to follow the honest strategy. Our results complement prior works on MEV resilience in the following senses. First, prior works have shown impossibilities to address MEV entirely at the consensus level. Our work demonstrates a new paradigm of mechanism design at the application (i.e., smart contract) layer to ensure provable guarantees of strategy proofness. Second, many works have attempted to augment the underlying consensus protocol with extra properties such as sequencing fairness. While most previous works heuristically argued why these extra properties help to mitigate MEV, our work demonstrates in a mathematically formal manner how to leverage such consensus-level properties to aid the design of strategy-proof mechanisms.

Cite as

T-H. Hubert Chan, Ke Wu, and Elaine Shi. Mechanism Design for Automated Market Makers. In 7th Conference on Advances in Financial Technologies (AFT 2025). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 354, pp. 7:1-7:22, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2025)


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@InProceedings{chan_et_al:LIPIcs.AFT.2025.7,
  author =	{Chan, T-H. Hubert and Wu, Ke and Shi, Elaine},
  title =	{{Mechanism Design for Automated Market Makers}},
  booktitle =	{7th Conference on Advances in Financial Technologies (AFT 2025)},
  pages =	{7:1--7:22},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-400-0},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2025},
  volume =	{354},
  editor =	{Avarikioti, Zeta and Christin, Nicolas},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.AFT.2025.7},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-247265},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.AFT.2025.7},
  annote =	{Keywords: Mechanism design, game theory, strategy proof, blockchain}
}
Document
From Permissioned to Proof-of-Stake Consensus

Authors: Jovan Komatovic, Andrew Lewis-Pye, Joachim Neu, Tim Roughgarden, and Ertem Nusret Tas

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 354, 7th Conference on Advances in Financial Technologies (AFT 2025)


Abstract
This paper presents the first generic compiler that transforms any permissioned consensus protocol into a proof-of-stake permissionless consensus protocol. For each of the following properties, if the initial permissioned protocol satisfies that property in the partially synchronous setting, the consequent proof-of-stake protocol also satisfies that property in the partially synchronous and quasi-permissionless setting (with the same fault-tolerance): consistency; liveness; optimistic responsiveness; every composable log-specific property; and message complexity of a given order. Moreover, our transformation ensures that the output protocol satisfies accountability (identifying culprits in the event of a consistency violation), whether or not the original permissioned protocol satisfied it.

Cite as

Jovan Komatovic, Andrew Lewis-Pye, Joachim Neu, Tim Roughgarden, and Ertem Nusret Tas. From Permissioned to Proof-of-Stake Consensus. In 7th Conference on Advances in Financial Technologies (AFT 2025). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 354, pp. 18:1-18:26, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2025)


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@InProceedings{komatovic_et_al:LIPIcs.AFT.2025.18,
  author =	{Komatovic, Jovan and Lewis-Pye, Andrew and Neu, Joachim and Roughgarden, Tim and Tas, Ertem Nusret},
  title =	{{From Permissioned to Proof-of-Stake Consensus}},
  booktitle =	{7th Conference on Advances in Financial Technologies (AFT 2025)},
  pages =	{18:1--18:26},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-400-0},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2025},
  volume =	{354},
  editor =	{Avarikioti, Zeta and Christin, Nicolas},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.AFT.2025.18},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-247373},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.AFT.2025.18},
  annote =	{Keywords: Permissioned Consensus, Proof-of-Stake, generic Compiler, Blockchain}
}
Document
Two-Tier Black-Box Blockchains and Application to Instant Layer-1 Payments

Authors: Michele Ciampi, Yun Lu, Rafail Ostrovsky, and Vassilis Zikas

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 354, 7th Conference on Advances in Financial Technologies (AFT 2025)


