ERCIM-Blockchain: Blockchain Engineering: Challenges and Opportunities for Computer Science Research.

With Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, blockchain technology
has gained widespread attention by the general public. Major
companies like Facebook have announced that they are
considering significant projects based on this technology.

The purpose of this workshop is to look at what the general
excitement about blockchain technologies means for computer
science research and to identify the major research challenges
in this area. During 2017, a [5] first ERCIM workshop on
Blockchain Technology and a [6] special issue of ERCIM news
revealed that blockchain engineering touches upon a wide
variety of very diverse areas of computer science research,
including
* P2P networks
* Distributed systems (in particular scalability)
* Cryptography (with a focus on crypto-agility)
* Consensus-building and validation
* Software engineering (smart contracts)
* Protocol design
* Process modelling and governance

The ERCIM workshop on Blockchain Technology will further
explore the opportunities for computer science research in the
area. The aim is to establish Blockchain Engineering as a new
field of computer science research. Goals include
* Solidifying and incubating the fledgling community of
Blockchain technology research
* Fostering an “interdisciplinary” exchange between
researchers specialised in the various CS research fields
covered by blockchain technology
* Establishing a roadmap documenting ongoing research and
open research questions in the rapidly moving field of
blockchain technology
* Developing, analysing and evaluating Blockchain
applications, networks and infrastructures

Submission Guidelines

The workshop welcomes submissions of unpublished contributions
covering the theoretical and practical aspects of the
blockchain technology from academia, government, industry, and
contributing individuals. All submissions should be in PDF.
* Full papers should consist of 5-10 Pages
* Posters should consist of a 1-2 page description of the
poster or a draft of the poster itself

All submissions will be peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will
receive a DOI and will be published in an open access library.
We plan to also publish selected papers in a subsequent journal
or book.

List of Topics

Possible topics of interest include, but are not limited to:
* Architecture
+ Scaling issues of blockchains
+ Cryptographic algorithms and protocols for blockchains
+ Permissioned and permissionless blockchain designs
+ Formal specification of Blockchain behavior
+ Proof-of-work/ proof-of-stake algorithms
+ Distributed consensus algorithms and protocols
+ Peer-to- peer communication protocols
+ Identity, identification and trust
+ Atomic swaps and cross blockchain communication
* Smart contracts
+ Smart contract programming languages and VMs
+ Workflow automation
+ Formal verification of smart contracts
+ Smart Contract Testing (SCT)
+ Smart Contracts Software engineering
* Privacy and Security
+ Privacy and anonymity-enhancing technologies
+ Confidentiality
+ Security of blockchain protocols
+ Attacks on existing blockchain protocols and platforms
+ Fraud in cryptocurrencies, contracts and blockchain
+ Privacy and anonymity-enhancing technologies
* Blockchain Applications
+ Finance
+ Internet of Things
+ Supply chain management
+ Notarization
+ E-government
+ Energy/Smart Grid
+ Copyright management
+ …
* Cryptocurrencies
+ Economics of cryptocurrencies
+ Analytics, prediction of cryptocurrency markets
+ Privacy and anonymity
+ Fraud detection and financial crime prevention
* Operations
+ Forensics and monitoring
+ Real-world measurements and metrics
+ Test-beds and platforms
* Societal aspects
+ Usability and user studies
+ Governance
+ Regulation
+ Legal implications of smart contracts and virtual
currencies
+ Censorship
+ Developing countries and blockchain adoption
* Standardization and Interoperability
+ Interplay between Blockchains
+ Interoperable Smart Contracts
+ Directory of public / private Blockchains

Program Committee

Chairs:
* Wolfgang Prinz, Fraunhofer FIT, RWTH Aachen University
* Philipp Hoschka, ERCIM

Members: (to be completed)
* Elli Androulaki, IBM Research, Zurich
* Gilbert Fridgen, Fraunhofer FIT / University of Bayreuth
* Georges Gonthier, INRIA
* Matthias Jarke, RWTH Aachen University
* Evangelos Markatos, ICS/FORTH
* Paolo Mori, CNR
* Thomas Rose, Fraunhofer FIT / RWTH Aachen
* Qiang Tang, Luxembourg Institute of Science and Technology

The conference will be held at CWI in Amsterdam (Netherlands).

Contact

All questions about submissions should be emailed to [7] the
chairs.

About ERCIM

As incubator of scientific communities in computer science and
mathematics, ERCIM - the European Research Consortium for
Informatics and Mathematics - aims to foster collaborative work
within the European research community and to increase
cooperation with European industry. The ERCIM consortium
consists of leading European research institutes in computer
science and mathematics. ERCIM is the European Host of the
[8] W3C.

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References

1. https://easychair.org/
2. https://easychair.org/help/article.cgi
3. https://easychair.org/account/signin.cgi
4. https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=ercimblockchain2018
5. https://www.ercim.eu/news/426-ercim-spring-meetings-2017
6. https://ercim-news.ercim.eu/en110/special/introduction-to-the-special-theme-blockchain-engineering
7. wolfgang.prinz@fit.fraunhofer.de, ph@ercim.eu
8. http://w3.org/