CAREER: Algorithms Foundations of Blockchains

随着加密货币越来越受欢迎，它们的底层技术，通常被称为分布式分类账或区块链，在许多其他应用中显示出巨大的潜力。然而，研究界对区块链的理解仍然局限于算法基础的角度。该项目为区块链开发了一个更易访问、更精确、更严谨和更实用的算法基础。该项目的新颖性在于采取了一种原则性的方法来识别和研究区块链的关键创新。该项目的更广泛的意义和重要性是建立区块链的精确安全，将区块链统一到现有的分布式算法基础上，并将区块链研究连接到相关领域。该项目还包括一个教育部分，其中K-12和本科生，特别是那些来自计算领域代表不足的群体的学生，参与了该项目。该项目为区块链提供了算法基础，这些区块链深深植根于数十年来对容错共识的研究。通过将区块链与经典共识协议进行对比，该项目重点介绍了区块链的关键创新，如支持动态参与、使用对等网络以及对消息丢失的弹性。该项目开发了算法基础来推理这些属性，并设计了新的协议来实现这些属性，而不会招致当前区块链的缺陷。基于这些见解，该项目还重新审视了容错分布式系统的基础，并调查了现实世界中适合这些系统的假设和要求。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

As cryptocurrencies gain popularity, their underlying technology, commonly referred to as distributed ledgers or blockchains, shows great potential for many other applications. However, the research community's understanding of blockchains is still limited from an algorithm foundation viewpoint. This project develops a more accessible, precise, rigorous, and practical algorithmic foundation for blockchains. The project's novelty is to take a principled approach to identify and study blockchains' key innovations. The project's broader significance and importance are establishing the precise security of blockchains, unifying blockchains into the existing foundation of distributed algorithms, and bridging blockchain research across related fields. This project also includes an educational component, in which K-12 and undergraduate students, especially those from underrepresented groups in computing, are involved with the project.This project provides an algorithmic foundation for blockchains deeply rooted in decades of research on fault-tolerant consensus. By contrasting blockchains with classic consensus protocols, the project focuses on the key innovations of blockchains, such as the support for dynamic participation, the use of peer-to-peer networks, and resilience to message loss. The project develops algorithmic foundations to reason about these properties and designs new protocols to achieve them without incurring the drawbacks of current blockchains. Based on these insights, the project also revisits the foundation of fault-tolerant distributed systems and investigates what assumptions and requirements are suitable for these systems in the real world.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.