Abstract
Common blockchain protocols are monolithic, i.e., their security relies on a single assumption, e.g., honest majority of hashing power (Bitcoin) or stake (Cardano, Algorand, Ethereum). In contrast, so-called optimistic approaches (Thunderella, Meshcash) rely on a combination of assumptions to achieve faster transaction liveness. We revisit, redesign, and augment the optimistic paradigm to a tiered approach. Our design assumes a primary (Tier 1) and a secondary (Tier 2, also referred to as fallback) blockchain, and achieves full security also in a tiered fashion: If the assumption underpinning the primary chain holds, then we guarantee safety, liveness and censorship resistance, irrespectively of the status of the fallback chain. And even if the primary assumption fails, all security properties are still satisfied (albeit with a temporary slow down) provided the fallback assumption holds. To our knowledge, no existing optimistic or tiered approach preserves both safety and liveness when any one of its underlying blockchain (assumptions) fails. The above is achieved by a new detection-and-recovery mechanism that links the two blockchains, so that any violation of safety, liveness, or censorship resistance on the (faster) primary blockchain is temporary - it is swiftly detected and recovered on the secondary chain - and thus cannot result in a persistent fork or halt of the blockchain ledger. We instantiate the above paradigm using a primary chain based on proof of reputation (PoR) and a fallback chain based on proof of stake (PoS). Our construction uses the PoR and PoS blockchains in a mostly black-box manner - where rather than assuming a concrete construction we distil abstract properties on the two blockchains that are sufficient for applying our tiered methodology. In fact, choosing reputation as the resource of the primary chain opens the door to an incentive mechanism - which we devise and analyze - that tokenizes reputation in order to deter cheating and boost participation (on both the primary/PoR and the fallback/PoS blockchain). As we demonstrate, such tokenization in combination with interpreting reputation as a built-in system-wide credit score, allows for embedding in our two-tiered methodology a novel mechanism which provides collateral-free, multi-use payment-channel-like functionality where payments can be instantly confirmed.

Cite as

Michele Ciampi, Yun Lu, Rafail Ostrovsky, and Vassilis Zikas. Two-Tier Black-Box Blockchains and Application to Instant Layer-1 Payments. In 7th Conference on Advances in Financial Technologies (AFT 2025). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 354, pp. 19:1-19:24, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2025)


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@InProceedings{ciampi_et_al:LIPIcs.AFT.2025.19,
  author =	{Ciampi, Michele and Lu, Yun and Ostrovsky, Rafail and Zikas, Vassilis},
  title =	{{Two-Tier Black-Box Blockchains and Application to Instant Layer-1 Payments}},
  booktitle =	{7th Conference on Advances in Financial Technologies (AFT 2025)},
  pages =	{19:1--19:24},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-400-0},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2025},
  volume =	{354},
  editor =	{Avarikioti, Zeta and Christin, Nicolas},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.AFT.2025.19},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-247380},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.AFT.2025.19},
  annote =	{Keywords: Fault tolerant blockchain, instantly confirmed payments}
}
Document
Beyond Optimal Fault-Tolerance

Authors: Andrew Lewis-Pye and Tim Roughgarden

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 354, 7th Conference on Advances in Financial Technologies (AFT 2025)


Abstract
One of the most basic properties of a consensus protocol is its fault-tolerance - the maximum fraction of faulty participants that the protocol can tolerate without losing fundamental guarantees such as safety and liveness. Because of its importance, the optimal fault-tolerance achievable by any protocol has been characterized in a wide range of settings. For example, for state machine replication (SMR) protocols operating in the partially synchronous setting, it is possible to simultaneously guarantee consistency against α-bounded adversaries (i.e., adversaries that control less than an α fraction of the participants) and liveness against β-bounded adversaries if and only if α + 2β ≤ 1. This paper characterizes to what extent "better-than-optimal" fault-tolerance guarantees are possible for SMR protocols when the standard consistency requirement is relaxed to allow a bounded number r of consistency violations, each potentially leading to the rollback of recently finalized transactions. We prove that bounded rollback is impossible without additional timing assumptions and investigate protocols that tolerate and recover from consistency violations whenever message delays around the time of an attack are bounded by a parameter Δ^* (which may be arbitrarily larger than the parameter Δ that bounds post-GST message delays in the partially synchronous model). Here, a protocol’s fault-tolerance can be a non-constant function of r, and we prove, for each r, matching upper and lower bounds on the optimal "recoverable fault-tolerance" achievable by any SMR protocol. For example, for protocols that guarantee liveness against 1/3-bounded adversaries in the partially synchronous setting, a 5/9-bounded adversary can always cause one consistency violation but not two, and a 2/3-bounded adversary can always cause two consistency violations but not three. Our positive results are achieved through a generic "recovery procedure" that can be grafted on to any accountable SMR protocol and restores consistency following a violation while rolling back only transactions that were finalized in the previous 2Δ^* timesteps.

