A Software Engineering Perspective on Cryptocurrencies

This work evaluates a digital cash phenomenon, called cryptocurrencies that was started in early 2009 and has created a buzz at the latest in the year 2013, by the virtual explosion of prices in currencies (e.g. prices in EUR or USD) for certain cryptocurrencies, especially for bitcoin. The evaluation is realized from the perspective of a software engineer. The central research question is derived of a claim made by the Bitcoin community: Bitcoin does create “a new kind of money”. The potential implications for existing payment systems would be tremendous if this proves to be substantial. This issue is examined by performing a requirements analysis for payment systems in general, thereby establishing certain definitions and understandings of terms, including ‘money’. An analysis and evaluation is also done for the Banking Payment System (BPS) and the Cryptocurrency Payment System (CPS) with the target to be able to draw conclusions for the CPS by comparing the two payment systems. Furthermore a detailed evaluation of Bitcoin (first letter capitalized!) and its proposed money called ‘bitcoin’ (non-capitalized!) is carried out by reverse engineering parts of the software project using modeling technology that is known in model driven software development

The Rise of Decentralized Autonomous Organizations: Coordination and Growth within Cryptocurrencies

The rise of cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin is driving a paradigm shift in organization design. Their underlying blockchain technology enables a novel form of organizing, which I call the “decentralized autonomous organization” (DAO). This study explores how tasks are coordinated within DAOs that provide decentralized and open payment systems that do not rely on centralized intermediaries (e.g., banks). Guided by a Bitcoin pilot case study followed by a three-stage research design that uses both qualitative and quantitative data, this inductive study examines twenty DAOs in the cryptocurrency industry to address the following question: How are DAOs coordinated to enable growth? Results from the pilot study suggest that task coordination within DAOs is enabled by distributed consensus mechanisms at various levels. Further, findings from interview data reveal that DAOs coordinate tasks through “machine consensus” and “social consensus” mechanisms that operate at varying degrees of decentralization. Subsequent fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analyses (fsQCA), explaining when DAOs grow or decline, show that social consensus mechanisms can partially substitute machine consensus mechanisms in less decentralized DAOs. Taken together, the results unpack how DAO growth relies on the interplay between machine consensus, social consensus, and decentralization mechanisms. To conclude, I formulate three propositions to outline a theory of DAO coordination and discuss how this novel form of organizing calls for a revision of our conventional understanding of task coordination and organizational growth

Mobile Ad-Hoc Networks

Being infrastructure-less and without central administration control, wireless ad-hoc networking is playing a more and more important role in extending the coverage of traditional wireless infrastructure (cellular networks, wireless LAN, etc). This book includes state-of the-art techniques and solutions for wireless ad-hoc networks. It focuses on the following topics in ad-hoc networks: vehicular ad-hoc networks, security and caching, TCP in ad-hoc networks and emerging applications. It is targeted to provide network engineers and researchers with design guidelines for large scale wireless ad hoc networks

Themelio: a new blockchain paradigm

Public blockchains hold great promise in building protocols that uphold security properties like transparency and consistency based on internal, incentivized cryptoeconomic mechanisms rather than preexisting trust in participants. Yet user-facing blockchain applications beyond "internal" immediate derivatives of blockchain incentive models, like cryptocurrency and decentralized finance, have not achieved widespread development or adoption. We propose that this is not primarily due to "engineering" problems in aspects such as scaling, but due to an overall lack of transferable endogenous trust—the twofold ability to uphold strong, internally-generated security guarantees and to translate them into application-level security. Yet we argue that blockchains, due to their foundation on game-theoretic incentive models rather than trusted authorities, are uniquely suited for building transferable endogenous trust, despite their current deficiencies. We then engage in a survey of existing public blockchains and the difficulties and crises that they have faced, noting that in almost every case, problems such as governance disputes and ecosystem inflexibility stem from a lack of transferable endogenous trust. Next, we introduce Themelio, a decentralized, public blockchain designed to support a new blockchain paradigm focused on transferable endogenous trust. Here, the blockchain is used as a low-level, stable, and simple root of trust, capable of sharing this trust with applications through scalable light clients. This contrasts with current blockchains, which are either applications or application execution platforms. We present evidence that this new paradigm is crucial to achieving flexible deployment of blockchain-based trust. We then describe the Themelio blockchain in detail, focusing on three areas key to its overall theme of transferable, strong endogenous trust: a traditional yet enhanced UTXO model with features that allow powerful programmability and light-client composability, a novel proof-of-stake system with unique cryptoeconomic guarantees against collusion, and Themelio's unique cryptocurrency "mel", which achieves stablecoin-like low volatility without sacrificing decentralization and security. Finally, we explore the wide variety of novel, partly off-chain applications enabled by Themelio's decoupled blockchain paradigm. This includes Astrape, a privacy-protecting off-chain micropayment network, Bitforest, a blockchain-based PKI that combines blockchain-backed security guarantees with the performance and administration benefits of traditional systems, as well as sketches of further applications

