Posts tagged ethereum

On Stablecoins and Beauty Pageants

stablecoins ethereum May 07, 2019 at 09:30 AM Amani Moin and Kevin Sekniqi

Some algorithmic stablecoins have proposed incorporating price feeds by asking their token holders. In this post, we point out that this mechanism is broken because of a fundamental incentive misalignment.

The Old Fee Market is Broken, Long Live the New Fee Market

bitcoin ethereum January 22, 2019 at 11:31 AM Soumya Basu, David Easley, Maureen O'Hara, and Emin Gün Sirer

We describe why the fee market is fundamentally broken and propose an alternative fee mechanism that fixes the issues with the current fee market.

One File for the Price of Three: Catching Cheating Servers in Decentralized Storage Networks

distributed storage ethereum August 06, 2018 at 06:00 PM Ethan Cecchetti, Ian Miers, and Ari Juels

Ever raise a quarter billion dollars and need to solve a really hard problem? Well, neither did we, but we've been talking to Filecoin about helping solve one of theirs.

On-Chain Vote Buying and the Rise of Dark DAOs

on-chain voting voting e-voting trusted hardware identity selling ethereum July 02, 2018 at 03:22 PM Philip Daian, Tyler Kell, Ian Miers, and Ari Juels

We explore the space of trust-minimizing coordination mechanisms for on-chain vote buying and exploitation in the permissionless model.

Paralysis Proofs: How to Prevent Your Bitcoin From Vanishing

ethereum bitcoin sgx paralysis proofs January 18, 2018 at 09:30 AM Fan Zhang, Phil Daian, Iddo Bentov, and Ari Juels

Suppose that N players share cryptocurrency using an M-of-N multisig scheme. If N-M+1 players disappear, the remaining ones have a problem: They've permanently lost their funds. In this blog, we propose a solution to this critical problem using the power of the trusted hardware.

The Social Workings of Contract

ethereum contracts January 17, 2018 at 01:00 PM Karen Levy

Guest blogger Prof. Karen Levy describes how contracts often include terms that are unenforceable, purposefully vague, or never meant to be enforced, how this helps set expectations, and what this means for smart contracts.

Decentralization in Bitcoin and Ethereum

bitcoin ethereum January 15, 2018 at 07:37 AM Adem Efe Gencer, Soumya Basu, Ittay Eyal, Robbert van Renesse, and Emin Gün Sirer

We have been examining the state of the Bitcoin and Ethereum networks over time. In a recent study, we examine the level of decentralization in these two networks, with some interesting takeaways for the future.

Parity Proposals’ Potential Problems

ethereum forks hacks December 13, 2017 at 08:00 AM Phil Daian and Lorenz Breidenbach

This post argues that the recently proposed EIPs to rescue the frozen ethers are dangerous.

To Sink Frontrunners, Send in the Submarines

ethereum frontrunning miners attacks August 28, 2017 at 05:01 AM Lorenz Breidenbach, Phil Daian, Ari Juels, and Florian Tramèr

We discuss a novel scheme for preventing (miner) frontrunning in Ethereum.

The Cost of Decentralization in 0x and EtherDelta

ethereum decentralization August 13, 2017 at 01:45 PM Iddo Bentov, Lorenz Breidenbach, Phil Daian, Ari Juels, Yunqi Li, and Xueyuan Zhao

This post examines decentralized exchanges

An In-Depth Look at the Parity Multisig Bug

ethereum parity wallet security July 22, 2017 at 09:47 AM Lorenz Breidenbach, Phil Daian, Ari Juels, and Emin Gün Sirer

We do a deep-dive into Parity's multisig bug.

Parity's Wallet Bug is not Alone

ethereum bitgo parity wallet security July 20, 2017 at 05:18 AM Emin Gün Sirer

The bug in the Parity multisig wallet that caused the loss of $30M has the same root cause as a bug in the BitGo multisig wallet that I found a year ago.