Cite as

Andrew Lewis-Pye and Tim Roughgarden. Beyond Optimal Fault-Tolerance. In 7th Conference on Advances in Financial Technologies (AFT 2025). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 354, pp. 15:1-15:23, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2025)


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@InProceedings{lewispye_et_al:LIPIcs.AFT.2025.15,
  author =	{Lewis-Pye, Andrew and Roughgarden, Tim},
  title =	{{Beyond Optimal Fault-Tolerance}},
  booktitle =	{7th Conference on Advances in Financial Technologies (AFT 2025)},
  pages =	{15:1--15:23},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-400-0},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2025},
  volume =	{354},
  editor =	{Avarikioti, Zeta and Christin, Nicolas},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.AFT.2025.15},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-247341},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.AFT.2025.15},
  annote =	{Keywords: Distributed computing, consensus, recovery}
}
Document
Nakamoto Consensus from Multiple Resources

Authors: Mirza Ahad Baig, Christoph U. Günther, and Krzysztof Pietrzak

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 354, 7th Conference on Advances in Financial Technologies (AFT 2025)


Abstract
The blocks in the Bitcoin blockchain "record" the amount of work W that went into creating them through proofs of work. When honest parties control a majority of the work, consensus is achieved by picking the chain with the highest recorded weight. Resources other than work have been considered to secure such longest-chain blockchains. In Chia, blocks record the amount of disk-space S (via a proof of space) and sequential computational steps V (through a VDF). In this paper, we ask what weight functions Γ(S,V,W) (that assign a weight to a block as a function of the recorded space, speed, and work) are secure in the sense that whenever the weight of the resources controlled by honest parties is larger than the weight of adversarial parties, the blockchain is secure against private double-spending attacks. We completely classify such functions in an idealized "continuous" model: Γ(S,V,W) is secure against private double-spending attacks if and only if it is homogeneous of degree one in the "timed" resources V and W, i.e., αΓ(S,V,W) = Γ(S,α V, α W). This includes the Bitcoin rule Γ(S,V,W) = W and the Chia rule Γ(S,V,W) = S ⋅ V. In a more realistic model where blocks are created at discrete time-points, one additionally needs some mild assumptions on the dependency on S (basically, the weight should not grow too much if S is slightly increased, say linear as in Chia). Our classification is more general and allows various instantiations of the same resource. It provides a powerful tool for designing new longest-chain blockchains. E.g., consider combining different PoWs to counter centralization, say the Bitcoin PoW W₁ and a memory-hard PoW W₂. Previous work suggested to use W₁+W₂ as weight. Our results show that using e.g., √{W₁}⋅ √{W₂} or min{W₁,W₂} are also secure, and we argue that in practice these are much better choices.

