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Greetings IC3 Friends😊!
May has been a month filled with thrilling community updates. In this monthly recap, we'll dive deep into cutting-edge research, unveil our exclusive interview series featuring Web3 entrepreneurial rockstars, provide a sneak peek of our upcoming camp schedule, and proudly celebrate the achievements of IC3 members. Get ready to embrace the summer breeze and savor the last moments of spring as you delight in reading our newsletter! 😎
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Strategic Latency Reduction in Blockchain Peer-to-Peer Networks by Weizhao Tang (CMU, IC3), Lucianna Kiffer (ETH Zurich), Giulia Fanti (CMU, IC3), Ari Juels (Cornell, IC3) and Chainlink Labs:
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The authors explored strategies for reducing latency in blockchain peer-to-peer networks. The authors will also present their latest research at the ACMSigmetrics 2023 conference this June.

A Simple Model of a Central Bank Digital Currency by Bineet Mishra (Cornell, IC3), and Eswar S. Prasad (Cornell, IC3):
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The authors have developed a general equilibrium model that highlights the trade-offs between physical and digital forms of retail central bank money. They presented how a CBDC can facilitate negative nominal interest rates and helicopter drops, and also how a CBDC can be structured to prevent capital flight from other asset. Paper forthcoming in the Journal of Financial Stability. Currently available online as an NBER working paper.
- The authors illustrated the journey from the emergence of HotStuff to lessons drawn from it both foundational and applied.
Towards Automated Security Analysis of Smart Contracts based on Execution Property Graph by Kaihua Qin (Imperial College London, Berkeley RDI), Zhe Ye (UC Berkeley, IC3), Zhun Wang (Tsinghua University), Weilin Li (University of Science and Technology of China) , Liyi Zhou (Imperial College London, Berkeley RDI) , Chao Zhang (Tsinghua University), Dawn Song (UC Berkeley, IC3), Arthur Gervais (UCL, Berkeley RDI):
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The authors introduced a versatile dynamic analysis framework specifically designed for the EVM to address the challenges associated with securing smart contracts in complex DeFi systems. See full project details here.
Unique Identification of 50,000+ Virtual Reality Users from Head & Hand Motion Data by Vivek Nair (UC Berkeley, IC3), Wenbo Guo (UC Berkeley), Justus Mattern (RWTH Aachen), Rui Wang (UC Berkeley), James F. O’Brien (UC Berkeley), Louis Rosenberg (Unanimous AI), Dawn Song (UC Berkeley, IC3):
- This pioneering work is the first to truly demonstrate the extent to which biomechanics may serve as a unique identifier in VR, on par with widely used biometrics such as facial or fingerprint recognition.
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NEW! INTERVIEW SERIES
FOUNDERS IN WEB3
IC3 is excited to announce the upcoming launch of our latest video series, "Founders in Web3." In this entrepreneurship program, we feature pioneers and leaders in the blockchain space as they share their journey and valuable experiences with our community. The first episode features Ariah Klages-Mundt (Cornell, IC3) from Gyroscope (building self-stabilizing, "all-weather" reserve-backed stablecoin) talking about key concepts, developments of stablecoin & DeFi, his academia and startup journey. An early alpha version of Gyroscope was developed as an IC3 Blockchain Camp project. Watching the full video below or on Youtube.

Moderators: Kushal Babel (Cornell/IC3 PhD Student), Bria Han (IC3 Community Manager)
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Stay tuned for our next episode with Emin Gün Sirer, Founder and CEO of Ava Labs! | |
IC3 Summer Blockchain Camp: Last Chance to join 2023 IC3 Summer Blockchain Camp! This year, the camp will be held at the Cornell Tech Campus in New York City from June 12th to June 18th. We invite IC3 members and interested parties from academia and industry to participate in this exciting event. This year we plan to highlight research on DeFi, cryptography, cryptoeconomics, NFTs, metaverse, CBDCs, DAOs, public goods and more. Sneak peak into the tentative schedule below 👀: | |
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Summer Camp Sponsorship Opportunity: Co-create an unforgettable summer camp experience with us by becoming sponsors! If you are interested in sponsoring the 2023 IC3 Summer Blockchain Camp, please fill out this Sponsorship Interest Form. We will get back to you for more information on sponsorship levels and benefits. We look forward to partnering with you to make this year's camp a success! Please note that this form is ONLY for non-IC3 members/partners, existing IC3 Partners are invited to participate regardless of camp-specific sponsorship.
