Blockchain
Powering the Internet of Value
This paper is the result of a research project carried out by Labs in EVRY Financial Services during the fall of 2015.
Project papers
59 public design papers — consensus, privacy, markets, credit, data, storage and confidential compute — each with its own URL, a diagram drawn for the mechanism, and a reading that separates the paper from later network behaviour. Bitcoin, Ethereum, Stellar, Ripple, Corda, Tether and the other historic PDFs stay where they are. They are not republished here.
CryptoNote · 2013
The public design paper behind unlinkable payments. Monero adopted the construction and then replaced pieces of it. The historic library only has a third-party review of CryptoNote, not this document.
Zerocoin · 2013
A 2013 proposal to add an anonymity layer on top of Bitcoin by burning a coin into a commitment and later redeeming a different coin with a zero-knowledge proof of membership.
Zerocash · 2014
The 2014 paper that showed how a payment ledger can hide sender, receiver and amount, while still letting the network check that coins were not created or double-spent. Zcash is an implementation of this line of work, not a co-author of the paper.
Monero · 2016
The research note Monero used to hide amounts, not just the signer. It extends ring signatures so a spender can prove a balance inside a ring without publishing the values.
Mimblewimble · 2016
A short 2016 note on a ledger that stores confidential transactions and can delete spent history. Grin and Beam are later implementations. The note itself is the primary text.
Cardano · 2017
The academic protocol Cardano's settlement layer is built around. It gives a proof-of-stake chain a stated security argument in a synchronous model, with stake electing slot leaders.
Algorand · 2017
Micali's ledger design: a proof-of-stake protocol that elects a small, unpredictable committee to certify each block, and replaces participants so a corruptor cannot find them in time.
Avalanche · 2018
A family of consensus protocols that sample the network repeatedly and tip toward one outcome. The 2018 note was pseudonymous. A later write-up adds named co-authors. Avalanche the network is an implementation, not the sample itself.
Solana · 2018
Yakovenko's design note for a ledger that encodes the passage of time as a verifiable hash chain, called Proof of History, so that validators spend less effort agreeing on order.
Tendermint · 2014
A practical Byzantine-fault-tolerant state machine for a known validator set, with instant finality on commit. It became the consensus engine under Cosmos SDK chains. The 2014 note is the origin, not the current CometBFT specification.
Tezos · 2014
Goodman's proposal for a ledger whose protocol can be amended by a defined on-ledger process, with stakeholders who bake blocks and who may delegate.
Hedera · 2016
Baird's technical report on hashgraph: gossip about gossip, a virtual vote computed from the graph, and a fairness claim about the order of transactions. Hedera is the later public network that uses the algorithm under a governing council.
Nano · 2017
LeMahieu's design, first published as RaiBlocks: each account has its own chain, and the account holder is the only one who can append to it. Value moves by a send block on one chain and a receive block on another.
Zilliqa · 2017
A 2017 design for a sharded chain: a directory service that assigns nodes, shards that process transactions in parallel, and a language proposal aimed at safe-by-construction contracts.
Harmony · 2019
A sharded proof-of-stake design that combines a BFT-style consensus inside shards with a randomness scheme for assigning validators, aimed at keeping a single shard from being captured.
MultiversX · 2019
The 2019 Elrond paper on adaptive state sharding: shards that hold state, a metachain that notarises results, and a secure proof-of-stake selection of validators. The network later rebranded as MultiversX. The paper remains the design document.
NEAR · 2019
NEAR's public design paper: a sharded proof-of-stake chain with a single account model, nightshade-style data availability across chunks, and a stated intent that hiding the shards from application authors is part of the product.
Aptos · 2022
Aptos Labs' 2022 paper for a Move-based chain that pipelines dissemination, ordering, execution and certification, and that treats protocol upgrades as a first-class feature rather than a hard-fork event.
Sui · 2022
Mysten Labs' platform paper. Assets are Move objects. Operations on objects owned by a single address can finish by consistent broadcast among validators. Shared objects go through consensus. The split is the design.
