Blockchain Technology, Cryptocurrency, and Applications
Overview | People | Projects and Sponsors | Links | Publications
Overview
Examples of research from ANRG in this area include:
- We recently designed a fourth-generation Blockchain protocol called Blizzard that aims to involve intermittently connected mobile nodes in the consensus process, providing a throughput on the order of 10,000 transactions per second per shard with sub-second delays.
- We were one of the first to describe and implement a proof of concept design of a decentralized data marketplace, with novel mechanisms to ensure trustworthy decentralized reviews of data products .
- We proposed the new streaming data payment protocol (SDPP) to integrate traditional TCP-based client-server data streaming platforms with modular cryptocurrency payments and distributed ledger-based transaction logging.
- We proposed one of the first double-deposit escrow smart contracts that provably enables buyers and sellers of a known digital good to interact honestly without cheating each other.
- Working with researchers at Boeing, we designed SwarmDAG , a distributed ledger system suitable for partitioning networks such as intermittently connected mobile networks or robotic swarms.
Our interests extend to applications in the domain of decentralized finance (DeFi). In one recent work, we proposed a “ dynamic curve-based Automated Market Maker (AMM), in which the curve used for trading is constantly adjusted based on real-world data (obtained through off-chain “oracles”) so that the pool price closely matches external conditions, minimizing the possibility of liquidity loss due to arbitrage. While this solution has advantages over traditional designs, it introduces some challenges for traders because the return on a given trade is sensitive to how it is decomposed; to address this problem, we have developed a new algorithm to automatically compute optimal trades against a dynamic AMM. We also built and released DAISIM, a computational simulation of the MakerDAO stablecoin protocol .
Prof. Bhaskar Krishnamachari has been active in growing and leading the academic research community in the Blockchain area. He is the General Chair for the IEEE International Conference on Blockchain and Cryptocurrency (ICBC) 2022 and was the TPC Chair for IEEE ICBC 2021. He was one of the co-founders of the Symposium on Foundations and Applications of Blockchain (FAB) in 2018, now in its fifth year, and the BlockSys Workshop held in conjunction with Sensys since 2018. He has co-authored a book on Blockchain and the Supply Chain, and is co-editor of a Handbook on Blockchain published by Springer. He helped to initiate and organize the annual Coinbase ML and Blockchain Research Summit.
People
Principal Investigator and Director: Bhaskar Krishnamachari
Postdoctoral Scholars: Eugenio Grippo, Anusha Avyukt, Gowri Sankar Ramachandran, Rohit Kumar
Ph.D. Students: Hardhik Mohanty, Sulyab Thottungal Valapu, Jared Coleman, Mehrdad Kiamari, Jason Tran
Undergrad and M.S. Students: Shuangge Wang, Rahul Radhakrishnan, Chandrasekar Balachandran, Aditya Asgaonkar, Zhikai Li, Xuekai Li
Research Staff: Ayten Kahya, Qi Feng
Collaborators: Muhammad Naveed (USC), Phantom Seokgu Yun (SovereignWallet)
Projects and Sponsors
- AFOSR supported research on Blockchain and Supply Chain 2023-2025
- SONY Faculty Award for project on Decentralized Reviews for Data Marketplaces, 2021-2022
- CCI supported Research on Automated Market Makers and Decentralized Finance, 2020-2022
- Chevron supported Project on Blockchain for Securing Industrial IoT Systems, 2021
- Boeing supported Project on Consensus in Partitioning Networks, 2018-2019
- SovereignWallet Network supported research on Blockchain Protocols for Mobile Networks and Stablecoins, 2019-2021
- Helix Foundation supported research on Blockchain protocols, 2019
Links
- Talk on Dynamic AMM Curves for Decentralized Autonomous Cryptocurrency Exchanges presented at FAB 2021
- Video on MOTIVE: Blockchain-enabled Micropayments fOr Trusted vehIcular serVicEs
- Open Source Software for Trinity: A Publish-Subscribe Broker with Blockchain-based Immutability, https://github.com/ANRGUSC/Trinity
Publications
Books
- Duc Tran, My T. Thai, and Bhaskar Krishnamachari (Editors), Handbook on Blockchain. Springer 2022.
- Vyas, Nick, Aljosja Beije, and Bhaskar Krishnamachari. Blockchain and the Supply Chain: concepts, strategies and practical applications, Kogan Page Publishers, 2019.
Papers
- Lavin, Ryan, Xuekai Liu, Hardhik Mohanty, Logan Norman, Giovanni Zaarour, and Bhaskar Krishnamachari. “A Survey on the Applications of Zero-Knowledge Proofs.” arXiv preprint arXiv:2408.00243.
- Li, Zhikai, Steve Vott, and Bhaskar Krishnamachari. “ML2SC: Deploying machine learning models as smart contracts on the blockchain.” 2024 IEEE International Conference on Blockchain and Cryptocurrency (ICBC). IEEE, 2024.
- Agarwal, Ayush, Lv Lu, Arjun Maheswaran, Varsha Mahadevan, and Bhaskar Krishnamachari. “RiskSEA: A Scalable Graph Embedding for Detecting On-chain Fraudulent Activities on the Ethereum Blockchain.” arXiv preprint arXiv:2410.02160, 2024
- Feng, Zhenbang, Hardhik Mohanty, and Bhaskar Krishnamachari. “Modeling and analysis of crypto-backed over-collateralized stable derivatives in DeFi.” Frontiers in Blockchain 7, 2024.
- Shuangge Wang and Bhaskar Krishnamachari, “Optimal Trading on a Dynamic Curve Automated Market Maker,” IEEE International Conference on Blockchain and Cryptocurrency (ICBC), 2022.
