1. “Proofs of Proof-of-Stake with Sublinear Complexity” by Shresth Agrawal, Joachim Neu, Ertem Nusret Tas, and Dionysis Zindros

TLDR:

• The majority of users interact with their blockchain of choice via simple wallets such as MetaMask. These programs tend to rely on centralized infrastructure to facilitate the interaction between decentralized applications and users that do not run their own nodes.

• While incredibly convenient, such wallets pose a centralization threat that enables not only specific users to be targeted but may also be a single point of failure to the network as a whole.

• This paper presents a fascinating scheme for more secure crypto wallets via so-called light-clients. Beyond diminishing the impact of centralization, the schema presented improves time-to-completion by 9×, communication by 180×, and energy usage by 30×.

2. “λ - Constant Function Markets Generalizing and Mixing Automated Market Makers” by Giorgos Felekis and Jesper Kristensen

TLDR:

• Mechanism design is one of the most fascinating research areas in DeFi, especially as it relates to lending and trading use cases.

• The most predominant design used by Decentralized Exchanges such as Uniswap is called the Constant Function Market Maker (CFMM) model, whereby swaps are priced based on the balance of two liquidity pools relative to a constant function.

• There have been many discussions on how this design can be improved so that swaps can be more efficiently priced. This has led to the creation of multiple variants of the CFMM model.

• This paper discusses a mix of these variants, namely the constant sum and constant mean CFMM model, as a way to achieve better pricing. The authors call this blend Lambda CFMM (λCFMM) and show how, beyond price efficiency, this design can decrease the impact of impermanent loss on liquidity providers.

3. “Code Cloning in Smart Contracts on the Ethereum Platform: An Extended Replication Study” by Faizan Khan, Istvan David, Daniel Varro, and Shane McIntosh

TLDR:

• Application cloning is a common practice in Ethereum since many dApps share the very same functionality. For example, most ERC20s, NFTs, and even DEXs are often implemented using the same, hopefully battle-tested, codebase.

• This paper evaluates the extent to which code cloning takes place in Ethereum. The authors find that 27% of smart contracts on Ethereum are exact clones of other contracts, which speaks to the level of standardization and (at times) plagiarism currently in place.

• Standardization is a positive trend for the industry, especially when it comes to ERC20s and NFTs, but the line between plagiarism and standardization can often be often blurred.

4. “Et tu, Blockchain? Outsmarting Smart Contracts via Social Engineering” by Nikolay Ivanov and Qiben Yan

TLDR:

• This succinct (2 pages), yet fascinating paper discusses very relevant and practical social engineering attack vectors on Ethereum Smart Contracts.

• For context, social engineering is the use of deception to manipulate entities (often those that control a smart contract) into sharing confidential information or otherwise facilitating a hack.

5. “MANDO-GURU: Vulnerability Detection for Smart Contract Source Code by Heterogeneous Graph Embeddings” by Hoang H. Nguyen, Nhat-Minh Nguyen, Hong-Phuc Doan, Zahra Ahmadi, Thanh-Nam Doan, and Lingxiao Jiang

TLDR:

• It is critical to identify vulnerabilities in a smart contract before the contract is deployed to the network. In order to do that, developers leverage testing suites that automate vulnerability detection.

• This paper introduces a new smart contract testing tool called MANDO-GURU which employs sophisticated machine learning techniques to improve vulnerability detection by upwards of 24%.

Research collected and curated by @cipherix.

This newsletter is for informational purposes only and is not intended as legal, business, investment, or tax advice.

The Smart Contract Research Forum’s (SCRF) bold mission is to advance web3 through actionable research and knowledge-sharing. To this end, SCRF connects researchers and builders, sponsors projects, and constructs collaborative forums. SCRF’s community is an active, international network of academics, industry architects, and blockchain advocates.

1. “Proofs of Proof-of-Stake with Sublinear Complexity” by Shresth Agrawal, Joachim Neu, Ertem Nusret Tas, and Dionysis Zindros

TLDR:

• The majority of users interact with their blockchain of choice via simple wallets such as MetaMask. These programs tend to rely on centralized infrastructure to facilitate the interaction between decentralized applications and users that do not run their own nodes.

• While incredibly convenient, such wallets pose a centralization threat that enables not only specific users to be targeted but may also be a single point of failure to the network as a whole.

• This paper presents a fascinating scheme for more secure crypto wallets via so-called light-clients. Beyond diminishing the impact of centralization, the schema presented improves time-to-completion by 9×, communication by 180×, and energy usage by 30×.

2. “λ - Constant Function Markets Generalizing and Mixing Automated Market Makers” by Giorgos Felekis and Jesper Kristensen

TLDR:

• Mechanism design is one of the most fascinating research areas in DeFi, especially as it relates to lending and trading use cases.

• The most predominant design used by Decentralized Exchanges such as Uniswap is called the Constant Function Market Maker (CFMM) model, whereby swaps are priced based on the balance of two liquidity pools relative to a constant function.

• There have been many discussions on how this design can be improved so that swaps can be more efficiently priced. This has led to the creation of multiple variants of the CFMM model.

• This paper discusses a mix of these variants, namely the constant sum and constant mean CFMM model, as a way to achieve better pricing. The authors call this blend Lambda CFMM (λCFMM) and show how, beyond price efficiency, this design can decrease the impact of impermanent loss on liquidity providers.

3. “Code Cloning in Smart Contracts on the Ethereum Platform: An Extended Replication Study” by Faizan Khan, Istvan David, Daniel Varro, and Shane McIntosh

TLDR:

• Application cloning is a common practice in Ethereum since many dApps share the very same functionality. For example, most ERC20s, NFTs, and even DEXs are often implemented using the same, hopefully battle-tested, codebase.

• This paper evaluates the extent to which code cloning takes place in Ethereum. The authors find that 27% of smart contracts on Ethereum are exact clones of other contracts, which speaks to the level of standardization and (at times) plagiarism currently in place.

• Standardization is a positive trend for the industry, especially when it comes to ERC20s and NFTs, but the line between plagiarism and standardization can often be often blurred.

4. “Et tu, Blockchain? Outsmarting Smart Contracts via Social Engineering” by Nikolay Ivanov and Qiben Yan

TLDR:

• This succinct (2 pages), yet fascinating paper discusses very relevant and practical social engineering attack vectors on Ethereum Smart Contracts.

• For context, social engineering is the use of deception to manipulate entities (often those that control a smart contract) into sharing confidential information or otherwise facilitating a hack.

5. “MANDO-GURU: Vulnerability Detection for Smart Contract Source Code by Heterogeneous Graph Embeddings” by Hoang H. Nguyen, Nhat-Minh Nguyen, Hong-Phuc Doan, Zahra Ahmadi, Thanh-Nam Doan, and Lingxiao Jiang

TLDR:

• It is critical to identify vulnerabilities in a smart contract before the contract is deployed to the network. In order to do that, developers leverage testing suites that automate vulnerability detection.

• This paper introduces a new smart contract testing tool called MANDO-GURU which employs sophisticated machine learning techniques to improve vulnerability detection by upwards of 24%.

Research collected and curated by @cipherix.

This newsletter is for informational purposes only and is not intended as legal, business, investment, or tax advice.

The Smart Contract Research Forum’s (SCRF) bold mission is to advance web3 through actionable research and knowledge-sharing. To this end, SCRF connects researchers and builders, sponsors projects, and constructs collaborative forums. SCRF’s community is an active, international network of academics, industry architects, and blockchain advocates.