Bancor Is Flawed

ethereum bancor ico June 19, 2017 at 10:18 AM Emin Gün Sirer and Phil Daian

Bancor just raised $144M through the biggest ICO in history. We describe why their approach is flawed.

Announcing The Town Crier Service

ethereum town crier virtual notary May 15, 2017 at 10:01 AM Yan Ji, Ari Juels, and Fan Zhang

Town Crier is an oracle service for smart contracts.

How the Ethereum Hard Fork Can Fail

dao ethereum July 19, 2016 at 06:15 PM Emin Gün Sirer

The Ethereum hard fork is in a few days. Having looked at the proposed hard fork code, I discuss what I believe is the weakest part of the HF code.

Cross-Chain Replay Attacks

dao ethereum July 17, 2016 at 12:07 PM Emin Gün Sirer

Following a hard fork, there will be two chains. In cross-chain replay attacks, one can attack a smart contract by moving transactions from one chain to the other. Post describes a potential attack.

Reentrancy Woes in Smart Contracts

ethereum smart contracts July 13, 2016 at 10:45 AM Emin Gün Sirer

Reentrancy bugs are difficult to catch. This distilled, illustrative example shows how even a diligently-written contract with invariant checks can go wrong.

A Decentralized Escape Hatch for DAOs

ethereum smart contracts July 11, 2016 at 02:42 PM Ittay Eyal and Emin Gün Sirer

We describe a general Decentralized Escape Hatch mechanism, suitable for DAOs and other smart contracts.

Ethereum is Inherently Secure Against Censorship

ethereum smart contracts July 05, 2016 at 01:14 PM Tjaden Hess, River Keefer, and Emin Gün Sirer

Our discovery of a DoS vulnerability in Ethereum turns out to be a point of strength and censorship resistence for the currency.

Ethereum's DAO Wars Soft Fork is a Potential DoS Vector

ethereum dao June 28, 2016 at 09:22 AM Tjaden Hess, River Keefer, and Emin Gün Sirer

We identify a DoS vulnerability with Ethereum's proposed soft-fork for The DAO, and urge the community to be prepared for attacks, and to speed up the timetable for resolving the hard fork decision.

Smart-Contract Escape Hatches: The Dao of The DAO

ethereum dao contracts law June 23, 2016 at 10:11 AM Bill Marino

IC3's resident lawyer-techie discusses why smart contracts need escape hatches and how to implement them.

Analysis of the DAO exploit

ethereum dao June 18, 2016 at 01:11 AM Phil Daian

This post describes how the hacker who took $50+M from The DAO did it.

Thoughts on The DAO Hack

dao ethereum June 17, 2016 at 09:45 AM Emin Gün Sirer

The DAO was just hacked and a few million ether is missing. Here are my quick thoughts on what this means and where we go from here.

Scanning Live Ethereum Contracts for the "Unchecked-Send" Bug

ethereum etherscrape bug-finding June 16, 2016 at 01:15 PM Zikai Alex Wen and Andrew Miller

In this post, we examine just how prevalent the recently discovered "unchecked-send" bug is in real, live, deployed Ethereum contracts, with the aid of an automated analysis tool we have developed.

Caution: The DAO Can Turn Into a Naturally-Arising Ponzi

dao ethereum ponzi June 13, 2016 at 09:15 AM Emin Gün Sirer

The DAO is under pressure to turn itself into a Ponzi. I explain the "natural-born Ponzi" mechanisms, and call for the community to be on guard for such proposals.

A Call for a Temporary Moratorium on The DAO

ethereum dao smart contracts May 27, 2016 at 01:35 PM Dino Mark, Vlad Zamfir, and Emin Gün Sirer

We just published a draft article, urging a moratorium on The DAO until some security patches can be applied.

The ShapeShift Hack: Simply Incredible

shapeshift security bitcoin ethereum April 25, 2016 at 08:48 AM Emin Gün Sirer

There was a series of heists at ShapeShift, followed by an offered explanation. That offered explanation has more holes in it than Swiss cheese.