- Sulyab Thottungal Valapu and Bhaskar Krishnamachari, “ A Survey of Probabilistic Micropayment Schemes“, IEEE Blockchain Briefs, 2022.
- Ayten Kahya, Bhaskar Krishnamachari, Seokgu Yun, “Stablecoins: reducing the volatlllty of cryptocurrencies”, Chapter in Springer Handbook on Blockchain, Online Preprint at arXiv:2103.01340.
- Mehrdad Kiamari, Bhaskar Krishnamachari, Muhammad Naveed, Seokgu Yun, “ Blizzard: a Distributed Consensus Protocol for Mobile Devices“, Online Preprint, arXiv:2201.02002, 2022
- Anusha Avyukt, Gowri S. Ramachandran, Bhaskar Krishnamachari, “A Decentralized Review System for Data Marketplaces“, IEEE International Conference on Blockchain and Cryptocurrency (ICBC), 2021
- Shreyas Bhat, Ayten Kahya, Bhaskar Krishnamachari, Rohit Kumar, “DAISIM: A Computational Simulator for the MakerDAO Stablecoin“, Fourth International Symposium on Foundations and Applications of Blockchain, UC Davis, May 7, 2021
- Bhaskar Krishnamachari, Qi Feng, Eugenio Grippo, “Dynamic Curves for Decentralized Autonomous Cryptocurrency Exchanges“, Fourth International Symposium on Foundations and Applications of Blockchain, UC Davis, May 7, 2021
- Martin Fleischmann, Bjoern S. Ivens, and Bhaskar Krishnamachari, “Blockchain Technology as a Means for Brand Trust Repair – Empirical Evidence from a Digital Transgression,” Proceedings of the 53rd Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences, Wailea, USA, 2020.
- Martin Martinez, Arvin Hekmati, Bhaskar Krishnamachari, Seokgu Yun, “Mobile Encounter-based Social Sybil Control,” 2nd International Workshop on Blockchain Applications and Theory (BAT 2020), Paris, France, April 2020
- Chandrasekar Balachandran, Puneet A Chandrashekhar, Gowri Ramachandran, and Bhaskar Krishnamachari, “EDISON: A Blockchain-based Secure and Auditable Orchestration Framework for Multi-domain Software Defined Networks,” In Third IEEE International Conference on Blockchain, November, 2020.
- Gowri Ramachandran, Daniel Nemeth, David Neville, Dimitrii Zhelezov, Ahmet Yalçin, Oliver Fohrmann, and Bhaskar Krishnamachari, “WhistleBlower: Towards A Decentralized and Open Platform for Spotting Fake News,” In Third IEEE International Conference on Blockchain, November, 2020.
- Gowri S. Ramachandran, Kwame-Lante Wright, Licheng Zheng,Pavas Navaney, Muhammad Naveed, Jagjit Dhaliwal, and Bhaskar Krishnamachari, “Trinity: A Byzantine Fault-Tolerant Distributed Publish-Subscribe System with Immutable Blockchain-based Persistence,” IEEE International Conference on Blockchain and Cryptocurrency (ICBC 2019), Seoul, South Korea, May, 2019.
- Aditya Asgaonkar, Bhaskar Krishnamachari, “Solving the Buyer and Seller’s Dilemma: A Dual-Deposit Escrow Smart Contract for Provably Cheat-Proof Delivery and Payment for a Digital Good without a Trusted Mediator,” IEEE International Conference on Blockchain and Cryptocurrency (ICBC 2019), Seoul, South Korea, May, 2019.
- Yi Lucy Wang, Bhaskar Krishnamachari, “Enhancing Engagement in Token-Curated Registries with an Inflationary Mechanism,” IEEE International Conference on Blockchain and Cryptocurrency (ICBC 2019), Seoul, South Korea, May, 2019.
- Gowri S. Ramachandran, Sharon L.G Contreras, Bhaskar Krishnamachari, “Publish-Pay-Subscribe Protocol for Payment-driven Edge Computing,” 2nd USENIX Workshop on Hot Topics in Edge Computing (HotEdge) and will be co-located with the 2019 USENIX Annual Technical Conference, July 2019.
- Jason A. Tran, Gowri Ramachandran, Claudiu B. Danilov, and Bhaskar Krishnamachari, “An Evaluation of Consensus Latency in Partitioning Networks,” Proceedings of the 2019 IEEE Military Communications Conference (MILCOM), 2019. [source code]
- Jason A. Tran, Gowri S. Ramachandran, Palash M. Shah, Claudiu B. Danilov, Rodolfo A. Santiago, Bhaskar Krishnamachari, “SwarmDAG: A Partition Tolerant Distributed Ledger Protocol for Swarm Robotics (Supported by Boeing Research and Technology),” Symposium on Blockchain for Robotic Systems, MIT, Boston, USA, Dec. 5, 2018.
- Aditya Asgaonkar, Bhaskar Krishnamachari, “ Token Curated Registries – A Game Theoretic Approach,” Online Preprint arXiv:1809.01756, 2018.
- Rahul Radhakrishnan, Bhaskar Krishnamachari, “Streaming Data Payment Protocol (SDPP) for the Internet of Things,” the 1st International Workshop on Blockchain for the Internet of Things (BIoT), held in conjunction with IEEE Blockchain, Halifax, Canada, 2018.
- Gowri S. Ramachandran, Rahul Radhakrishnan, Bhaskar Krishnamachari, “Towards a Decentralized Data Marketplace for Smart Cities,” Invited paper at The 1st International Workshop on BLockchain Enabled Sustainable Smart Cities (BLESS 2018), Kansas City, MO, USA, Sept. 19, 2018, held in conjunction with the 4th IEEE Annual International Smart Cities Conference (ISC2 2018).