March 19, 2024

Will Web3 Follow in the Footsteps of the AI Hype Cycle?

For many, the global financial crisis of 2008 marked a turning point for trust in established institutions. It is unsurprising that during this same historical time period, Bitcoin, a decentralized cryptocurrency that aspired to operate independent from state manipulation, began gaining traction. Since the birth of Bitcoin, other decentralized technologies have been introduced that enable […]

What’s new with BlockSci, Princeton’s blockchain analysis tool

Six months ago we released the initial version of BlockSci, a fast and expressive tool to analyze public blockchains. In the accompanying paper we explained how we used it to answer scientific questions about security, privacy, miner behavior, and economics using blockchain data. BlockSci has a number of other applications including forensics and as an […]

Blockchains and voting

I’ve been asked about a number of ideas lately involving voting systems and blockchains. This blog piece talks about all the security properties that a voting system needs to have, where blockchains help, and where they don’t. Let’s start off a decade ago, when Daniel Sandler and I first wrote a paper saying blockchains would be […]

“Private blockchain” is just a confusing name for a shared database

Banks and financial institutions seem to be all over the blockchain. It seems they agree with the Bitcoin community that the technology behind Bitcoin can provide an efficient platform for settlement and for issuing digital assets. Curiously, though, they seem to shy away from Bitcoin itself. Instead, they want something they have more control over and doesn’t […]