Designing Decentralized Systems with Incentives
Event details
| Date | 10.12.2018 |
| Hour | 16:15 |
| Speaker | By Sarah Azouvi, UCL Computer Science Department, University College London |
| Location | |
| Category | Conferences - Seminars |
Abstract
By considering mechanism design and economic arguments to incentivise honest participation and provide security, blockchains allow for a completely open setting. This setting requires new consensus protocols, and thus new assumptions and security properties. In this talk, I will discuss the idea of decentralization and how it relates to Game Theory, Distributed Systems and Cryptography. I will present Fantomette, a new consensus protocol for blockchains that relies on Proof-of-Stake rather than the more energy-consuming Proof-of-Work used in Bitcoin and provides strong game-theoretic guarantees. I will also discuss other aspects of decentralization, in particular relating to the central governance structure that exists in decentralized systems.
Biography
I am a PhD Student at the UCL Computer Science Department in the Information Security Group. My supervisors are Dr Sarah Meiklejohn and Prof George Danezis. My research interests are Applied Cryptography, Distributed Systems and Game Theory. In particular, I am interested in blockchain consensus protocols and how incentives can be incorporated and formally reasoned about within them to allow for more secure and performant systems. Furthermore, I am interested in the governance of decentralized systems and what it means to be decentralized when an inherent central governance structure exists.
By considering mechanism design and economic arguments to incentivise honest participation and provide security, blockchains allow for a completely open setting. This setting requires new consensus protocols, and thus new assumptions and security properties. In this talk, I will discuss the idea of decentralization and how it relates to Game Theory, Distributed Systems and Cryptography. I will present Fantomette, a new consensus protocol for blockchains that relies on Proof-of-Stake rather than the more energy-consuming Proof-of-Work used in Bitcoin and provides strong game-theoretic guarantees. I will also discuss other aspects of decentralization, in particular relating to the central governance structure that exists in decentralized systems.
Biography
I am a PhD Student at the UCL Computer Science Department in the Information Security Group. My supervisors are Dr Sarah Meiklejohn and Prof George Danezis. My research interests are Applied Cryptography, Distributed Systems and Game Theory. In particular, I am interested in blockchain consensus protocols and how incentives can be incorporated and formally reasoned about within them to allow for more secure and performant systems. Furthermore, I am interested in the governance of decentralized systems and what it means to be decentralized when an inherent central governance structure exists.
Practical information
- General public
- Free
Organizer
- Professor Bryan Ford
Contact
- Margaret Escandari