TUM Blockchain Salon 24

Aims

  • Exploring core technologies for security, scalability, and privacy in Blockchain systems
  • Discussing applications and solutions with requirements met by these core technologies, and to which extent these technologies provide value
  • Exchange on methods for assessment of P2P layer, smart-contract security, and cryptographic innovations
  • Bridge academia, industry, and students and introduce recent topics from various layers of the Blockchain stack and ecosystems

Topical Scope

  • Individual layers of Blockchain Protocols spanning hardware, peer-to-peer network, consensus, execution layers, applications, and ecosystems
  • Innovative scalability and privacy technologies, such as zero knowledge proofs
  • Design, verification, and implementation of smart contracts logic
  • Methods and tools for performance assessment
  • Overview of possible optimization solutions and their applicability to blockchain solutions
  • Applications and use-cases in Web3.0 and Blockchain Technologies and open challenges

Organization by the Technical University of Munich

  • Chair: Georg Carle
  • Organizing committee chairs: Kilian Glas, Filip Rezabek, and Richard von Seck

Venue

  • Afternoon 16 and Morning 17 May 2024
  • TUM-IAS Institute of Advance Studies
    • Lichtenbergstraße 2a, 85748 Garching bei München
    • also online (Hybrid Event)

Tools

  • During the event we used this website for the program - link
  • Speakers' bios - link

Agenda

(subsequent times are - Central European Summer Time, UTC+2)

Thursday 16.5.2024

Get together - 08:30 - 09:00

Session 1 - 09:00 - 10:30

Topic: Privacy and Security in the Blockchain Technologies

Session Chair: Georg Carle
  • Welcome and Introduction: Georg Carle (TUM)
  • Jeffrey Burdges (Web3 Foundation): Ethical Identity, Ring VRFs, and Zero-Knowledge Continuations, (pdf, .mp4, YouTube)
  • Daniel Hugenroth (University of Cambridge): Building Decentralized Applications for Smartphones: Energy Measurements for Practical Protocol Design, (.mp4, YouTube)
  • Laura Ricci (University of Pisa): Supporting Privacy with Zero Knowledge in SSI and Blockchain based Access Control, (pdf, .mp4, YouTube)

Session 2 - 11:00 - 12:30

Topic: Secure Smart Contract Computing

Session Chair: Florian Matthes
  • Ingo Weber (TUM): Business Process Execution and Process Mining on Blockchain, (pdf)
  • Louis Tremblay Thibault (Zama): Privacy-Preserving Smart Contracts using FHE, (pdf, .mp4, YouTube)
  • Josef Gattermayer (Ackee Blockchain Security): Wake: Why we built an Open-Source Swiss Knife for Solidity Developers, (.mp4, YouTube)

Session 3 - 12:30 - 13:45

Poster Madness

Session Chair: Kilian Glas (TUM)

Session 4 - 13:45 - 15:00

Topic: Trust & Behavioral Considerations in Decentralized Systems

Session Chair: Filip Rezabek
  • Christof Ferreira Torres (ETH Zurich): Rolling in the Shadows: A Closer Look at MEV Extraction Across Layer 2 Rollups
  • Bhargav Bhatt (Web3 Foundation): Trustless and Efficient Bridges between PoS Blockchains via Random Sampling, (pdf, .mp4, YouTube)
  • Sheng-Nan Li (UZH Blockchain Center): Trust Management of Decentralised Platforms, (.mp4, YouTube)

Session 5 - 15:45 - 16:20

Panel Discussions

Moderator: Eomji Park (TUM/Encode Club)
  • Panelists:
    • Jonatan Luther-Bergquist (Inflection XYZ)
    • Dr. David An (Dracoon Ventures)
    • Sjors Witteveen (Lemniscap)
  • Topics
    • VC Perspective on Web3
    • Upcoming Research Challenges

Session 6 - 16:30 - 17:05

Panel Discussions

Moderator: Valentin Zieglmeier (TUM)
  • Panelists:
    • Josef Gattermayer (Ackee Blockchain Security)
    • Oliver Hörr (Hats Finance)
    • Christof Ferreira Torres (ETH Zurich)
  • Topics
    • Security tooling for EVM
    • Developers profession

