Socialism and the blockchain

Bitcoin (BTC) is often cited as Libertarian. However, the technology underpinning Bitcoin, blockchain, has properties that make it ideally suited to Socialist paradigms. Current literature supports the Libertarian viewpoint by focusing on the ability of Bitcoin to bypass central authority and provide anonymity; rarely is there an examination of blockchain technology's capacity for decentralised transparency and auditability in support of a Socialist model. This paper conducts a review of the blockchain, Libertarianism, and Socialist philosophies. It then explores Socialist models of public ownership and looks at the unique cooperative properties of blockchain that make the technology ideal for supporting Socialist societies. In summary, this paper argues that blockchain technologies are not just a Libertarian tool, they also enhance Socialist forms of governance

CacheCash: A Cryptocurrency-based Decentralized Content Delivery Network

Online content delivery has witnessed dramatic growth recently with traffic consuming over half of today’s Internet bandwidth. This escalating demand has motivated content publishers to move outside the traditional solutions of infrastructure-based content delivery networks (CDNs). Instead, many are employing peer-to-peer data transfers to reduce the service cost and avoid bandwidth over-provision to handle peak demands. Unfortunately, the open access work model of this paradigm, which allows anyone to join, introduces several design challenges related to security, efficiency, and peer availability. In this dissertation, we introduce CacheCash, a cryptocurrency-based decentralized content distribution network designed to address these challenges. CacheCash bypasses the centralized approach of CDN companies for one in which end users organically set up new caches in exchange for cryptocurrency tokens. Thus, it enables publishers to hire caches on an as-needed basis, without constraining these parties with long-term business commitments. To address the challenges encountered as the system evolved, we propose a number of protocols and techniques that represent basic building blocks of CacheCash’s design. First, motivated by the observation that conventional security assessment tools do not suit cryptocurrency-based systems, we propose ABC, a threat modeling framework capable of identifying attacker collusion and the new threat vectors that cryptocurrencies introduce. Second, we propose CAPnet, a defense mechanism against cache accounting attacks (i.e., a client pretends to be served allowing a colluding cache to collect rewards without doing any work). CAPnet features a bandwidth expenditure puzzle that clients must solve over the content before caches are given credit, which bounds the effectiveness of this collusion case. Third, to make it feasible to reward caches per data chunk served, we introduce MicroCash, a decentralized probabilistic micropayment scheme that reduces the overhead of processing these small payments. MicroCash implements several novel ideas that make micropayments more suitable for delay-sensitive applications, such as online content delivery. CacheCash combines the previous techniques to produce a novel service-payment exchange protocol that secures the content distribution process. This protocol utilizes gradual content disclosure and partial payment collection to encourage the honest collaborative work between participants. We present a detailed game theoretic analysis showing how to exploit rational financial incentives to address several security threats. This is in addition to various performance optimization mechanisms that promote system efficiency and scalability. Lastly, we evaluate system performance and show that modest machines can serve/retrieve content at a high bitrate with minimal overhead

Prospects of using cryptocurrencies in the context of global financial market development

Магістерська робота присвячена дослідженню блокчейну на прикладі криптовалют. В роботі проаналізовано та порівняно підходи до регулювання первинного випуску монет (ICO) та криптовалют в розрізі країн світу. Проаналізовано сприйняття фінансового ринку та грошово-кредитної системи такого явища як криптовалюти. Досліджено обмеження технології блокчейн, які сповільнюють розвиток криптовалютного ринку. Надано рекомендації розробникам криптовалют та систем, побудованих на блокчейні на основі проаналізованих проблем.The master’s thesis focuses on research of poorly investigated issues in blockchain on the example of cryptocurrencies. Regulation approaches on ICO and cryptocurrencies turnover are also discovered. The issue of cryptocurrencies is researched through the current attitude to cryptocurrencies by financial market and monetary system. The issues of blockchain that limiting development of cryptocurrencies market are discovered. Research also provides implications on the investigated topics for cryptocurrencies and blockchain developers

What is a Blockchain? A Definition to Clarify the Role of the Blockchain in the Internet of Things

