Analytical Tools for Blockchain: Review, Taxonomy and Open Challenges
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CRYPTOCURRENCY: a PRIMER Accept Bitcoin3—Including Amazon.Com, What Is Cryptocurrency? Target, Paypal, Ebay, Dell, and Home
CRYPTOCURRENCY: A PRIMER accept bitcoin3—including Amazon.com, What is cryptocurrency? Target, PayPal, eBay, Dell, and Home Depot—with anywhere from 80,000 to There is no one standard definition of 220,000 transactions occurring per day, cryptocurrency.1 At the most basic level representing over $50 million in estimated cryptocurrency—or digital currency or daily volume.4 virtual currency—is a medium of exchange that functions like money (in Cryptocurrencies allow for increased that it can be exchanged for goods and market efficiencies and reduced services) but, unlike traditional currency, transaction costs. At base, is untethered to, and independent from, cryptocurrency transactions are: national borders, central banks, sovereigns, or fiats. In other words, it . Private—no personal information is exists completely in the virtual world, required to complete a transaction;5 traded on multiple global platforms. These currencies are designed to . Fast—they are settled almost incorporate and exchange digital instantaneously, unlike credit card information through a process made transactions or wire transfers that possible by principles of cryptography, require days; which makes transactions secure and . Irrevocable—because transactions are verifiable. The most well-known settled almost immediately, there are cryptocurrency is bitcoin, which was no resulting chargebacks or possibility created back in 2009 and which still for disputes between buyer and seller; dominates the virtual currency market today.2 . Inexpensive—transaction costs are generally less than 1% if an intermediary is used, rather than the Why do they matter? customary credit card processing fee of roughly 2.5%; and Cryptocurrency is relevant to most . Global—neither buyer nor seller businesses and financial firms. -
Security Applications of Formal Language Theory
Dartmouth College Dartmouth Digital Commons Computer Science Technical Reports Computer Science 11-25-2011 Security Applications of Formal Language Theory Len Sassaman Dartmouth College Meredith L. Patterson Dartmouth College Sergey Bratus Dartmouth College Michael E. Locasto Dartmouth College Anna Shubina Dartmouth College Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.dartmouth.edu/cs_tr Part of the Computer Sciences Commons Dartmouth Digital Commons Citation Sassaman, Len; Patterson, Meredith L.; Bratus, Sergey; Locasto, Michael E.; and Shubina, Anna, "Security Applications of Formal Language Theory" (2011). Computer Science Technical Report TR2011-709. https://digitalcommons.dartmouth.edu/cs_tr/335 This Technical Report is brought to you for free and open access by the Computer Science at Dartmouth Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Computer Science Technical Reports by an authorized administrator of Dartmouth Digital Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Security Applications of Formal Language Theory Dartmouth Computer Science Technical Report TR2011-709 Len Sassaman, Meredith L. Patterson, Sergey Bratus, Michael E. Locasto, Anna Shubina November 25, 2011 Abstract We present an approach to improving the security of complex, composed systems based on formal language theory, and show how this approach leads to advances in input validation, security modeling, attack surface reduction, and ultimately, software design and programming methodology. We cite examples based on real-world security flaws in common protocols representing different classes of protocol complexity. We also introduce a formalization of an exploit development technique, the parse tree differential attack, made possible by our conception of the role of formal grammars in security. These insights make possible future advances in software auditing techniques applicable to static and dynamic binary analysis, fuzzing, and general reverse-engineering and exploit development. -
Virtual Currency