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The Science of Blockchain Conference (SBC) 2023: Co-organized by the Stanford Center for Blockchain Research, IC3 and Berkeley RDI, we have an exceptional lineup of Program Chairs including: Prof. Dan Boneh (Stanford, CBR), Prof. Dawn Song (UC Berkeley, RDI, IC3), Prof. Ari Juels (Cornell, IC3). | |
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Chainlink Spring Hackathon 2023: IC3 industry partner Chainlink is excited to announce its Spring Hackathon, taking place from April 28th to June 9th, 2023. This is a chance for participants to showcase their innovative ideas and skills in creating smart contracts using Chainlink's decentralized oracle network. Special challenge tracks include Women in Tech, Artificial Intelligence, Tech for Good etc. Whether you're an experienced developer or just starting out, this is a great opportunity to learn and collaborate with fellow blockchain enthusiasts from around the world. Visit here for more information and to sign up!
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ConsensusDay 2023: Join IC3 industry partner Protocol Labs Research for ConsensusDay 2023, a virtual 1-day experience on June 5, 2023 for individuals and organizations across academia and industry interested in consensus research and adjacent topics within the broader distributed systems field.Register here! | |
Chainlink SmartCon 2023: Get ready for IC3 industry partner Chainlink's signature event SmartCon in Barcelona, Spain from October 2-3, 2023. Ticket registration can be found here!
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IC3 faculty Ittay Eyal presented at Avalanche Summit II: Professor Ittay Eyal (Technion, IC3) talks about Wallet Design (click to view the slides), an important work jointly developed by IC3 alumni Deepak Maram (Mysten Labs) and IC3 student Mahimna Kelkar (Cornell Tech, IC3). | |
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IC3 alumni Haroon Yousaf presented IC3 research about pyramid scheme on Etheruem:
Haaroon Yousaf presented our research on Forsage, a pyramid scheme on Ethereum at Financial Cryptography in Croatia. Read our blog post by Tyler Kell, Haaroon Yousaf, Sarah Allen, Sarah Meiklejohn, Ari Juels to learn more.
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IC3 student Roi Bar-Zur presented research at IEEE S&P 2023: Roi Bar-Zur (Technion, IC3) presented paper WeRLman: To Tackle Whale (Transactions), Go Deep (RL) by Roi Bar-Zur (Technion, IC3), Ameer Abu-Hanna (Technion), Ittay Eyal (Technion, IC3) and Aviv Tamar (Technion). For further info about this research, see this blog post.
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Paper Submission
The international conference on Advances in Financial Technologies (AFT) is accepting papers about the latest developments in technologies related to novel financial infrastructure such as cryptocurrencies and their applications, blockchains, decentralized finance and exchanges. Papers may present advances in the theory, design, implementation, analysis, verification, or empirical evaluation and measurement of relevant systems. See topics of interest and submission details here.
Project
The Frutto Research team is working on a small project to explore blockchain architecture for real-life usage in communities. For the beginning phase, they are focusing on creating a platform for student organizations' treasury management. The aim is to create a user-friendly platform (backed by the innovations of blockchains) for student clubs' treasury activities such as spending, reimbursement, and fund approval, in a streamlined and efficient way for different parties and vendors. It can be traceable with relevant documentation on its own sub-chain, and be auditable by the university budget office. The project team is actively looking for relevant partnerships. And we welcome student organizations to join our initial testing! Please feel free to contact Songwei Chen (Cornell Univeristy, email: sc953@cornell.edu) if you have any questions.
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Follow us on LinkedIn: Excited to share that IC3 is officially on LinkedIn, we will share updates on our latest developments, interact with fellow blockchain enthusiasts, and further connect with talents in the blockchain community. Follow us today! | |
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Thanks for reading! Please send any new research or presentations to jh2584@cornell.edu to be included in the next research update.
Best wishes,
Bria Han
IC3 Community Manager
LinkedIn | Twitter | initc3.org
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The Initiative for Cryptocurrencies and Contracts (IC3)
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