Xiaofei Bai (School of Computer Science, Fudan University), Jian Gao (School of Computer Science, Fudan University), Chenglong Hu (School of Computer Science, Fudan University), Liang Zhang (School of Computer Science, Fudan University)

Blockchain networks, especially cryptocurrencies, rely heavily on proof-of-work (PoW) systems, often as a basis to distribute rewards. These systems require solving specific puzzles, where Application Specific Integrated Circuits (ASICs) can be designed for performance or efficiency. Either way, ASICs surpass CPUs and GPUs by orders of magnitude, and may harm blockchain networks. Recently, Equihash is developed to resist ASIC solving with heavy memory usage. Although commercial ASIC solvers exist for its most popular parameter set, such solvers do not work under better ones, and are considered impossible under optimal parameters. In this paper, we inspect the ASIC resistance of Equihash by constructing a parameter-independent adversary solver design. We evaluate the product, and project at least 10x efficiency advantage for resourceful adversaries. We contribute to the security community in two ways: (1) by revealing the limitation of Equihash and raising awareness about its algorithmic factors, and (2) by demonstrating that security inspection is practical and useful on PoW systems, serving as a start point for future research and development.

View More Papers

YODA: Enabling computationally intensive contracts on blockchains with Byzantine...

Sourav Das (Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Delhi), Vinay Joseph Ribeiro (Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Delhi), Abhijeet Anand (Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Delhi)

Read More

Geo-locating Drivers: A Study of Sensitive Data Leakage in...

Qingchuan Zhao (The Ohio State University), Chaoshun Zuo (The Ohio State University), Giancarlo Pellegrino (CISPA, Saarland University; Stanford University), Zhiqiang Lin (The Ohio State University)

Read More

Mind Your Own Business: A Longitudinal Study of Threats...

Platon Kotzias (IMDEA Software Institute, Universidad Politécnica de Madrid), Leyla Bilge (Symantec Research Labs), Pierre-Antoine Vervier (Symantec Research Labs), Juan Caballero (IMDEA Software Institute)

Read More

ConcurORAM: High-Throughput Stateless Parallel Multi-Client ORAM

Anrin Chakraborti (Stony Brook University), Radu Sion (Stony Brook University)

Read More