Office of Legislative Research Research Report December 12, 2014 2014-R-0290 BITCOINS - VIRTUAL CURRENCY By: Michelle Kirby, Associate Analyst ISSUE BITCOINS The use of bitcoins as virtual currency, the laws that Bitcoin is a form of virtual or digital currency. It is govern it, and other states’ attempts to regulate it. not legal tender and is not backed by any This report updates OLR Report 2014-R-0050. government. Federal agencies such as SUMMARY the U.S. Treasury “Bitcoin” is a form of virtual or digital currency, that Department, the Government Accountability allows financial transactions to be conducted on a Office, the Internal network using computer codes. It is a form of Revenue Service, and the exchange that operates like a currency but does not Congressional Research Services have issued have all the attributes of real currency. guidance on how existing laws apply to virtual There are no federal or state laws that specifically currency activities. govern bitcoins. However, many existing laws apply to A proposed federal law certain virtual currency activities. calls for a five-year moratorium on bitcoin The U.S. Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes regulation. Enforcement Network (FinCEN) has provided guidance New York has proposed indicating that, under federal law, a virtual currency regulation that would, user is not a money transmitter and is therefore not among other things, subject to the registration, reporting, and require firms engaged in virtual currency to have a recordkeeping regulations for money services BitLicense. businesses (MSBs). However, virtual currency California has enacted a administrators and exchangers may be regulated as law that allows the use of money transmitters but should not be considered alternative currency. -
A Probe Survey of Bitcoin Transactions Through Analysis of Advertising in an On-Line Discussion Forum
Acta Informatica Pragensia, 2019, 8(2), 112–131 DOI: 10.18267/j.aip.127 Original Article A Probe Survey of Bitcoin Transactions Through Analysis of Advertising in an On-Line Discussion Forum Zoltan Ban 1, Jan Lansky 1, Stanislava Mildeova 1, Petr Tesar 1 Abstract Cryptocurrencies have become a major phenomenon in recent years. For IT, a breakthrough is both the cryptocurrency itself as a commodity and the technology that cryptocurrency development has brought. The article focuses on the bitcoin cryptocurrency as the most important cryptocurrency. A relatively unexplored topic is what goods or services are purchased for bitcoins. To track what bitcoins are spent on, it is necessary to look for places that are dedicated to trading cryptocurrencies. The bitcointalk.org forum was chosen as a source for our data mining. The aim of the article is to find an answer to the research question: What are bitcoins on the discussion forum bitcointalk.org planned to be spent on? As part of the research, an application was developed using a PHP script to gather information from the discussion forum (bitcointalk.org). There is some evidence which suggests what types of products or services people spend cryptocurrencies on. This research has proven that cryptocurrencies are used to buy and sell goods or services in the electronics and computer world segments. Today, these segments are widespread, which may speed up the integration of cryptocurrencies into everyday life. This applies, of course, only if the risks associated with cryptocurrencies do not increase. Keywords: Cryptocurrency, Bitcoin, On-Line Advertisement, Text Mining, Cybersecurity, Discussion Forum. -
Download Criminal Complaint Filed in the Eastern District of California
AO 91 (Rev. 11/11) Criminal Complaint UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT for the Eastern District of California United States of America ) V. ) MARCOS PAULO DE OLIVEIRA ) Case No. ANNIBALE, ) aka "Med3lin," ) aka "Med3lln," ) aka "Med3lln WSM" ) Defendant(s) CRIMINAL COMPLAINT I, the complainant in this case, state that the following is true to the best of my knowledge and belief. On or about the date( s) of October 2017 through April 2019__ in the county of Sacramento in the Eastern District of California , and elsewhere, the defendant(s) violated: Code Section Offense Description 21 U.S.C. §§ 841 and 846 Distribution and Conspiracy to Distribute Controlled Substances 18 U.S.C. §§ 1956 and 1957 Money Laundering This criminal complaint is based on these facts: (see attachment) IX! Continued on the attached sheet. -j- ;1 ·) / , / l 1 - • / L ',;;;_ . _/__I-- / Complainant's signature JAY D. DIAL, Jr., Special Agent Dl'llg Enforcem~_11t Ad111inistration Printed name and title Sworn to before me and signed in my presence. ;]t "-" ' Date: l.2 _/,_ I ---=- (.