FMitF:Collaborative Research:Track I:Formal Techniques for Monitoring Low-level Cross-chain Functions

Michigan State University, East Lansing MI

Investigators

Abstract

A blockchain is a data structure distributed over a network of computers, often used to manage assets such as cryptocurrencies. A blockchain protocols is a distributed application that allows participating parties who do not trust one another to benefit by trading assets in a secure way. The project will investigate the design, analysis, and implementation of protocols capable of making coordinated changes to multiple blockchains. The project will develop techniques where a monitor observes a running system of blockchains to detect and react to changing conditions that might threaten the protocol's integrity and safety. The project focuses on three important cross-chain protocols: atomic swaps, off-chain recurring swaps, and atomic transactions. These protocols require the underlying network to display certain critical properties, and runtime verification is expected to play a prime role in monitoring their health. The project will investigate (1) how algorithms and techniques adapted from distributed runtime verification can make cross-chain protocols robust and effective, and (2) how runtime verification algorithms can be augmented with classic results from distributed computing to develop low-bandwidth distributed monitoring systems appropriate for blockchain applications and beyond. Society will benefit through more secure and trustworthy software and electronic commerce. As modern society becomes increasingly reliant on software systems for commerce and governance, it becomes increasingly vulnerable to disruption from security breaches. More trustworthy software will provide economic benefits through faster, cheaper, and simpler electronic commerce, cheaper and more effective regulatory compliance, and more transparent and accessible public records. Trustworthy software will enhance individual privacy, making sensitive data accessible only to authorized parties. Truly trustworthy software requires making formal methods a core aspect of distributed system design, not an afterthought. Data generated as part of this project, including software artifacts, papers and reports, logs generated by experimentation, programming projects, lecture materials, and the project website, will be managed using existing IT and data-protection infrastructures provided by the participating institutions Brown University and Iowa State University. The project will maintain active repositories in BitBucket (www.bitbucket.org) and GitHub (www.github.com). 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.