Coin-Operated Capitalism

This Article presents the legal literature’s first detailed analysis of the inner workings of Initial Coin Offerings. We characterize the ICO as an example of financial innovation, placing it in kinship with venture capital contracting, asset securitization, and (obviously) the IPO. We also take the form seriously as an example of technological innovation, where promoters are beginning to effectuate their promises to investors through computer code, rather than traditional contract. To understand the dynamics of this shift, we first collect contracts, “white papers,” and other contract-like documents for the fifty top-grossing ICOs of 2017. We then analyze how such projects’ software code reflected (or failed to reflect) their contractual promises. Our inquiry reveals that many ICOs failed even to promise that they would protect investors against insider self-dealing. Fewer still manifested such contracts in code. Surprisingly, in a community known for espousing a technolibertarian belief in the power of “trustless trust” built with carefully designed code, a significant fraction of issuers retained centralized control through previously undisclosed code permitting modification of the entities’ governing structures. These findings offer valuable lessons to legal scholars, economists, and policymakers about the roles played by gatekeepers; about the value of regulation; and the possibilities for socially valuable private ordering in a relatively anonymous, decentralized environment

OTS 2019 Advanced Information Technology and Services

Prispevki, zbrani v zborniku že 24. strokovne konference Sodobne informacijske tehnologije in storitve, naslavljajo izjemno aktualne izzive, s katerimi se informatiki, programski inženirji, računalničarji, podatkovni znanstveniki, arhitekti, razvijalci ter upravljalci informacijskih rešitev in storitev srečujemo pri svojem vsakdanjem delu. Avtorji predstavljajo inovativne rešitve in skozi konkretne projekte pridobljene izkušnje s/z: vpeljavo tehnologij strojnega učenja in obogatene inteligence, uporabo tehnologij in platform veriženja blokov, razvojem šibko sklopljenih mikrostoritev, popolno virtualizacijo in izkoriščanjem porazdeljenih infrastruktur, zagotavljanjem kibernetske varnosti, zaupnosti in zasebnosti, skaliranjem agilnih metod v porazdeljenih projektnih skupinah, vpeljavo agilnih pristopov v sklopu avtomatiziranih in neprekinjenih procesov razvoja, testiranja, integracije in dostave, posodobitvijo in nadgradnjo obstoječih informacijskih sistemov, razvojem uporabniško prijaznih spletnih in mobilnih rešitev in uvajanjem sodobnih programskih jezikov in razvojnih okolij.The papers in the proceedings of the 24th Professional Conference on Advanced Information Technology and Services address the extremely topical challenges that we (IS/IT experts, Software Engineers, Computer Scientists, Data Scientists, software and solution architects, developers, IT managers, etc.) encounter in our daily work. The authors present the innovative solutions and rich experience gained by conducting real-life projects: Applying Augmented Intelligence and Machine Learning technologies, Using Blockchain technologies and platforms, Developing loosely coupled micro-services, Providing full virtualization and exploitation of distributed infrastructures, Ensuring cybersecurity, confidentiality and privacy, Applying large-scale agile methods in distributed teams, Introducing agile approaches that enable the rapid and efficient software development via automated processes, and continuous testing, integration, delivery & deployment Updating and upgrading existing Information Systems, Incorporating advanced programming languages and development environments, Developing user-friendly web and mobile solutions & services