Cite as

Mirza Ahad Baig, Christoph U. Günther, and Krzysztof Pietrzak. Nakamoto Consensus from Multiple Resources. In 7th Conference on Advances in Financial Technologies (AFT 2025). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 354, pp. 16:1-16:23, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2025)


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@InProceedings{baig_et_al:LIPIcs.AFT.2025.16,
  author =	{Baig, Mirza Ahad and G\"{u}nther, Christoph U. and Pietrzak, Krzysztof},
  title =	{{Nakamoto Consensus from Multiple Resources}},
  booktitle =	{7th Conference on Advances in Financial Technologies (AFT 2025)},
  pages =	{16:1--16:23},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-400-0},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2025},
  volume =	{354},
  editor =	{Avarikioti, Zeta and Christin, Nicolas},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.AFT.2025.16},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-247353},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.AFT.2025.16},
  annote =	{Keywords: Nakamoto Consensus, Heaviest-chain Rule, Resource Theory}
}
Document
Fully-Fluctuating Participation in Sleepy Consensus

Authors: Yuval Efron, Joachim Neu, and Toniann Pitassi

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 354, 7th Conference on Advances in Financial Technologies (AFT 2025)


Abstract
Proof-of-work allows Bitcoin to boast security amidst arbitrary fluctuations in participation of miners throughout time, so long as, at any point in time, a majority of hash power is honest. In recent years, however, the pendulum has shifted in favor of proof-of-stake-based consensus protocols. There, the sleepy model is the most prominent model for handling fluctuating participation of nodes. However, to date, no protocol in the sleepy model rivals Bitcoin in its robustness to drastic fluctuations in participation levels, with state-of-the-art protocols making various restrictive assumptions. In this work, we present a new adversary model, called external adversary. Intuitively, in our model, corrupt nodes do not divulge information about their secret keys. In this model, we show that protocols in the sleepy model can meaningfully claim to remain secure against fully fluctuating participation, without compromising efficiency or corruption resilience. Our adversary model is quite natural, and arguably naturally captures the process via which malicious behavior arises in protocols, as opposed to traditional worst-case modeling. On top of which, the model is also theoretically appealing, circumventing a barrier established in a recent work of Malkhi, Momose, and Ren.

Cite as

Yuval Efron, Joachim Neu, and Toniann Pitassi. Fully-Fluctuating Participation in Sleepy Consensus. In 7th Conference on Advances in Financial Technologies (AFT 2025). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 354, pp. 17:1-17:22, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2025)


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@InProceedings{efron_et_al:LIPIcs.AFT.2025.17,
  author =	{Efron, Yuval and Neu, Joachim and Pitassi, Toniann},
  title =	{{Fully-Fluctuating Participation in Sleepy Consensus}},
  booktitle =	{7th Conference on Advances in Financial Technologies (AFT 2025)},
  pages =	{17:1--17:22},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-400-0},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2025},
  volume =	{354},
  editor =	{Avarikioti, Zeta and Christin, Nicolas},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.AFT.2025.17},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-247362},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.AFT.2025.17},
  annote =	{Keywords: Sleepy Consensus, fully-fluctuating dynamic Participation}
}
Document
Selfish Mining Under General Stochastic Rewards

Authors: Maryam Bahrani, Michael Neuder, and S. Matthew Weinberg

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 354, 7th Conference on Advances in Financial Technologies (AFT 2025)


Abstract
Selfish miners selectively withhold blocks to earn disproportionately high revenue. The vast majority of the selfish mining literature focuses exclusively on block rewards. [Carlsten et al., 2016] is a notable exception, observing that similar strategic behavior is profitable in a zero-block-reward regime (the endgame for Bitcoin’s quadrennial halving schedule) if miners are compensated with transaction fees alone. Neither model fully captures miner incentives today. The block reward remains 3.125 BTC, yet some blocks yield significantly higher revenue. For example, congestion during the launch of the Babylon protocol in August 2024 caused transaction fees to spike from 0.14 BTC to 9.52 BTC, a 68× increase in fees within two blocks. Our results are both practical and theoretical. Of practical interest, we study selfish mining profitability under a combined reward function that more accurately models miner incentives. This analysis enables us to make quantitative claims about protocol risk (e.g., the mining power at which a selfish strategy becomes profitable is reduced by 22% when optimizing over the combined reward function versus block rewards alone) and qualitative observations (e.g., a miner considering both block rewards and transaction fees will mine more or less aggressively respectively than if they cared about either alone). These practical results follow from our novel model and methodology, which constitute our theoretical contributions. We model general, time-accruing stochastic rewards in the Nakamoto Consensus Game, which requires explicit treatment of difficult adjustment and randomness; we characterize reward function structure through a set of properties (e.g., that rewards accrue only as a function of time since the parent block). We present a new methodology to analytically calculate expected selfish miner rewards under a broad class of stochastic reward functions and validate our method numerically by comparing it with the existing literature and simulating the combined reward sources directly.