The use of the term blockchain is documented for disparate projects, from cryptocurrencies to applications for the Internet of Things (IoT), and many more. The concept of blockchain appears therefore blurred, as it is hard to believe that the same technology can empower applications that have extremely different requirements and exhibit dissimilar performance and security. This position paper elaborates on the theory of distributed systems to advance a clear definition of blockchain that allows us to clarify its role in the IoT. This definition inextricably binds together three elements that, as a whole, provide the blockchain with those unique features that distinguish it from other distributed ledger technologies: immutability, transparency and anonimity. We note however that immutability comes at the expense of remarkable resource consumption, transparency demands no confidentiality and anonymity prevents user identification and registration. This is in stark contrast to the requirements of most IoT applications that are made up of resource constrained devices, whose data need to be kept confidential and users to be clearly known. Building on the proposed definition, we derive new guidelines for selecting the proper distributed ledger technology depending on application requirements and trust models, identifying common pitfalls leading to improper applications of the blockchain. We finally indicate a feasible role of the blockchain for the IoT: myriads of local, IoT transactions can be aggregated off-chain and then be successfully recorded on an external blockchain as a means of public accountability when required

SoK: A Taxonomy for Layer-2 Scalability Related Protocols for Cryptocurrencies

Blockchain based systems, in particular cryptocurrencies, face a serious limitation: scalability. This holds, especially, in terms of number of transactions per second. Several alternatives are currently being pursued by both the research and practitioner communities. One venue for exploration is on protocols that do not constantly add transactions on the blockchain and therefore do not consume the blockchain\u27s resources. This is done using off-chain transactions, i.e., protocols that minimize the interaction with the blockchain, also commonly known as Layer-2 approaches. This work relates several existing off-chain channel methods, also known as payment and state channels, channel network constructions methods, and other components as channel and network management protocols, e.g., routing nodes. All these components are crucial to keep the usability of the channel, and are often overlooked. For the best of our knowledge, this work is the first to propose a taxonomy for all the components of the Layer-2. We provide an extensive coverage on the state-of-art protocols available. We also outline their respective approaches, and discuss their advantages and disadvantages

Smart Resource Allocation in Internet-of-Things: Perspectives of Network, Security, and Economics

abstract: Emerging from years of research and development, the Internet-of-Things (IoT) has finally paved its way into our daily lives. From smart home to Industry 4.0, IoT has been fundamentally transforming numerous domains with its unique superpower of interconnecting world-wide devices. However, the capability of IoT is largely constrained by the limited resources it can employ in various application scenarios, including computing power, network resource, dedicated hardware, etc. The situation is further exacerbated by the stringent quality-of-service (QoS) requirements of many IoT applications, such as delay, bandwidth, security, reliability, and more. This mismatch in resources and demands has greatly hindered the deployment and utilization of IoT services in many resource-intense and QoS-sensitive scenarios like autonomous driving and virtual reality. I believe that the resource issue in IoT will persist in the near future due to technological, economic and environmental factors. In this dissertation, I seek to address this issue by means of smart resource allocation. I propose mathematical models to formally describe various resource constraints and application scenarios in IoT. Based on these, I design smart resource allocation algorithms and protocols to maximize the system performance in face of resource restrictions. Different aspects are tackled, including networking, security, and economics of the entire IoT ecosystem. For different problems, different algorithmic solutions are devised, including optimal algorithms, provable approximation algorithms, and distributed protocols. The solutions are validated with rigorous theoretical analysis and/or extensive simulation experiments.Dissertation/ThesisDoctoral Dissertation Computer Science 201

A Survey of Layer-Two Blockchain Protocols

After the success of the Bitcoin blockchain, came several cryptocurrencies and blockchain solutions in the last decade. Nonetheless, Blockchain-based systems still suffer from low transaction rates and high transaction processing latencies, which hinder blockchains' scalability. An entire class of solutions, called Layer-1 scalability solutions, have attempted to incrementally improve such limitations by adding/modifying fundamental blockchain attributes. Recently, a completely different class of works, called Layer-2 protocols, have emerged to tackle the blockchain scalability issues using unconventional approaches. Layer-2 protocols improve transaction processing rates, periods, and fees by minimizing the use of underlying slow and costly blockchains. In fact, the main chain acts just as an instrument for trust establishment and dispute resolution among Layer-2 participants, where only a few transactions are dispatched to the main chain. Thus, Layer-2 blockchain protocols have the potential to transform the domain. However, rapid and discrete developments have resulted in diverse branches of Layer-2 protocols. In this work, we systematically create a broad taxonomy of such protocols and implementations. We discuss each Layer-2 protocol class in detail and also elucidate their respective approaches, salient features, requirements, etc. Moreover, we outline the issues related to these protocols along with a comparative discussion. Our thorough study will help further systematize the knowledge dispersed in the domain and help the readers to better understand the field of Layer-2 protocols.Comment: 21 pages, 15 figures, 2 table