There has been an increasing interest in Blockchain systems since Bitcoin was launched in 2009. Many different platforms have been proposed, each with its own assumptions and goals (examples include Ethererum and Hyperledger). There are still several open challenges for blockchain platforms, especially in topics related to scalability, performance, and sustainability. However, frameworks for evaluating new proposals are rare and too specific: most researchers develop ad hoc tools for evaluating their proposals.
In the Blockchain Lab at UiO, we have been developing a modular general purpose blockchain simulator. The simulator is already fully functional, but it can be extended in many interesting ways including (but not limited to):
- Simulation of specific attacks on Blockchain
- Communication protocols between the nodes that take network failures into account
- Implementation of new popular protocols, such as validators in Ethereum
- Integration with existing benchmarking tools
The project will start by studying other simulation frameworks [1-5], the simulator developed by the Blockchain Lab at UiO, and existing benchmark suites, such as [6]. Selected protocols in different layers will be chosen (gossip, consensus, etc) from existing blockchain systems (such as Ethereum, IOTA, Algorand, etc) and implemented following the defined API. The prototype will then be used to evaluate a few selected blockchain systems, and different combinations of their protocols.
If you are interested, please send an e-mail to romanvi@ifi.uio.no in order to schedule a meeting.
[1] https://github.com/iotaledger/multiverse-simulation
[2] https://github.com/carlosfaria94/blocksim
[3] https://github.com/dsg-titech/simblock
[4] https://github.com/hyajam/jabs
[5] https://github.com/i13-msrg/vibes
[6] https://dl.acm.org/doi/abs/10.1145/3552326.3567482