Cite as

Maryam Bahrani, Michael Neuder, and S. Matthew Weinberg. Selfish Mining Under General Stochastic Rewards. In 7th Conference on Advances in Financial Technologies (AFT 2025). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 354, pp. 20:1-20:23, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2025)


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@InProceedings{bahrani_et_al:LIPIcs.AFT.2025.20,
  author =	{Bahrani, Maryam and Neuder, Michael and Weinberg, S. Matthew},
  title =	{{Selfish Mining Under General Stochastic Rewards}},
  booktitle =	{7th Conference on Advances in Financial Technologies (AFT 2025)},
  pages =	{20:1--20:23},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-400-0},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2025},
  volume =	{354},
  editor =	{Avarikioti, Zeta and Christin, Nicolas},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.AFT.2025.20},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-247396},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.AFT.2025.20},
  annote =	{Keywords: Proof-of-Work, Selfish Mining, MEV}
}
Document
Track A: Algorithms, Complexity and Games
Submodular Hypergraph Partitioning: Metric Relaxations and Fast Algorithms via an Improved Cut-Matching Game

Authors: Antares Chen, Lorenzo Orecchia, and Erasmo Tani

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 334, 52nd International Colloquium on Automata, Languages, and Programming (ICALP 2025)


Abstract
Despite there being significant work on developing spectral- [Chan et al., 2018; Lau et al., 2023; Kwok et al., 2022], and metric-embedding-based [Louis and Makarychev, 2016] approximation algorithms for hypergraph conductance, little is known regarding the approximability of other hypergraph partitioning objectives. This work proposes algorithms for a general model of hypergraph partitioning that unifies both undirected and directed versions of many well-studied partitioning objectives. The first contribution of this paper introduces polymatroidal cut functions, a large class of cut functions amenable to approximation algorithms via metric embeddings and routing multicommodity flows. We demonstrate a simple O(√{log n})-approximation, where n is the number of vertices in the hypergraph, for these problems by rounding relaxations to metrics of negative-type. The second contribution of this paper generalizes the cut-matching game framework of Khandekar et al. [Khandekar et al., 2007] to tackle polymatroidal cut functions. This yields an almost-linear time O(log n)-approximation algorithm for standard versions of undirected and directed hypergraph partitioning [Kwok et al., 2022]. A technical contribution of our construction is a novel cut-matching game, which greatly relaxes the set of allowed actions by the cut player and allows for the use of approximate s-t maximum flows by the matching player. We believe this to be of independent interest.

Cite as

Antares Chen, Lorenzo Orecchia, and Erasmo Tani. Submodular Hypergraph Partitioning: Metric Relaxations and Fast Algorithms via an Improved Cut-Matching Game. In 52nd International Colloquium on Automata, Languages, and Programming (ICALP 2025). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 334, pp. 49:1-49:16, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2025)