___ ,,--- "'-~ Judge 's signature City and state: Sacramento, CA Allls__on Claire, U_.§~ Magi~trate__.J__udge Printed name and title AO 91 (Rev. 11/11) Criminal Complaint UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT for the Eastern District of California United States of America ) V. ) MARCOS PAULO DE OLIVEIRA ) Case No. ANNIBALE, ) aka "Med3lin," ) aka "Med3l1n," ) aka "Med3lln_WSM" ) Defendant(s) CRIMINAL COMPLAINT I, the complainant in this case, state that the following is true to the best of my knowledge and belief. On or about the date(s) of ~tober 20 I 7 through April 2019_ in the county of . -
Transparent and Collaborative Proof-Of-Work Consensus
StrongChain: Transparent and Collaborative Proof-of-Work Consensus Pawel Szalachowski, Daniël Reijsbergen, and Ivan Homoliak, Singapore University of Technology and Design (SUTD); Siwei Sun, Institute of Information Engineering and DCS Center, Chinese Academy of Sciences https://www.usenix.org/conference/usenixsecurity19/presentation/szalachowski This paper is included in the Proceedings of the 28th USENIX Security Symposium. August 14–16, 2019 • Santa Clara, CA, USA 978-1-939133-06-9 Open access to the Proceedings of the 28th USENIX Security Symposium is sponsored by USENIX. StrongChain: Transparent and Collaborative Proof-of-Work Consensus Pawel Szalachowski1 Daniel¨ Reijsbergen1 Ivan Homoliak1 Siwei Sun2;∗ 1Singapore University of Technology and Design (SUTD) 2Institute of Information Engineering and DCS Center, Chinese Academy of Sciences Abstract a cryptographically-protected append-only list [2] is intro- duced. This list consists of transactions grouped into blocks Bitcoin is the most successful cryptocurrency so far. This and is usually referred to as a blockchain. Every active pro- is mainly due to its novel consensus algorithm, which is tocol participant (called a miner) collects transactions sent based on proof-of-work combined with a cryptographically- by users and tries to solve a computationally-hard puzzle in protected data structure and a rewarding scheme that incen- order to be able to write to the blockchain (the process of tivizes nodes to participate. However, despite its unprece- solving the puzzle is called mining). When a valid solution dented success Bitcoin suffers from many inefficiencies. For is found, it is disseminated along with the transactions that instance, Bitcoin’s consensus mechanism has been proved to the miner wishes to append. -
Virtual Currencies: Growing Regulatory Framework and Challenges in the Emerging Fintech Ecosystem V
View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by University of North Carolina School of Law NORTH CAROLINA BANKING INSTITUTE Volume 21 | Issue 1 Article 10 3-1-2017 Virtual Currencies: Growing Regulatory Framework and Challenges in the Emerging Fintech Ecosystem V. Gerard Comizio Follow this and additional works at: http://scholarship.law.unc.edu/ncbi Part of the Banking and Finance Law Commons Recommended Citation V. G. Comizio, Virtual Currencies: Growing Regulatory Framework and Challenges in the Emerging Fintech Ecosystem, 21 N.C. Banking Inst. 131 (2017). Available at: http://scholarship.law.unc.edu/ncbi/vol21/iss1/10 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by Carolina Law Scholarship Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in North Carolina Banking Institute by an authorized editor of Carolina Law Scholarship Repository. For more information, please contact [email protected]. VIRTUAL CURRENCIES: GROWING REGULATORY FRAMEWORK AND CHALLENGES IN THE EMERGING FINTECH ECOSYSTEM V. GERARD COMIZIO* I. INTRODUCTION In the context of a widely publicized explosion of new technology and innovation designed to disrupt the marketplace of traditional financial institutions in delivering financial services, the number of financial technology (“fintech”) companies in the United States and United Kingdom alone has grown to more than 4,000 in recent years. Further, investment in this sector has grown from $1.8 billion to $24 billion worldwide in just the last five years.1 The financial services industry is experiencing rapid technological changes as it seeks to meet and anticipate business opportunities and needs, consumer demands and expectations, and demographic trends. -
