EPFL and ETHZ host first Swiss Blockchain Winter School
EPFL Vice President for Information Systems Edouard Bugnion during the Swiss Blockchain Winter School opening address. © EPFL
The first Swiss Blockchain Winter School took place in picturesque Interlaken from February 11-14, drawing 120 students, researchers, and representatives from industry. Equal parts school and problem-solving forum, the event’s 20-plus expert speakers addressed the latest developments and challenges in cryptocurrencies and blockchain technologies.
The event was organized by EPFL, ETHZ and the Initiative for Cryptocurrencies and Contracts (IC3) following a highly successful at Swiss Blockchain Summer School in 2017 at EPFL.
School of Computer and Communication Sciences (IC) professor Bryan Ford opened the proceedings, explaining that the location provided an ideal meeting point midway between the two Swiss Federal Institutes of Technology, both of which boast blossoming digital security research programs and initiatives.
A broadening Swiss blockchain community
IC professor and dean James Larus introduced EPFL and its recent innovations in the field, including the Center for Digital Trust, as well as its successful master’s program in data science and newly launched joint master’s program in cyber security with ETHZ.
“The startups that came out of EPFL alone last year got 16% of venture capital invested in Switzerland, so we’re an extremely innovative and fast-growing aspect of the Swiss economy,” Larus added.
ETHZ professor Roger Wattenhofer gave an overview of the institute’s range of blockchain research areas, including Bitcoin payment networks, consensus programs, smart contract verification, and e-voting. The so-called “Crypto Valley” of blockchain-related startups that’s gaining traction in canton Zug, Wattenhofer said, is extending to Zurich as well.
Finally, ETHZ professor Srdjan Capkun introduced the Zurich Information Security and Privacy Center (ZISC), which he directs. The ZISC was founded with foresight in 2003 as a research hub bringing together academia, industry and society.
“We knew already in 2003 that [hacking] was a distinct possibility, and indeed today everything is being hacked, and this has a strong impact on society. These are the kinds of issues that technology can help solve,” Capkun said.
Consensus, security, efficiency
The in-depth talks that followed on the first day of the school addressed a range of pressing issues in blockchain development, from security and consensus protocols to cryptocurrency governance and scaling approaches.
Prateek Saxena, a professor at the National University of Singapore, kicked things off with a discussion of how technical approaches to establishing consensus in the Bitcoin model could be improved. More efficient and secure protocols for consensus – which refers to the way machines in a peer-to-peer network agree on a transaction set and order – would have benefits not just for finance, but also for the wide range of computing applications that have come to rely on blockchain technology, like smart contracts.
Giulia Fanti, a professor of electrical and computer engineering at Carnegie Mellon University in the United States, also touched on blockchain consensus in her talk. “It's been a decade since Bitcoin was first suggested by Satoshi Nakamoto, and in that decade, it’s gone from an abstract research idea to a very industrial concept. But despite this success, why aren't we paying for groceries with Bitcoin?” she asked the audience.
Part of the answer, Fanti said, lies in the huge scalability challenges. She highlighted a specific problem that can occur in more recent proof-of-stake cryptocurrencies, in which rewards given to blockchain participants for performing computational work are unevenly compounded, causing “the rich to get richer”. Fanti proposed an approach called a geometric rewards system as a universal, equitable solution to this compounding problem.
Finally, Sergey Gorbunov of the University of Waterloo rounded out the day’s talks with an introduction to blockchain protocol Algorand, which is pioneering a “permissionless” approach to consensus and transaction finalization, which aims to solve current scalability and security challenges for very large, decentralized systems.
During the rest of the 2019 Swiss Blockchain Winter School, invited speakers extended the conversation to other aspects of blockchain technology, as well as privacy and economics issues. Industry experts also presented a series of sponsored talks. The full event program, as well as slides from the talks, are now available online at: https://blockchainschool.epfl.ch/.