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@InProceedings{chen_et_al:LIPIcs.ICALP.2025.49,
  author =	{Chen, Antares and Orecchia, Lorenzo and Tani, Erasmo},
  title =	{{Submodular Hypergraph Partitioning: Metric Relaxations and Fast Algorithms via an Improved Cut-Matching Game}},
  booktitle =	{52nd International Colloquium on Automata, Languages, and Programming (ICALP 2025)},
  pages =	{49:1--49:16},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-372-0},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2025},
  volume =	{334},
  editor =	{Censor-Hillel, Keren and Grandoni, Fabrizio and Ouaknine, Jo\"{e}l and Puppis, Gabriele},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.ICALP.2025.49},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-234261},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.ICALP.2025.49},
  annote =	{Keywords: Hypergraph Partitioning, Cut Improvement, Cut-Matching Game}
}
Document
Robust Restaking Networks

Authors: Naveen Durvasula and Tim Roughgarden

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 325, 16th Innovations in Theoretical Computer Science Conference (ITCS 2025)


Abstract
We study the risks of validator reuse across multiple services in a restaking protocol. We characterize the robust security of a restaking network as a function of the buffer between the costs and profits from attacks. For example, our results imply that if attack costs always exceed attack profits by 10%, then a sudden loss of .1% of the overall stake (e.g., due to a software error) cannot result in the ultimate loss of more than 1.1% of the overall stake. We also provide local analogs of these overcollateralization conditions and robust security guarantees that apply specifically for a target service or coalition of services. All of our bounds on worst-case stake loss are the best possible. Finally, we bound the maximum-possible length of a cascade of attacks. Our results suggest measures of robustness that could be exposed to the participants in a restaking protocol. We also suggest polynomial-time computable sufficient conditions that can proxy for these measures.

Cite as

Naveen Durvasula and Tim Roughgarden. Robust Restaking Networks. In 16th Innovations in Theoretical Computer Science Conference (ITCS 2025). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 325, pp. 48:1-48:21, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2025)


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@InProceedings{durvasula_et_al:LIPIcs.ITCS.2025.48,
  author =	{Durvasula, Naveen and Roughgarden, Tim},
  title =	{{Robust Restaking Networks}},
  booktitle =	{16th Innovations in Theoretical Computer Science Conference (ITCS 2025)},
  pages =	{48:1--48:21},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-361-4},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2025},
  volume =	{325},
  editor =	{Meka, Raghu},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.ITCS.2025.48},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-226769},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.ITCS.2025.48},
  annote =	{Keywords: Proof of stake, Restaking, Staking Risks}
}
Document
Near-Optimal Communication Byzantine Reliable Broadcast Under a Message Adversary

Authors: Timothé Albouy, Davide Frey, Ran Gelles, Carmit Hazay, Michel Raynal, Elad Michael Schiller, François Taïani, and Vassilis Zikas

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 324, 28th International Conference on Principles of Distributed Systems (OPODIS 2024)


Abstract
We address the problem of Reliable Broadcast in asynchronous message-passing systems with n nodes, of which up to t are malicious (faulty), in addition to a message adversary that can drop some of the messages sent by correct (non-faulty) nodes. We present a Message-Adversary-Tolerant Byzantine Reliable Broadcast (MBRB) algorithm that communicates O(|m|+nκ) bits per node, where |m| represents the length of the application message and κ = Ω(log n) is a security parameter. This communication complexity is optimal up to the parameter κ. This significantly improves upon the state-of-the-art MBRB solution (Albouy, Frey, Raynal, and Taïani, TCS 2023), which incurs communication of O(n|m|+n²κ) bits per node. Our solution sends at most 4n² messages overall, which is asymptotically optimal. Reduced communication is achieved by employing coding techniques that replace the need for all nodes to (re-)broadcast the entire application message m. Instead, nodes forward authenticated fragments of the encoding of m using an erasure-correcting code. Under the cryptographic assumptions of threshold signatures and vector commitments, and assuming n > 3t+2d, where the adversary drops at most d messages per broadcast, our algorithm allows at least 𝓁 = n - t - (1 + ε)d (for any arbitrarily low ε > 0) correct nodes to reconstruct m, despite missing fragments caused by the malicious nodes and the message adversary.