3Rd Global Cryptoasset Benchmarking Study
3RD GLOBAL CRYPTOASSET BENCHMARKING STUDY Apolline Blandin, Dr. Gina Pieters, Yue Wu, Thomas Eisermann, Anton Dek, Sean Taylor, Damaris Njoki September 2020 supported by Disclaimer: Data for this report has been gathered primarily from online surveys. While every reasonable effort has been made to verify the accuracy of the data collected, the research team cannot exclude potential errors and omissions. This report should not be considered to provide legal or investment advice. Opinions expressed in this report reflect those of the authors and not necessarily those of their respective institutions. TABLE OF CONTENTS FOREWORDS ..................................................................................................................................................4 RESEARCH TEAM ..........................................................................................................................................6 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ............................................................................................................................7 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY ........................................................................................................................... 11 METHODOLOGY ........................................................................................................................................ 14 SECTION 1: INDUSTRY GROWTH INDICATORS .........................................................................17 Employment figures ..............................................................................................................................................................................................................17 -
EY Study: Initial Coin Offerings (Icos) the Class of 2017 – One Year Later
EY study: Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs) The Class of 2017 – one year later October 19, 2018 In December 2017, we analyzed the top ICOs that represented 87% ICO funding in 2017. In that report, we found high risks of fraud, theft and major problems with the accuracy of representations made by start-ups seeking funding. In this follow-up study, we revisit the same group of companies to analyze their progress and investment return: ► The performance of ICOs from The Class of 2017 did little to inspire confidence.1 ► 86% are now below their listing2 price; 30% have lost substantially all value. Executive An investor purchasing a portfolio of The Class of 2017 ICOs on 1 January 2018 would most likely have lost 66% of their investment. ► Of the ICO start-ups we looked at from The Class of 2017, only 29% (25) have summary working products or prototypes, up by just 13% from the end of last year. Of those 25, seven companies accept payment in both traditional fiat currency (dollars) as well as ICO tokens, a decision that reduces the value of the tokens to the holders. ► There were gains among The Class of 2017, concentrated in 10 ICO tokens, most of which are in the blockchain infrastructure category. However, there is no sign that these new projects have had any success in reducing the dominance of Ethereum as the industry’s main platform. • 1 See methodology in appendix. • 2 Defined as when first available to trade on a cryptocurrency exchange. 02 ICO performance update ICOs broke out in 2017. -
FTC Decrypting Cryptocurrency Scams Workshop Transcript
FTC Decrypting Cryptocurrency Scams Workshop June 25, 2018 Transcript JASON ADLER: Good afternoon, everyone and welcome to the Federal Trade Commission's Decrypting Cryptocurrency Scams workshop. I'm Jason Adler. I'm the assistant director of the FDC's Midwest regional office here in Chicago. I want to thank you all for being here. And I want to thank DePaul University for hosting us. Before we get started, I just have a few housekeeping details to tick off. First, please set your mobile phones to silent. If you use them during the workshop, for example to comment about the workshop on social media, please be respectful of the others here. If you do comment on social media, feel free to use #cryptoscamsftc as a hashtag. We'll be live tweeting this event