Diem · 2020
The technical paper for the Libra, later Diem, payment chain: a permissioned BFT ledger, a Move language for resources, and a reserve-backed currency proposal. The project was wound down in 2022. The paper still matters because Move, and the account model Aptos and Sui started from, was specified here.
Mina · 2020
The Coda paper, later the Mina protocol: a chain whose certificate is a constant-size succinct proof, so a client can check the state without replaying history. The project renamed from Coda to Mina. The paper keeps the original name.
TON · 2021
Durov's design for a multi-chain system of account-chains gathered into shardchains, with a masterchain that records the others. It began as Telegram's network design and continued as The Open Network after Telegram stepped away from the original launch.
Kadena · 2018
Kadena's public parallel-chain design. Many proof-of-work chains advance together, and each block commits to peer-chain headers, so a confirmation is a braid rather than a single chain. This is not the 2016 private-chain note already in the historic library.
EOSIO · 2018
The 2018 technical paper for EOSIO: delegated proof of stake, named block producers, and an operating-system metaphor for accounts, permissions and resource allocation. It is a design document. It is not a description of later governance fights around any one chain that used the software.
Internet Computer · 2018
The DFINITY consensus overview: a randomness beacon, a ranking of block proposers, and notarisation so that a chain can come to agreement quickly among a large set. The Internet Computer is the later network built by the DFINITY foundation on this line of research.
Polkadot · 2016
Wood's 2016 vision paper: a relay chain that provides shared security and a queue of cross-chain messages, with parachains that keep their own state transition. It is a vision paper. The live protocol has a specification of its own.
Cosmos · 2016
The Cosmos paper: independent zones running a BFT consensus, connected by a hub, speaking a packet protocol that later became IBC. Unlike Polkadot's shared-security vision, zones here are sovereign. They choose their own validator sets.
Lightning · 2016
Poon and Dryja's 2016 design for Bitcoin payments that stay off the main chain inside penalty-backed channels, and that route across a network of those channels using hashed timelock contracts.
Plasma · 2017
A 2017 construction for trees of child chains whose state commitments are posted to a parent chain, with exits so a user can leave if the child operator misbehaves. It is an ancestor of later rollup and validium designs, not a synonym for them.
Arbitrum · 2018
The 2018 USENIX paper on Arbitrum: a verifier that checks a manager's execution of a virtual machine by bisecting disputes, instead of re-executing every instruction. Offchain Labs' later Nitro stack is a descendant, not this paper line for line.
StarkWare · 2018
The STARK paper: proofs of computational integrity that are succinct, do not need a trusted setup, and are argued to resist quantum attackers on the underlying hashes. StarkWare's later systems, including StarkEx and Starknet, are built on this proof system. They are not identical to it.
Celestia · 2019
Al-Bassam's LazyLedger paper, the research origin of Celestia. The base layer orders and makes data available. It does not execute application transitions. Clients check availability with sampling, and applications execute on their own.
EigenLayer · 2023
Eigen Labs' design for letting Ethereum stakers opt in to additional slashing conditions, so new services can rent economic security instead of bootstrapping a new token set from zero.
Polygon · 2019
The 2019 Matic paper for a Plasma-inspired sidechain with a proof-of-stake checkpoint layer posting to Ethereum. Polygon is the later organisation and product family. This page is about the 2019 document, not about every subsequent Polygon stack.
Uniswap · 2020
The 2020 core paper for Uniswap v2: a constant-product automated market maker, with arbitrary ERC-20 pairs, price accumulators, and a flash-swap callback. It is the clearest short specification of the pool that much of later DeFi either forked or assumed.
Uniswap · 2021
The 2021 paper that replaces the uniform reserve curve with concentrated liquidity. A provider chooses a price range. Inside the range their capital acts like a constant-product pool. Outside it, their position is entirely in one asset.
Curve · 2019
Egorov's 2019 invariant for pools of assets that should trade near parity. The curve is flat around the peg, where most stablecoin trades happen, and bends toward a constant-product tail when the pool is pushed off parity.
Balancer · 2019
The Balancer paper generalises the two-asset constant-product pool to a weighted basket of several tokens. Traders rebalance the basket. Liquidity providers define target weights. The pool is both an index and a market.
