1. “Systematization of Knowledge: Synthetic Assets, Derivatives, and On-Chain Portfolio Management” by Abrar Rahman, Victor Shi, Matthew Ding, and Elliot Choi

TLDR:

• DeFi’s goal is to redefine how financial institutions operate and disintermediate financial services and products as much as possible.

• This ambitious goal entails not only copying legacy financial products, such as futures, but also creating entirely new types of products, such as flash loans.

• Needless to say, there is a lot of complexity involved in this new paradigm. This paper provides a Systemization of Knowledge and does an excellent job explaining the key concepts involved.

2. “Measurement, Analysis, and Insight of NFTs Transaction Networks” by Prakhyat Khati

TLDR:

• NFT continue to contribute to the popularization of cryptoassets, but academic research on the nature of how they are used is still thin.

• This study sheds light on how NFT users interact via a topology analysis, effectively making NFT addresses “nodes” and graphing their relationship.

• This type of temporal graph analysis can be helpful in understanding NFT market cycles and the different types of user archetypes involved, from retail users to funds.

3. “Property-Based Automated Repair of DeFi Protocols” by Palina Tolmach, Yi Li, and Shang-Wei Lin

TLDR:

• Smart contracts are irreparable once encoded on the blockchain, making it difficult for developers to balance experimentation and safety.

• Given this dynamic, smart contract developers are constantly evaluating new tools that not only automate the detection of bugs but also patch them automatically.

• The latter is often called Automated Program Repair (APR) in the field of computer science, and it represents the use of various techniques to make software “heal” itself.

• This paper proposes an APR scheme for smart contracts called DeFinery, which is designed to automatically patch a smart contract as vulnerabilities are identified.

4. “Ring Signatures with User-Controlled Linkability” (paywalled) by Dario Fiore, Lydia Garms, Dimitris Kolonelos, Claudio Soriente, and Ida Tucker

TLDR:

• Ring Signatures are amongst the most popular techniques used to achieve transactional privacy in the field of cryptoassets. Monero, one of the most popular privacy-oriented cryptoassets, relies on Ring Signatures to hide the footprint of XMR senders on its blockchain.

• Nevertheless, as a means to privacy, much still needs to be researched about Ring Signatures to fully assess their trade-offs, especially as it relates to both their efficacy as a privacy solution as well as efficiency on-chain.

• This paper discusses a new type of Ring Signature called Ring Signatures with User-Controlled Linkability (RS-UCL), which gives users more flexibility when generating privacy-preserving transactions.

5. “Verifiable Timed Linkable Ring Signatures for Scalable Payments for Monero” by Sri Aravinda Krishnan Thyagarajan, Giulio Malavolta, Fritz Schmid, and Dominique Schröder

TLDR:

• Like the previous paper, this paper also discusses Ring Signatures as they are specifically implemented in Monero.

• Instead of privacy, the focus of this work is to increase the functionality of this signature type by enabling so-called “Timelocks” which open the possibility for Monero to feature better scalability solutions, as well as a level smart contract functionality.

5. “Verifiable Timed Linkable Ring Signatures for Scalable Payments for Monero” by Sri Aravinda Krishnan Thyagarajan, Giulio Malavolta, Fritz Schmid, and Dominique Schröder

TLDR:

• Like the previous paper, this paper also discusses Ring Signatures as they are specifically implemented in Monero.

• Instead of privacy, the focus of this work is to increase the functionality of this signature type by enabling so-called “Timelocks” which open the possibility for Monero to feature better scalability solutions, as well as a level smart contract functionality.

6. “A Privacy-Preserving Watchtower Scheme with Constant Storage Overhead” by Yan Huang, Ruian Li, Junxin Liu, Yankai Xie, Chi Zhang, and Lingbo Wei

TLDR:

• Payment Channel Networks (PCNs), such as the Lightning Network have the potential to solve one of Bitcoin’s biggest challenges: the scalability and practicality of payments.

• However, there are still security issues that have prevented the adoption of PCNs such as the requirement for participants to be online.

• The advent of so-called “Watchtowers” is promising, as they circumvent that impractical requirement by socializing the monitoring of payment channels.

• This paper introduces a new design for a Watchtower that uses Schnorr threshold signatures to minimize the risk of monitoring being compromised by adversaries.