using that hashtag as well. Webcasting the event today, and it may be photographed or otherwise recorded, by participating you're agreeing that your image and anything you say may be posted at ftc.gov and on our social media sites. At the end of each panel, if we do have time, we'll try to answer audience questions. We have question cards out in the hall. Feel free to write down a question. Raise your hand and someone will collect it. And if we have time at the end of the panel, we'll ask them. We're also accepting questions on Twitter. So you can tweet a question to the FTC, so @FTC using hashtag #cryptoscamsftc. Finally, if you're here for CLE, please be sure and find Dan at the check in table. -
On Scaling Decentralized Blockchains (A Position Paper)
On Scaling Decentralized Blockchains (A Position Paper) Kyle Croman0;1, Christian Decker4, Ittay Eyal0;1, Adem Efe Gencer0;1, Ari Juels0;2, Ahmed Kosba0;3, Andrew Miller0;3, Prateek Saxena6, Elaine Shi0;1, Emin G¨un Sirer0;1, Dawn Song0;5, and Roger Wattenhofer4 0 Initiative for CryptoCurrencies and Contracts (IC3) 1 Cornell 2 Jacobs, Cornell Tech 3 UMD 4 ETH 5 Berkeley 6 NUS Abstract. The increasing popularity of blockchain-based cryptocurren- cies has made scalability a primary and urgent concern. We analyze how fundamental and circumstantial bottlenecks in Bitcoin limit the abil- ity of its current peer-to-peer overlay network to support substantially higher throughputs and lower latencies. Our results suggest that repa- rameterization of block size and intervals should be viewed only as a first increment toward achieving next-generation, high-load blockchain proto- cols, and major advances will additionally require a basic rethinking of technical approaches. We offer a structured perspective on the design space for such approaches. Within this perspective, we enumerate and briefly discuss a number of recently proposed protocol ideas and offer several new ideas and open challenges. 1 Introduction Increasing adoption of cryptocurrencies has raised concerns about their abil- ity to scale. Since Bitcoin is a self-regulating system that works by discovering blocks at approximate intervals, its highest transaction throughput is effectively capped at maximum block size divided by block interval. The current trend of ever increasing block sizes on Bitcoin portends a potential problem where the sys- tem will reach its maximum capacity to clear transactions, probably by 2017 [46]. -
Bitwise Asset Management, Inc., NYSE Arca, Inc., and Vedder Price P.C
MEMORANDUM TO: File No. SR-NYSEArca-2019-01 FROM: Lauren Yates Office of Market Supervision, Division of Trading and Markets DATE: March 20, 2019 SUBJECT: Meeting with Bitwise Asset Management, Inc., NYSE Arca, Inc., and Vedder Price P.C. __________________________________________________________________________ On March 19, 2019, Elizabeth Baird, Christian Sabella, Natasha Greiner, Michael Coe, Edward Cho, Neel Maitra, David Remus (by phone), and Lauren Yates from the Division of Trading and Markets; Charles Garrison, Johnathan Ingram, Cindy Oh, Andrew Schoeffler (by phone), Amy Starr (by phone), Sara Von Althann, and David Walz (by phone) from the Division of Corporation Finance; and David Lisitza (by phone) from the Office of General Counsel, met with the following individuals: Teddy Fusaro, Bitwise Asset Management, Inc. Matt Hougan, Bitwise Asset Management, Inc. Hope Jarkowski, NYSE Arca, Inc. Jamie Patturelli, NYSE Arca, Inc. David DeGregorio, NYSE Arca, Inc. (by phone) Tom Conner, Vedder Price P.C. John Sanders, Vedder Price P.C. The discussion concerned NYSE Arca, Inc.’s proposed rule change to list and trade, pursuant to NYSE Arca Rule 8.201-E, shares of the Bitwise Bitcoin ETF Trust. Bitwise Asset Management, Inc. also provided the attached presentation to the Commission Staff. Bitwise Asset Management Presentation to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission March 19, 2019 About Bitwise 01 VENTURE INVESTORS Pioneer: Created the world’s first crypto index fund. 02 TEAM BACKGROUNDS Specialist: The only asset we invest in is crypto. 03 Experienced: Deep expertise in crypto, asset management and ETFs. 2 Today’s Speakers Teddy Fusaro Matt Hougan Chief Operating Officer Global Head of Research Previously Senior Vice President and Senior Previously CEO of Inside ETFs.