0x · 2017
The 2017 0x paper: off-chain signed orders, on-chain settlement, and relayers who host order books without taking custody. It is the reference design for 'the book is off-chain, the swap is on-chain'.
Bancor · 2017
The 2017 Bancor paper on smart tokens that hold reserves of other tokens and quote a continuous price from a reserve ratio. It is an early automated-liquidity design, distinct from Uniswap's later constant-product pools.
THORChain · 2020
THORChain's design for continuous liquidity pools that cross native chains. Nodes bond capital, observe external chains, and sign outbound transactions as a threshold set. It is a liquidity network, not a wrapped-asset bridge run by a single custodian.
Compound · 2019
The 2019 Compound paper: pooled lending markets where suppliers earn a floating rate and borrowers post collateral. Interest rates are a function of utilisation, set in the protocol rather than negotiated bilaterally.
Aave · 2020
Aave's v1 protocol paper: pooled lending with stable and variable rates, and loan features such as rate switching and uncollateralised flash loans inside a single transaction. It sits in the same family as Compound, with a different rate and product surface.
Maker · 2017
MakerDAO's 2017 description of Dai: a liability minted against overcollateralised vaults, kept near a dollar target by fees, a collateral auction, and an emergency shutdown. It is the reference design for crypto-collateralised stable value, as distinct from a fiat-backed token.
Terra · 2019
Do Kwon's 2019 paper for a family of fiat-pegged tokens stabilised by an arbitrage relationship with a second, volatile token. It is included because it is a canonical design paper that was not in the historic library. It is included as a failure case, not as a model to ship.
Chainlink · 2017
The 2017 Chainlink paper: a network of independent nodes that fetch off-chain data, aggregate it, and deliver a signed result on-chain, with a reputation and penalty story around the nodes. It is the reference design for 'the contract needs a fact from outside'.
The Graph · 2020
The Graph's protocol paper for indexing chain data. Indexers stake on serving a subgraph. Curators signal which subgraphs matter. Consumers pay for queries. The problem is read access, not consensus.
Augur · 2018
The Augur paper: prediction markets whose outcomes are reported by token holders, with a dispute ladder that can escalate a contested result. It is both a market design and an oracle design. The historic library already holds Gnosis. Augur is the other canonical public prediction-market paper and was not in that set.
Ocean · 2019
Ocean's technical paper for publishing, pricing and consuming data services with on-chain access control and off-chain storage. The data does not sit inside the chain. The permission and the payment do.
Bittensor · 2021
Rao's paper for a market in which machine-learning models score each other. Peers rank neighbours, ranks accumulate on a ledger, and an incentive mechanism is specified to resist a naive cartel of mutual high scores. It is a design for pricing intelligence as a commodity, not a benchmark of any particular model.
SingularityNET · 2017
Goertzel's 2017 proposal for a marketplace where AI services discover, call and pay each other. The paper is broad on purpose: discovery, reputation, inter-agent calls and a tokenised payment rail, sketched as one network.
Filecoin · 2017
Protocol Labs' July 2017 paper. Storage is an algorithmic market: clients pay miners to store data, miners prove replication and spacetime, and a retrieval market is specified beside the storage market. The historic library's filecoin.pdf is an earlier, different sketch. This is the 2017 document.
Arweave · 2018
Arweave's protocol paper for permanent storage: miners store a recall block drawn from the history, an endowment is supposed to prepay storage, and the dataset is content-addressed. The yellow paper is the technical document. Marketing pages are not a substitute.
Helium · 2018
The Helium paper for a wireless network built from independently owned hotspots. Coverage is the commodity. Proof-of-coverage is the paper's way of checking that a radio is where it says it is and that it can be heard. Later changes of purpose and token are not this document.
Golem · 2016
Golem Factory's 2016 paper for a marketplace of spare computer power. Requestors split tasks. Providers run them. A reputation and payment layer is supposed to make the exchange work without a single render farm. The paper is explicit that it was also a crowdfunding document. This page uses the technical design and ignores the sale.
Livepeer · 2017
Petkanics and Tang's design for live video transcoding as a protocol job. Broadcasters send a stream. Transcoders stake and compete to encode the renditions viewers actually need. It is a specific media market, which is why it is more concrete than a general 'decentralised compute' essay.
