Game-theoretic aspects in blockchain environments
Evangelos Markakis Athens University of Economics and Business & Archimedes, Athena Research Center
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About the lecturer |
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This course aims to provide an overview of game-theoretic and economic aspects arising in the design and analysis of blockchain protocols. In recent years, blockchain systems have emerged as a game-theoretic arena, fostering a wide range of economic interactions among their stakeholders. To provide some prominent examples, many protocols use auctions or other forms of mechanisms for determining the transactions to be included in a block. These mechanisms, whose purpose is to control the congestion of transactions, give rise to new research questions in mechanism design. As a second example, the switch from Proof of Work to Proof of Stake systems, has made it easier for all users to participate in the block production process via staking (i.e., by delegating their stake to the actual block validators of the protocol). This in turn has intensified the need for designing appropriate reward sharing schemes, so that these collaborating entities can share their profits. Beyond such interactions, blockchain communities also envision themselves as self-governed organizations, with their own governance systems. Governance in this context may refer both to elections over critical parameters of a protocol but also to elections for allocating treasury funds for improvement proposals (participatory budgeting). Setting up voting rules in this domain comes with its own challenges and incentive considerations. During the course we plan to present recent research and new directions mainly on the following list of topics: 1) design and analysis of reward sharing schemes, 2) transaction fee mechanism design, 3) governance in blockchain systems.
About the lecturer:Evangelos Markakis is a Professor at the Department of Informatics of the Athens University of Economics and Business, which he joined in 2009. Since February 2023, he is also affiliated as a collaborating researcher at the Archimedes Unit of the Athena Research Center. He received his PhD in Computer Science (2005) from the Georgia Institute of Technology, USA, and then worked as a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Toronto, Canada (2005-2006) and at the Center for Research in Mathematics and Computer Science (CWI) in the Netherlands (2007-2008). He was also a Visiting Professor at Stanford University, USA during the spring semester of 2014. His research interests focus on the interplay between theoretical computer science and game theory, with emphasis on the design and analysis of algorithms, mechanism design, and applications to problems involving fair division, blockchains, and voting theory.
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