# Blockchain Projects at Top Security Conferences

With [NC-Max](https://blog.cryptape.com/nc-max-breaking-the-security-performance-tradeoff-in-nakamoto-consensus) finally accepted at [The Network and Distributed System Security (NDSS) Symposium 2022](https://www.ndss-symposium.org/ndss2022/), we wonder how many blockchain projects have published their main design components at top security conferences before us. So we did a quick search and noted down the results in this post.

This post may also help you to dig deeper into the theoretical depth of some of today's major blockchain projects.

*A few words on our criteria before the list:*

**Why security conferences?**

We choose top security conferences because they are considered the main battlefield in the early age of blockchain research: they are the earliest to accept blockchain papers and have published tons of most-cited ones. Of course, there are top-notch blockchain designs published at other computer science conferences, but an exhaustive search of all CS conferences is infeasible.

** Which top security conferences?**

“Top security conferences” include the “Big 4” security conferences: [IEEE S&P](https://www.ieee-security.org/TC/SP2022/#) (Oakland), [ACM CCS](https://www.sigsac.org/ccs/CCS2022/), [Usenix Security](https://www.usenix.org/conference/usenixsecurity22) and NDSS, and the three IACR flagship events: [Eurocrypt](http://eurocrypt.iacr.org/), [Crypto](https://crypto.iacr.org/), and [Asiacrypt](https://asiacrypt.iacr.org/).

**What counts as a (paper, project) pair**

* **The paper** is accepted at a top security conference between 2010 and 2022.
* **The project** should have an official website and a white paper. Moreover, the project should be actively maintained: we exclude a design if its Github repository is maintained only by the paper’s authors and has stopped updating after the paper is officially published.
* **Their relation**: the project officially announced the adoption of the system architecture proposed in the paper, or the author submitted a formal proposal such as a BIP to the project and the proposal has not been rejected yet. It gets a bit tricky for cryptographic primitive papers. A cryptographic primitive paper is considered pairing with a project only if one of the authors is employed by or developing the project. For example, although there are many projects built on verifiable delay functions (VDF), these projects cannot take credit for the paper “Verifiable Delay Functions” (Crypto 2018).

## The Short List of Projects: Eleven in Total

In alphabetical order: Algorand, Arbitrum, Bitcoin, Cardano, InterBTC, Nervos, Perun, RedBelly Network, Thundercore, Tumblebit, and Zcash. 

## (Paper, Active Project) Pairs

|Paper | Venue | Year | Category | Project | Project State | Why Quantified
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|[NC-Max: Breaking the Security-Performance Tradeoff in Nakamoto Consensus](https://eprint.iacr.org/2020/1101) | NDSS | 2022 | Consensus | Nervos | Launched in November 2019 | [Nervos RFC20](https://github.com/nervosnetwork/rfcs/blob/master/rfcs/0020-ckb-consensus-protocol/0020-ckb-consensus-protocol.md)|
|[Red Belly: A Secure, Fair and Scalable Open Blockchain](https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9519440)|S&P|2021|	Consensus|	RedBelly Network|	Not launched yet|	Listed as the research papers at [official website](https://redbelly.network/researchpapers/)|
|[Erlay: Efficient Transaction Relay for Bitcoin](https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3319535.3354237)|CCS|	2019|P2P|Bitcoin|The proposal is still a draft.|[BIP 330](https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/blob/master/bip-0330.mediawiki)|
|[Vault: Fast Bootstrapping for the Algorand Cryptocurrency](https://www.mit.edu/~yossigi/vault.pdf) | NDSS | 2019 | P2P | Algorand | Launched in June 2019 | [White paper](https://www.algorand.com/technology/white-papers/)|
|[XCLAIM: Trustless, Interoperable, Cryptocurrency-Backed Assets](https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/8835387)	 | S&P|2019 | Interoperability | InterBTC	| Launched in April 2020  | Listed as the research papers on the [official website](https://interlay.io/)|
|[Perun: Virtual Payment Hubs over Cryptocurrencies](https://eprint.iacr.org/2017/635.pdf)	|S&P|	2019|	Payment channel network|Perun	|Not launched yet	|[White paper](https://perun.network/technology/)|
|[Ouroboros Crypsinous: Privacy-Preserving Proof-of-Stake](https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/8835272)|	S&P	|2019|	Consensus	|Cardano	|Launched in September 2017|[Research paper](https://iohk.io/en/research/library/papers/ouroboros-crypsinousprivacy-preserving-proof-of-stake/)|
|[Thunderella: Blockchains with Optimistic Instant Confirmation](https://eprint.iacr.org/2017/913.pdf)	|Eurocrypt|	2018|Consensus|	Thundercore|	Launched in May 2019 |	[White paper](https://docs.thundercore.com/thunder-whitepaper.pdf)|
|[Ouroboros Genesis: Composable Proof-of-Stake Blockchains with Dynamic Availability](https://eprint.iacr.org/2018/378.pdf)	|CCS|2018|	Consensus	|Cardano|	Launched in September 2017 | [Research paper](https://iohk.io/en/research/library/papers/ouroboros-genesiscomposable-proof-of-stake-blockchains-with-dynamic-availability/)|
|[Arbitrum: Scalable, private smart contracts](https://www.usenix.org/conference/usenixsecurity18/presentation/kalodner)|	Usenix Security|	2018|	Roll-up|	Arbitrum|Launched in May 2021 |[White paper](https://developer.offchainlabs.com/docs/inside_arbitrum)|
|[Ouroboros Praos: An adaptively-secure, semi-synchronous proof-of-stake protocol](https://eprint.iacr.org/2017/573.pdf)|	Eurocrypt	|2018	|Consensus|	Cardano|	Launched in September 2017|	[Research paper](https://iohk.io/en/research/library/papers/ouroboros-praosan-adaptively-securesemi-synchronous-proof-of-stake-protocol/)|
|[The Bitcoin Backbone Protocol with Chains of Variable Difficulty](https://eprint.iacr.org/2016/1048.pdf)|Crypto|	2017|Consensus|Bitcoin|Launched in Jan 2009|One example of many papers analyzing Nakamoto Consensus|
|[TumbleBit: An Untrusted Bitcoin-Compatible Anonymous Payment Hub](https://www.ndss-symposium.org/ndss2017/ndss-2017-programme/tumblebit-untrusted-bitcoin-compatible-anonymous-payment-hub/)|	NDSS	|2017|	Payment hub	|TumbleBit|	Integrated into Breeze wallet in August 2017|	Listed as the research paper on the [official website](https://cs-people.bu.edu/heilman/tumblebit/)|
|[Ouroboros: A Provably Secure Proof-of-Stake Blockchain Protocol](https://eprint.iacr.org/2016/889.pdf)|	Crypto|2017	|Consensus|	Cardano|	Launched in September 2017|	[Research paper](https://iohk.io/en/research/library/papers/ouroborosa-provably-secure-proof-of-stake-blockchain-protocol/)|
|[Zerocash: Decentralized Anonymous Payments from Bitcoin](https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/6956581)|	S&P	|2014|	Zero knowledge|	Zcash	|Launched in October 2016|	Listed as the original zerocash paper at the [official website](https://z.cash/technology/).|