Basic Attention Token · 2018
Brave's 2018 paper for an advertising unit that pays publishers and users from a measured attention event inside the browser, rather than from a chain of third-party trackers. The browser is load-bearing. The token is the unit of account in the paper's payment flow.
Secret Network · 2015
The 2015 Enigma paper from MIT: private contracts executed over secret-shared data, so nodes compute without seeing the raw inputs. Secret Network is a later project in this lineage, using different machinery. This page is about the Enigma paper, which the historic library does not hold.
Oasis · 2019
The Ekiden paper: smart contracts that execute inside trusted hardware, with the ledger checking attestations rather than re-executing the private code. Oasis Network is the later production system in this line. The paper is the academic statement of the approach.
These primary papers were on the original site. Open the archived PDF rather than a second essay.
Satoshi Nakamoto, 2008
Buterin white paper
Wood, EIP-150 revision
Schwartz, Youngs, Britto
Mazières
Thomas and Schwartz
Back et al.
Fiat on a Bitcoin-era chain
Duffield and Diaz
King and Nadal, proof of stake
R3 introductory paper
Popov
Earlier than the 2017 Protocol Labs paper
Prediction markets
Vorick and Champine
Wilkinson et al.
Private-chain note, not Chainweb
The original Blockchain Lab PDF index, kept at the same paths. Summaries are the archive blurbs, not new essays.
This paper is the result of a research project carried out by Labs in EVRY Financial Services during the fall of 2015.
A blockchain is essentially a distributed database of records or public ledger of all transactions or digital events that have been executed and shared among participating parties.
A purely peer-to-peer version of electronic cash would allow online payments to be sent directly from one party to another without going through a financial institution.
TECHNOLOGY and banking have a long close association. Both have been benefitting immensely by this association.
The blockchain paradigm when coupled with cryptographically-secured transactions has demonstrated its utility through a number of projects, not least Bitcoin.
Since the introduction of Bitcoin[Nak09] in 2009, and the multiple computer science and electronic cash innovations it brought, there has been great interest in the potential of decentralised cryptocurrencies.
While several consensus algorithms exist for the Byzantine Generals Problem, specifically as it pertains to distributed payment systems, many suffer from high latency induced by the requirement that all nodes within the network communicate synchronously
Bitcoin is widely regarded as the first broadly successful ecash system. An oft-cited concern, though, is that mining Bitcoins wastes computational resources.
Smart contracts with embedded business rules promise not only to reduce transaction costs but to create more agile value chains that enable closer cooperation and enhanced trust across the extended manufacturing ecosystem.
Blockchain is de nieuwe belofte in ICT: er gaat geen dag voorbij of er is een congres of er verschijnt een artikel over de technologie. Maar wat is blockchain precies en wat kan de overheid ermee?
Emerging smart contract systems over decentralized cryptocurrencies allow mutually distrustful parties to transact safely without trusted third parties. I
A cryptocurrency is a medium of exchange, which makes use of cryptography to secure transactions and to control creation of additional currency units.
This paper provides a high level overview of the architecture of the Digital Asset Platform, a common foundation on which financial services applications can be built.I
A cryptocurrency based on Bitcoin, the work of Satoshi Nakamoto, with various improvements such as a twotier incentivized network, known as the Masternode network. I
HEAT Ledger is a self-appointed “Gen 3.0” cryptocurrency platform focusing on resolving the two most pressing pitfalls of the existing 2.0 and 1.0 cryptocurrency server software solutions;
HEAT Ledger is a self-appointed “Gen 3.0” cryptocurrency platform focusing on resolving the two most pressing pitfalls of the existing 2.0 and 1.0 cryptocurrency server software solutions;
Bitcoin [1] has demonstrated a new approach to securely storing data in the cloud. The Bitcoin database services millions of users around the planet and has thus far shown itself to be essentially invulnerable to attack.
