Serial Monopoly on Blockchains with Quasi-patient Users
When block space is abundant, transaction fees can drop to near zero, reducing the incentive for those who validate transactions to continue doing so. This paper examines what happens when users have diminishing interest in waiting for their transactions to process. The researchers establish new boundaries for how fees behave across different levels of user patience, offering insights relevant to the long-term sustainability and design of blockchain fee markets.
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Reserve Depletion and Security Runway in Proof-of-Stake Systems
Many blockchains pay the participants who validate transactions from two sources: transaction fees and a built-in token reserve. Early on, fees may not be enough on their own, so the reserve bridges the gap. This paper builds a framework to determine whether a given reserve will last long enough for fee income to take over, and shows that the answer depends not just on how large the reserve is but also on token price and network activity at any given moment.
Introducing Digital Trust Infrastructure: The Foundation for the New Digital Economy
The rise of the Internet of Things (IoT) has exposed enterprises to a massive new attack surface. This report, Securing Trust in the Internet of Things (IoT), outlines the shift from vulnerable device-centric security to an identity-centric strategy built on Decentralized Identity (DI). Learn how using Verifiable Credentials (VCs) and Decentralized Identifiers (DIDs) on a public digital infrastructure like Cardano enables zero-trust manufacturing networks, verifiable machine-to-machine communication, and a secure, scalable foundation for Industry 4.0.
On Sybil-proofness in Restaking Networks
Restaking protocols allow validators to secure multiple blockchain services simultaneously, but this creates new vulnerabilities. The paper examines a specific attack where a participant splits their stake across multiple identities to reduce potential penalties. The researchers show that no single penalty mechanism can defend against all variations of this attack at once, and that even minimal differences in network structure can make such attacks profitable.