In Formal Verification Push, Ethereum Seeks Smart Contract Certainty
There's a new blockchain buzzword arriving in time for fall – formal verification. The phrase (used to describe the application of mathematics to verify software programs) has so far been evoked sparsely in the press. But if conversation at ethereum's developer summit last week was any indication, it could play an increasing role given the security questions that still surround smart contracts and blockchains more broadly. As evidenced by multiple talks dedicated to the subject at Devcon2, the idea that new assurances could be given to ethereum coders is being widely embraced by its....
Related News
Aesthetic Integration, a London-based fintech that applies “formal verification” to analyze safety and fairness of algorithms in financial markets, recently announced the launch of Imandra Contracts, a solution the company calls the world’s first platform using formal verification for blockchain-backed smart contracts. The announcement was made at the Devcon2 conference as part of International Blockchain Week in Shanghai. Imandra Contracts applies advances in artificial intelligence, mathematics and computer science to bring improved rigor to the electronic financial markets and other....
ConsenSys, a blockchain technology company, and Ethereum have developed BTC Relay, an Ethereum contract that allows Ethereum users to pay with bitcoin. Servicing as a bridge between Ethereum and bitcoin, BTC Relay is a tool for developers who want to verify bitcoin transactions for Ethereum and smart contract applications. Community members, called Relayers, provide BTC Relay with new bitcoin block headers generated by bitcoin miners. Ethereum app developers can make API calls to BTC Relay from smart contracts to verify bitcoin network activities. Anyone can join the Ethereum network and....
Ethereum’s community is standing up to the challenge of securing smart contracts by taking steps to implement the lessons learned from the DAO. Microsoft Research, Harvard University and Inra, a French national research institute that employs 2700 computer science researchers from the “world’s most prestigious universities”, have published a highly technical paper [PDF] on the formal verification of smart contracts. The paper presents a framework to analyze and formally verify Ethereum smart contracts using F*, a “functional programming language aimed at program verification.” The initial....
Amid new concerns about the viability of blockchain smart contracts, one company is releasing a proposal that seeks to make it easier to ensure their security. Developed by Smart Contract Solutions, the open-source Zeppelin project aims to offer a community-driven framework for secure, audited code. The goal is to prevent the unintentional loss of funds, a danger perhaps best illustrated by the collapse of ethereum's biggest smart contract, The DAO. Since ethereum is the best-known smart contract platform, the first set of tools are written in its programming language Solidity. But,....
DARPA has awarded a $1.8 million joint-contract to two companies to formally verify an integrity monitoring system based on blockchain technology. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has jointly awarded a $1.8 million contract between Galois and Guardtime Federal to verify the state of correctness of Guardtime’s Keyless Signature Infrastructure (KSI), an integrity monitoring system. In other words, a verifier verifying a system built for verification and monitoring. The announcement reveals that the contract will fund a “significant effort” that will seek to advance all....