You are hereby granted a non-exclusive limited revocable license to use this National Society of Professional Engineers (NSPE) white paper provided full attribution is provided to NSPE
A distributed ledger made up of mutually distrusting nodes would allow for a single global database that records the state of deals and obligations between institutions and people
When Satoshi Nakamoto first set the Bitcoin blockchain into motion in January 2009, he was simultaneously introducing two radical and untested concepts.
by RJ Krawiec, Dan Housman, Mark White, Mariya Filipova, Florian Quarre, Dan Barr, Allen Nesbitt, Kate Fedosova, Jason Killmeyer, Adam Israel, Lindsay Tsai
Blockchain is a technology that creates a distributed ledger of transactions on a network that is secure, tamper-proof, and easily accessible.
Blockchain or Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) offers a radically different paradigm of storing and managing information online.
DTCC is an industry-owned and governed financial market utility with more than 40 years of experience mitigating risk
In late May of 2016, a diverse group of experts met at #MTFBerlin, to participate in a laboratory in which they would experiment, test ideas and explore how blockchain technology
Heralding a New Era in Financial Services In recent months, hardly a day has passed without news of further initiatives and investments in blockchain
Digital asset management is one of promising applications of blockchain technology. Blockchains could provide principal disintermediation between digital asset issuers, application developers and consumers and decouple tasks.
— Since the introduction of Ethereum in 2014 there has been great interest in decentralized trustless applications (smart contracts).
Digital innovations in finance, loosely known as fintech, have garnered a great deal of attention across the financial industry.
Uport is a secure, easy-to-use system for self-sovereign identity, built on Ethereum. The uPort technology consists of three main components: smart contracts, developer libraries, and a mobile app.
A digital token backed by fiat currency provides individuals and organizations with a robust and decentralized method of exchanging value while using a familiar accounting unit
April 26th | This day now marks two revolutions in freight, 60 years apart. The first was in 1956 with the launch Malcom McLean’s shipping container introducing.
The healthcare industry suffers from an inability to clearly communicate costs in a timely and easy-to-understand format.
The aim of this joint report by Euroclear and Oliver Wyman is to help leaders in capital markets to understand the potential of the technology, lay out the paths for its adoption, and present.
An open investment recording system built with intelligent lending and hedge fund administration in mind.
A peer-to-peer cloud storage network implementing client-side encryption would allow users to transfer and share data without reliance on a third party storage provider.
Creditbit is a relatively young cryptocurrency, developed on an independent Bitcoin-like Blockchain on December 2015.
Blockchain has begun to have a signicant inuence in the Internet of Things by enhancing security, empowering the incorporation of an increasing number of devices into the ecosystem.
Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) (also known as blockchain technology or distributed database technology) has attracted significant interest and funding in the financial services industry in recent years.
The authors introduce Sia, a platform for decentralized storage. Sia enables the formation of storage contracts between peers.
The development of modern cryptocurrencies began in 2008 with the publication of an article by Satoshi Nakamoto [1] and Bitcoin release, although it should be noted, some work in this direction was made earlier[2].
The current cross-border clearing and settlement value chain is costly, inefficient, and not transparent.
Prediction markets are poised to become one of the most disruptive innovations in capital markets and data science since the beginning of the Information Revolution.
Filecoin is a distributed electronic currency similar to Bitcoin. Unlike Bitcoin’s computation-only proof-of-work, Filecoin’s proof-of-work function includes a proof-of-retrievability component, which requires nodes to prove they store a particular file.
January 3, 2009 has marked the beginning of a new era of globalisation and world interconnection: the first Bitcoin transaction1 has occurred.
January 3, 2009 has marked the beginning of a new era of globalisation and world interconnection: the first Bitcoin transaction1 has occurred.
A low-trust notary could replace conventional transaction servers and would allow users to gain access to safe, fast, inexpensive, off-chain transactions with increased functionality.
WINGS is a blockchain platform that seeds and nurtures a community dedicated to the launching, backing and promotion of new projects proposals through a fluid organizational model referred to as a Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO).
More than 200 years since the Industrial Revolution, global urbanisation keeps accelerating. United Nations projections indicate that 75% of the human population will be living in cities by 2050.
Blockchain is a special technology for peer-to-peer transaction platforms that uses decentralised storage to record all transaction data.
Most insurance services are currently both inefficient and nontransparent. We propose a way to solve these issues by implementing a system that provides peertopeer insurance.