Cite as

Timothé Albouy, Davide Frey, Ran Gelles, Carmit Hazay, Michel Raynal, Elad Michael Schiller, François Taïani, and Vassilis Zikas. Near-Optimal Communication Byzantine Reliable Broadcast Under a Message Adversary. In 28th International Conference on Principles of Distributed Systems (OPODIS 2024). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 324, pp. 14:1-14:29, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2024)


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@InProceedings{albouy_et_al:LIPIcs.OPODIS.2024.14,
  author =	{Albouy, Timoth\'{e} and Frey, Davide and Gelles, Ran and Hazay, Carmit and Raynal, Michel and Schiller, Elad Michael and Ta\"{i}ani, Fran\c{c}ois and Zikas, Vassilis},
  title =	{{Near-Optimal Communication Byzantine Reliable Broadcast Under a Message Adversary}},
  booktitle =	{28th International Conference on Principles of Distributed Systems (OPODIS 2024)},
  pages =	{14:1--14:29},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-360-7},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2025},
  volume =	{324},
  editor =	{Bonomi, Silvia and Galletta, Letterio and Rivi\`{e}re, Etienne and Schiavoni, Valerio},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.OPODIS.2024.14},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-225503},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.OPODIS.2024.14},
  annote =	{Keywords: Asynchronous message-passing, Byzantine fault-tolerance, Message adversary, Reliable broadcast, Erasure-correction codes, \{Threshold\} signatures, \{Vector commitments\}}
}
Document
abSNP: RNA-Seq SNP Calling in Repetitive Regions via Abundance Estimation

Authors: Shunfu Mao, Soheil Mohajer, Kannan Ramachandran, David Tse, and Sreeram Kannan

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 88, 17th International Workshop on Algorithms in Bioinformatics (WABI 2017)


Abstract
Variant calling, in particular, calling SNPs (Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms) is a fundamental task in genomics. While existing packages offer excellent performance on calling SNPs which have uniquely mapped reads, they suffer in loci where the reads are multiply mapped, and are unable to make any reliable calls. Variants in multiply mapped loci can arise, for example in long segmental duplications, and can play important role in evolution and disease. In this paper, we develop a new SNP caller named abSNP, which offers three innovations. (a) abSNP calls SNPs from RNA-Seq data. Since RNA-Seq data is primarily sampled from gene regions, this method is inexpensive. (b) abSNP is able to successfully make calls on repetitive gene regions by exploiting the quality scores of multiply mapped reads carefully in order to make variant calls. (c) abSNP exploits a specific feature of RNA-Seq data, namely the varying abundance of different genes, in order to identify which repetitive copy a particular read is sampled from. We demonstrate that the proposed method offers significant performance gains on repetitive regions in simulated data. In particular, the algorithm is able to achieve near-perfect sensitivity on high-coverage SNPs, even when multiply mapped.

Cite as

Shunfu Mao, Soheil Mohajer, Kannan Ramachandran, David Tse, and Sreeram Kannan. abSNP: RNA-Seq SNP Calling in Repetitive Regions via Abundance Estimation. In 17th International Workshop on Algorithms in Bioinformatics (WABI 2017). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 88, pp. 15:1-15:14, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2017)


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@InProceedings{mao_et_al:LIPIcs.WABI.2017.15,
  author =	{Mao, Shunfu and Mohajer, Soheil and Ramachandran, Kannan and Tse, David and Kannan, Sreeram},
  title =	{{abSNP: RNA-Seq SNP Calling in Repetitive Regions via Abundance Estimation}},
  booktitle =	{17th International Workshop on Algorithms in Bioinformatics (WABI 2017)},
  pages =	{15:1--15:14},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-050-7},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2017},
  volume =	{88},
  editor =	{Schwartz, Russell and Reinert, Knut},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.WABI.2017.15},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-76582},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.WABI.2017.15},
  annote =	{Keywords: RNA-Seq, SNP Calling, Repetitive Region, Multiply Mapped Reads, Abundance Estimation}
}
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