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. “Systematization of Knowledge: Synthetic Assets, Derivatives, and On-Chain Portfolio Management” by Abrar Rahman, Victor Shi, Matthew Ding, and Elliot Choi

TLDR:

• DeFi’s goal is to redefine how financial institutions operate and disintermediate financial services and products as much as possible.

• This ambitious goal entails not only copying legacy financial products, such as futures, but also creating entirely new types of products, such as flash loans.

• Needless to say, there is a lot of complexity involved in this new paradigm. This paper provides a Systemization of Knowledge and does an excellent job explaining the key concepts involved.

2. “Measurement, Analysis, and Insight of NFTs Transaction Networks” by Prakhyat Khati

TLDR:

• NFT continue to contribute to the popularization of cryptoassets, but academic research on the nature of how they are used is still thin.

• This study sheds light on how NFT users interact via a topology analysis, effectively making NFT addresses “nodes” and graphing their relationship.

• This type of temporal graph analysis can be helpful in understanding NFT market cycles and the different types of user archetypes involved, from retail users to funds.

3. “Property-Based Automated Repair of DeFi Protocols” by Palina Tolmach, Yi Li, and Shang-Wei Lin

TLDR:

• Smart contracts are irreparable once encoded on the blockchain, making it difficult for developers to balance experimentation and safety.

• Given this dynamic, smart contract developers are constantly evaluating new tools that not only automate the detection of bugs but also patch them automatically.

• The latter is often called Automated Program Repair (APR) in the field of computer science, and it represents the use of various techniques to make software “heal” itself.

• This paper proposes an APR scheme for smart contracts called DeFinery, which is designed to automatically patch a smart contract as vulnerabilities are identified.

4. “Ring Signatures with User-Controlled Linkability” (paywalled) by Dario Fiore, Lydia Garms, Dimitris Kolonelos, Claudio Soriente, and Ida Tucker

TLDR:

• Ring Signatures are amongst the most popular techniques used to achieve transactional privacy in the field of cryptoassets. Monero, one of the most popular privacy-oriented cryptoassets, relies on Ring Signatures to hide the footprint of XMR senders on its blockchain.

• Nevertheless, as a means to privacy, much still needs to be researched about Ring Signatures to fully assess their trade-offs, especially as it relates to both their efficacy as a privacy solution as well as efficiency on-chain.

• This paper discusses a new type of Ring Signature called Ring Signatures with User-Controlled Linkability (RS-UCL), which gives users more flexibility when generating privacy-preserving transactions.

5. “Verifiable Timed Linkable Ring Signatures for Scalable Payments for Monero” by Sri Aravinda Krishnan Thyagarajan, Giulio Malavolta, Fritz Schmid, and Dominique Schröder

TLDR:

• Like the previous paper, this paper also discusses Ring Signatures as they are specifically implemented in Monero.

• Instead of privacy, the focus of this work is to increase the functionality of this signature type by enabling so-called “Timelocks” which open the possibility for Monero to feature better scalability solutions, as well as a level smart contract functionality.

5. “Verifiable Timed Linkable Ring Signatures for Scalable Payments for Monero” by Sri Aravinda Krishnan Thyagarajan, Giulio Malavolta, Fritz Schmid, and Dominique Schröder

TLDR:

• Like the previous paper, this paper also discusses Ring Signatures as they are specifically implemented in Monero.

• Instead of privacy, the focus of this work is to increase the functionality of this signature type by enabling so-called “Timelocks” which open the possibility for Monero to feature better scalability solutions, as well as a level smart contract functionality.

6. “A Privacy-Preserving Watchtower Scheme with Constant Storage Overhead” by Yan Huang, Ruian Li, Junxin Liu, Yankai Xie, Chi Zhang, and Lingbo Wei

TLDR:

• Payment Channel Networks (PCNs), such as the Lightning Network have the potential to solve one of Bitcoin’s biggest challenges: the scalability and practicality of payments.

• However, there are still security issues that have prevented the adoption of PCNs such as the requirement for participants to be online.

• The advent of so-called “Watchtowers” is promising, as they circumvent that impractical requirement by socializing the monitoring of payment channels.

• This paper introduces a new design for a Watchtower that uses Schnorr threshold signatures to minimize the risk of monitoring being compromised by adversaries.

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.