The Plutus Mobile Application enables a user to make contactless Bitcoin payments at any merchant with a Near Field Communication (NFC) enabled checkout terminal.
TaaS introduces an innovation business model that allows investeros to capitalize on the rise of blockchain markets without dealing with hurdles. risk and technical barriers.
Bitcoin technology began to enter the public discourse in 2011, largely through its association as an anonymous payment system used on illicit and underground websites.
True innovation is rare, especially in the world of media. More difficult is to determine which aspect of media thrives for development most. Majority of mainstream media do not truly innovate as they are happy with their current business models.
With a blockchain-hosted Open Registry for Internet of Things, we envision a future where everything—from your car, to a work of art, to the glass of wine you drink at the end of a long day—can have a unique and unforgeable identity, life, and history on the Internet.
A peer-to-peer crypto-currency design derived from Satoshi Nakamoto’s Bitcoin. Proof-of-stake replaces proof-of-work to provide most of the network security.
A blockchain token is a digital token created on a blockchain as part of a decentralized softwareprotocol.
This paper introduces Kadena, the first private/permissioned blockchain technology to achieve high performance at scale. K
‘The revolution will not be televised. It will be cryptographically time stamped on the block chain.
This material was compiled based on the results of research and studies by directors, officers, and/or employees of Japan Exchange Group, Inc.,
The registration, transfer, clearing and settlement of equities represents a significant part of economic activity currently underserved by modern technological innovation.
The blockchain paradigm when coupled with cryptographically-secured transactions has demonstrated its utility through a number of projects, not least Bitcoin.
With the use of a mobile app and facial recognition, travelers need to be only identified once and can be quickly verified by nonaffiliated airlines, airports or other agencies.
Financial infrastructure is currently a mess of closed systems. Gaps between these systems mean that transaction costs are high [Provost 2013] and money moves slowly across political and geographic boundaries [Banning-Lover 2015; CGAP 2008].
We present a protocol for payments across payment systems. It enables secure transfers between ledgers and allows anyone with accounts on two ledgers to create a connection between them.
This document is not intended as financial advice; it is one mathematician’s take on the white paper before digging into the code. I’ve learned a lot writing this document.
Blockchain technology allows peers to exchange money directly without the need for a traditional financial intermediary, lowering the cost and increasing the speed of transactions.
In November 2008, a mysterious white paper appeared on the Internet in all quietness. Written under the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto, the paper described a new method for creating a fully distributed digital currency system by cryptographically
As more and more devices are connected in the Internet of Things (IoT), an enormous amount of value is waiting to be unlocked.
In this paper we analyze the technology used as a backbone of iota (a cryptocurrency for Internet-of-Things industry).
A blockchain is a system to share distributed data in a robust and mathematically secure way. Due to the ubiquity of data at the core of many real-world systems, blockchain technology is already revolutionizing data processing in many domains.
This report hopes to bring the World Government Summit a fresh perspective on the current state of blockchain technology. The report explores how the blockchain will drive positive changes in nearly every area of civic life over the next ten years.
There is widespread recognition among leaders in most industries that the role of digital technology is rapidly shifting, from being a driver of marginal efficiency to an enabler of fundamental innovation and disruption.
New technologies—supported by advances in encryption and network computing—are driving transformational change in the global economy, including in how goods, services and assets are exchanged.
Since the introduction of Bitcoin[Nak09] in 2009, and the multiple computer science and electronic cash innovations it brought, there has been great interest in the potential of decentralised cryptocurrencies.
This document and any other Adel documents do not constitute a prospectus of any sort and are not a solicitation for investment.
The »Industrial Data Space« is a virtual data space using standards and common governance models to facilitate the secure exchange and easy linkage of data in business ecosystems.
Entreprenörskapsforum är en oberoende stiftelse och den ledande nätverksorganisationen för att initiera och kommunicera policyrelevant forskning om entreprenörskap, innovationer och småföretag.
AT&T’s Domain 2.0 (D2) program is focused on leveraging cloud technologies (the AT&T Integrated Cloud – AIC) and network virtualization to offer services while reducing Capital.