Archive 2019
Program requirementsexamen
TeacherVincent Danos et Ilias Garnier
Weekly hours 2 h CM
Years Master Logique et Fondements de l'Informatique

Syllabus

The purpose of this course is to give an overview of computer science basics of blokchains (communication protocols, games) and examples of blockchain protocols used in cryptocurrencies and smart contracts.

Contents

  • Communication models: synchronous, asynchronous, communication-closed. Consensus: benign and Byzantine. The replicated state machine problem. Weak forms of consensus.
  • Games, equilibria, repeated games and games with commitment.
  • Blockchain protocols: Nakamoto, Tendermint. Economics of equilibria between validators. Crypto-currencies, tokens.
  • Smart contracts: Swaps- fairness and pricing; double swaps; token pricing. Mixers.

Bibliography

  • Juan A. Garay, Aggelos Kiayias, Nikos Leonoardos: The Bitcoin Backbone Protocol: Analysis and Applications. EUROCRYPT (2) 2015.
  • Stefan Dziembowski, Lisa Eckey, and Sebastian Faust. Fairswap : How to fairly exchange digital goods. In Proceedings of the 2018 ACM SIGSAC Conference on Computer and Communications Security, CCS ’18.
  • Julien Prat, Vincent Danos, and Stefania Marcassa. Fundamental pricing of utility tokens, January 2019. Working paper.
  • Yackolley Amoussou-Guenou and Antonella Del Pozzo and Maria Potop-Butucaru and Sara Tucci-Piergiovanni. Correctness and Fairness of Tendermint-core Blockchains. Cryptology ePrint Archive: Report 2018/574
  • Emmanuelle Anceaume, Antoine Guellier, Romaric Ludinard, Bruno Sericola. Sycomore: A Permissionless Distributed Ledger that Self-Adapts to Transactions Demand. NCA 2018: 1-8