In below you can find some projects that are published at top security venues but are no longer active—at least we didn’t find their corresponding active projects.

## (Paper, Inactive Project) Pairs

Paper|	Venue|Year	|Category|	Project|	Project State|	Why Quantified
-|---|---|---|---|---|-
[Chainspace: A Sharded Smart Contracts Platform](https://arxiv.org/abs/1708.03778)|NDSS|2018	|Smart contract	|Chainspace|	The [GitHub organization](https://github.com/chainspace) was inactive since 2019.	|[Research paper](https://chainspace.io/#papers)
[SmartPool: Practical Decentralized Pooled Mining](https://www.usenix.org/conference/usenixsecurity17/technical-sessions/presentation/luu)|	Usenix Security|	2017|	Mining Pool	|SmartPool|The [GitHub organization](https://github.com/smartpool) was inactive since 2017.|[Research paper](http://smartpool.io/docs/smartpool.pdf)

At last, we list some blockchain projects whose main components are published at other top CS venues we are aware of. Although listing them in an ad hoc fashion would make this article less rigorous, we feel like this article is not complete without them.

## Blockchain Projects at Other Top CS Venues

Paper|	Venue|Year	|Category|	Project|	Project State|	Why Quantified
-|---|---|---|---|---|-
[A Decentralized Blockchain with High Throughput and Fast Confirmation](https://www.usenix.org/conference/atc20/presentation/li-chenxing)	|USENIX ATC|	2020|Consensus|	Conflux|	Launched in November 2020|[Research paper](https://developer.confluxnetwork.org/introduction/en/conflux_papers)
[Fast and secure global payments with Stellar](https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3341301.3359636)|	SOSP|2019|Consensus|Stellar	|Launched in July 2014| [Research paper](https://www.stellar.org/papers/fast-and-secure-global-payments-with-stellar)
[Algorand: Scaling Byzantine Agreements for Cryptocurrencies](https://dl.acm.org/authorize?N47148)	|SOSP	|2017|	Consensus	|Algorand|Launched in June 2019|	[White paper](https://www.algorand.com/technology/white-papers)

We will keep updating this article for a few months. If your (paper, project) pair should appear in the list but does not, please let us know.

***
Other articles from our research team that you might also interested in:
* [Lay Down the Common Metrics: Evaluating Proof-of-Work Consensus Protocols' Security](https://blog.cryptape.com/lay-down-the-common-metrics-evaluating-proof-of-work-consensus-protocols-security), **published at Oakland 2019**
* [Polynomial IOPs for Linear Algebra Relations](https://blog.cryptape.com/polynomial-iops-for-linear-algebra-relations), **published at PKC 2022**
* [VOProof: Efficient zkSNARKs from Vector Oracle Compilers](https://eprint.iacr.org/2021/710), accepted at CCS 2022