Session 7 - 17:15 - 18:30

Blockchain Optimization and Interoperability Approaches

Session Chair: Sebastian Steinhorst
  • Markus Legner (Mysten Labs/ETH Zurich): Modern Blockchains and Next-Generation Internet Architectures: Opportunities and Synergies, (pdf, .mp4, YouTube)
  • Richard von Seck (TUM): Permissioned Consensus in the Lens of Network Transport
  • Zeta Avarikioti (TU Vienna&Common Prefix): Blink: A PoW Light Client with Constant Communication

Friday 17.5.2024

Get together - 08:30 - 09:00

Session 8 - 09:00 - 10:30

Session Chair: Georg Carle
  • Welcome and Introduction: Georg Carle (TUM)
  • David Millar-Durrant (NEAR/Pagoda): Chain Signatures and what to do with them, (.mp4, YouTube)
  • Arthur Gervais (UCL): (Pre)training and applying LLMs to Blockchain Transactions, (.mp4, YouTube)
  • Fran Algaba (Gizatech): Act onchain with AI Agents, (.mp4, YouTube)
  • Jan Lauinger (TUM): Transpiling Policies to Secure Computation Circuits, (.mp4, YouTube)

Session 9 - 11:00 - 12:30

Topic: Blockchain Infrastructure & Network Challenges

Session Chair: Richard von Seck (TUM)
  • Simone Romano (IoTeX): Building Decentralized Physical Infrastructure Networks (DePINs), (.mp4, YouTube)
  • Filip Rezabek (TUM): METHODA - Framework for Distributed Systems Evaluations, (pdf, .mp4, YouTube)
  • Ognjen Maric (DFINITY Foundation): Fast and Reliable P2P Without Breaking the Memory Budget, (pdf, .mp4, YouTube)

Session 10 - 12:30 - 13:15

Panel Discussions

Moderator: Filip Rezabek (TUM)
  • Panelists:
    • Anthony Beaumont (Encode Club)
    • Georg Carle (TUM)
    • Zeta Avarikioti (TU Vienna&Common Prefix)
  • Topics
    • Synergies between industry and academia
    • Web3.0 education

Session 11 - 14:30 - 15:45

Decentralized Identities, Business Logic, and Governance

Session Chair: Ingo Weber
  • Lars Hupel (G+D): Digital Euro Update, (pdf, .mp4, YouTube)
  • Federico Kunze Küllmer (evmOS/Altiplanic): Enterprise EVMs: How evmOS enables Access Control for Web3 Businesses, (pdf, .mp4, YouTube)
  • Felix Hoops (TUM): A Middleware Architecture for Self-Sovereign Identity Authentication and Authorization, (.mp4, YouTube)
  • Fabian Stiehle (TUM): Process Channels: A New Layer for Process Enactment Based on Blockchain State Channels, (.mp4, YouTube)

15:45 Wrap-up (Session Chair: Georg Carle)

  • Collection of feedback and suggestions for follow-up event

Poster Session

The Blockchain Salon will be accompanied by a poster session of TUM students, Research Associates, and student clubs.

Posters

  • Jonas Gebele: Detecting Arbitrages on a First-Come-First-Served Blockchain, (pdf)
  • Eber Christer: Scalable Cloud-Based Off-Chain Computation on Data Streams using Trusted Execution Environments, (pdf)
  • Tizian Leonhardt: Private Computing on Permissionless Blockchains, (pdf)
  • TUM Blockchain Club, (pdf)
  • Women in Computer Science, (pdf)
  • Jesco Melzer, Till Köbele, Yu Nakai, Furkan Atasay: TUMChainBook: A Data Exploration for Blockchain-based Systems, (pdf)
  • David Guzman: Distributed Consensus through Network Support, (pdf)
  • Veronika Bauer: Evaluation of SNARK Generation Tools in Private Infrastructure, (pdf)
  • Benjamin Kraner: The Emergence of Liquid Staking, (pdf)
  • Nicolò Vallarano: An Attack Simulation on Ethereum, (pdf)