Asymmetric Incentives in Peer-to-Peer Systems

In most application scenarios for Peer-to-Peer systems, in order to achieve an overall acceptable system performance an incentive scheme is required that motivates users to share as much as possible of their free resources Today most peers use connections of asymmetric links, such as A-DSL or cable modems. Therefore, users have significantly more download bandwidth than their available upload bandwidth. Applying this observation to incentive schemes suggests that one unit of upload bandwidth should be valued higher than one download unit. Using such an incentive scheme leads the economy of the system to inflation. The incentive scheme would finally collapse. However, by exhibiting the phenomenon of altruistic behavior altruistic peers would accumulate the waste amount of the incentive units. Thus, inflation might be avoided. Gathering the results of a detailed simulative approach, this paper shows how to balance asymmetric incentive schemes in order to avoid inflation

Tit-for-Token: fair rewards for moving data in decentralized storage networks

Centralized data silos are not only becoming prohibitively expensive but also raise issues of data ownership and data availability. These developments are affecting the industry, researchers, and ultimately society in general. Decentralized storage solutions present a promising alternative. Furthermore, such systems can become a crucial layer for new paradigms of edge-centric computing and web3 applications. Decentralized storage solutions based on p2p networks can enable scalable and self-sustaining open-source infrastructures. However, like other p2p systems, they require well-designed incentive mechanisms for participating peers. These mechanisms should be not only effective but also fair in regard to individual participants. Even though several such systems have been studied in deployment, there is still a lack of systematic understanding regarding these issues. We investigate the interplay between incentive mechanisms, network characteristics, and fairness of peer rewards. In particular, we identify and evaluate three core and up-to-date reward mechanisms for moving data in p2p networks: distance-based payments, reciprocity, and time-limited free service. Distance-based payments are relevant since libp2p Kademlia, which enables distance-based algorithms for content lookup and retrieval, is part of various modern p2p systems. We base our model on the Swarm network that uses a combination of the three mechanisms and serves as inspiration for our Tit-for-Token model. We present our Tit-for-Token model and develop a tool to explore the behaviors of these payment mechanisms. Our evaluation provides novel insights into the functioning and interplay of these mechanisms and helps. Based on these insights, we propose modifications to these mechanisms that better address fairness concerns and outline improvement proposals for the Swarm network

Does Proactive Secret Sharing Perform in Peer-to-Peer Systems?

Trustworthy applications in fully decentralized systems require a trust anchor. This paper describes how such an anchor can be implemented efficiently in p2p systems. The basic concept is to use threshold cryptography in order to sign messages by a quorum of peers. The focus is put on advanced mechanisms to secure the shares of the secret key over time, using proactive secret sharing. This mechanism was researched in context of the token-based accounting scheme

Proof-of-Concept Application - Annual Report Year 1

In this document the Cat-COVITE Application for use in the CATNETS Project is introduced and motivated. Furthermore an introduction to the catallactic middleware and Web Services Agreement (WS-Agreement) concepts is given as a basis for the future work. Requirements for the application of Cat-COVITE with in catallactic systems are analysed. Finally the integration of the Cat-COVITE application and the catallactic middleware is described. --Grid Computing

Analysis of current middleware used in peer-to-peer and grid implementations for enhancement by catallactic mechanisms

This deliverable describes the work done in task 3.1, Middleware analysis: Analysis of current middleware used in peer-to-peer and grid implementations for enhancement by catallactic mechanisms from work package 3, Middleware Implementation. The document is divided in four parts: The introduction with application scenarios and middleware requirements, Catnets middleware architecture, evaluation of existing middleware toolkits, and conclusions. -- Die Arbeit definiert Anforderungen an Grid und Peer-to-Peer Middleware Architekturen und analysiert diese auf ihre Eignung für die prototypische Umsetzung der Katallaxie. Eine Middleware-Architektur für die Umsetzung der Katallaxie in Application Layer Netzwerken wird vorgestellt.Grid Computing

Sustainable Development Report: Blockchain, the Web3 & the SDGs

This is an output paper of the applied research that was conducted between July 2018 - October 2019 funded by the Austrian Development Agency (ADA) and conducted by the Research Institute for Cryptoeconomics at the Vienna University of Economics and Business and RCE Vienna (Regional Centre of Expertise on Education for Sustainable Development).Series: Working Paper Series / Institute for Cryptoeconomics / Interdisciplinary Researc

Sustainable Development Report: Blockchain, the Web3 & the SDGs

This is an output paper of the applied research that was conducted between July 2018 - October 2019 funded by the Austrian Development Agency (ADA) and conducted by the Research Institute for Cryptoeconomics at the Vienna University of Economics and Business and RCE Vienna (Regional Centre of Expertise on Education for Sustainable Development).Series: Working Paper Series / Institute for Cryptoeconomics / Interdisciplinary Researc