Category Archives: Blockchains

New Paper: Cybersecurity in Distributed Optimization

Conventional centralized optimization algorithms have challenge solving big optimization problems- at some scale, you simply can’t fit the problem on a single computer, let alone manage all of the variables. To solve this, researchers use decentralized optimization techniques to break the problem into a set of subproblems which can be rapidly solved on distributed computers or smart devices- but this exposes the optimization algorithm to cybersecurity threats from hacking these consumer-level devices.  » Read More

Ethereum Core team

Devcon3 Debrief

I was honored to speak at Devcon3, the Ethereum Developers’ Conference, on my research on coordinating decentralized optimization with blockchains.
The attendees were a strange mix: 30-50% of the attendees were speculators who knew nothing about blockchains, but were frantically trying to understand the asset which had ballooned in their portfolio.  » Read More

Banquet room for Global Blockchain summit

Wanxiang Global Blockchain Challenge Winners!

Great news- our proposal for a decentralized blockchain-based energy scheduling system won 2nd place in the Wanxiang Global Blockchain Challenge, the first step to getting our research out of the ivory tower and into industry!
Our proposal outlines an approach to creating the energy network which will power Wanxiang’s 90,000-person smart city (a 5-year,  » Read More

Tutorial: Controlling Ethereum with Python

Ethereum makes it easy to run simple computations on blockchains while keeping the value of decentralized networks– but real applications will need access to off-blockchain resources, whether for heavy computations or pulling data from the internet. This tutorial walks through how to deploy a smart contract on a private test blockchain and use Python to read data from the blockchain or send data to the blockchain.  » Read More

What are Blockchains Good For?

Blockchains are difficult to understand, harder to implement, and yet have generated billion-dollar markets. This inscrutable success has given them the perception of having magical powers, and VCs have poured millions of dollars into the space in the hope of finding the right engineers who understand the technology and problem enough to create the killer blockchain app.  » Read More