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Dr. Joshua Ellul and Colleagues Present New Paper on Improving Runtime Verification of Blockchain based Smart Contracts

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Dr. Joshua Ellul, the Chairman of Malta Digital Innovation Authority and Director of Centre for DLTs, University of Malta, and his colleagues have authored a new paper, titled “Towards Configurable and Efficient Runtime Verification of Blockchain Based Smart Contracts at the Virtual Machine Level.”

The Centre for DLT in Malta noted:

“Our director Dr. Joshua Ellul will be presenting his paper … (on October 27, 2020) within the Reliable Smart Contracts: State-of-the-art, Applications, Challenges and Future Directions workshop within the International Symposium On Leveraging Applications of Formal Methods, Verification and Validation.”

As mentioned in the paper’s abstract, runtime verification in traditional computer software systems and smart contracts has been implemented at the application level. These systems usually run on Virtual Machines (VMs) which execute their application logic.

The paper’s authors explain that conditional monitoring is implemented so that certain monitors can be switched off with the goal of reducing execution overhead “once certain levels of assurance have been provided.” Even when application-level conditional monitoring has been turned off, it still results in additional overhead when executing conditional statement related operations.

Dr. Ellul and his colleagues have proposed a method to “support conditional runtime verification of applications at the virtual machine level.” In their paper, they “demonstrate that such an approach can provide lower overhead in terms of both execution and gas.”

Blockchain or distributed ledger technology (DLT)-based applications are being developed by computer scientists and software engineering teams across the globe. Most of these developers are focused on solving the “Blockchain Trilemma” which aims to address three main challenges faced by DLT networks. They include ensuring adequate levels of security, decentralization, and building scalable blockchain infrastructure. Virtual machines and runtime verification methods (which are one of the main focus areas of this paper) are not new concepts. However, the paper specifically aims to propose ways to enable efficient runtime verification of blockchain-powered smart contracts at the Virtual Machine (VM) level.

Performance improvements (in general) for blockchain networks are required because major blockchains such as Ethereum have become quite slow due to a dramatic increase in activity, especially recently with the large number of decentralized finance (DeFi) apps being launched.

Dr. Ellul has been a very active participant in the crypto and blockchain space. As reported last month, Dr. Ellul had expressed concerns about the existing DLT and virtual currency regulations.

As covered earlier this year, Dr. Ellul (and his colleagues) had explained that blockchain features that bring decentralization pose certain challenges when providing protection for stakeholders.

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Metamask Rides DeFi Wave to Surpass a Million Monthly Users

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The growing decentralized finance (DeFi) space has been one of the best things to happen to Ethereum this year, as it has propped both the network and its currency, Ether. However, several other Ethereum-affiliated products are now getting a boost from this surge. Metamask, the top wallet provider, has crossed a significant milestone. 

A Convenient Coincidence 

Earlier this week, Metamask, an Ethereum-based browser wallet application, announced that it had recorded a million monthly users for the first time. In its announcement, the wallet application name-dropped several DeFi protocols, including Curve, Aave, Yearn Finance, and Uniswap, as some of the primary drivers of its growth. 

The wallet application’s developers reaffirmed their commitment to ensuring that they support DeFi projects as much as they can. It has been a good few months for both Metamask and DeFi, with the wallet’s user base tripling since February and the total value locked in DeFi increasing by 1,000 percent in that time. 

DeFi is Clogging Up Ethereum 

Currently, DeFi and Ethereum are enjoying a blissful relationship. Ether as a currency thrives on adoption from developers, and a surge in DeFi adoption has only served to stabilize the asset’s price over time. Save for the usual swings and market reactions, Ether has been a viable crypto investment for any prospective investor in 2020. 

However, this relationship has also come at a pretty steep cost. Particularly, the boom in the DeFi sector has made Ethereum less scalable. 

Early last month, data from Glassnode confirmed that gas fees on the Ethereum network reached $500,000 in an hour – a new all-time high. At the same time, Ether had consolidated 10 percent in 24 hours, sitting at a price of $486. 

Many believed that this increase in network activity came from Sushiswap, a fork of top decentralized exchange Uniswap, which crossed the billion-dollar mark in total assets locked in less than a day. 

Although the increased network activity meant good news for miners, it also pointed to the ever-present issue of scalability and sustainability on the network. DeFi has been the driving force behind an Ether bull run, but it has brought technical difficulties.  

As activity in the decentralized sector continues to surge, the Ethereum network is moving close to capacity. Congestion on the network could increase transactions going unconfirmed, causing longer wait times, and raising transaction fees. 

Left unchecked, this problem could affect the usability of smart contracts. Such an outcome will be a significant problem, as Ethereum’s entire operation rests on smart contracts’ ability to operate.

Speaking on the implications, Kosala Hemachandra, founder and chief executive of wallet provider MyEtherWallet, explained to Cointelegraph that it would be impossible for a single blockchain to hold so many transactions. 

Hemachandra highlighted that Ethereum’s popularity among DeFi projects is the reason for such high gas fees. However, it won’t be possible for DeFi to ditch Ethereum and go elsewhere. His posited solution is for them to migrate to some other high transaction-per-network solution, such as delegated proof-of-stake. However, he also noted that such a move could jeopardize DeFi projects’ decentralization.

Metamask Rides DeFi Wave to Surpass a Million Monthly Users

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Jay Kurahashi-Sofue from Ava Labs Claims Blockchain Project Avalanche Is Achieving Decentralization at an “Unprecedented Pace”

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Jay Kurahashi-Sofue, VP of Marketing at Ava Labs, an organization focused on building Avalanche so that the platform can empower people to create “an open, simple, and democratic internet of finance,” has noted that leading up to the official launch of the Avalanche mainnet, it was clear that Ava Labs had to convey its role in developing decentralized software solutions.

Jay confirmed that, in June 2020, the Ava Labs team announced a consolidation of its brand identity to make the necessary connections (and distinctions) between Ava Labs, Avalanche, and the Avalanche (AVAX) token. He explained that this effort was meant to be part of a long-term approach to establishing Avalanche as an initiative that’s “driven by and for its community.”

Jay further noted that Ava Labs has served as the launchpad for the Avalanche project. He also mentioned that Ava Labs plans to continue playing a role in supporting the blockchain-based network’s development. However, they also “aspire to lessen [their] influence over the platform’s direction as Avalanche governance begins to take hold,” Jay claims. He argues that this is “the natural progression of all great decentralized networks.”

He added:

“The successful completion of the Avalanche (AVAX) token sale and the launch of Avalanche’s mainnet marked the first step in testing our brand consolidation efforts; Avalanche’s brand mark exemplifies the platform as a whole, while the brand mark for AVAX symbolizes a small piece of the Avalanche platform.”

He continued:

“With mainnet launch on September 21, 2020, Avalanche is achieving decentralization at an unprecedented pace–over 500 full, block-producing validator nodes within the first week and rapidly growing community across all channels (to date, the Avalanche Twitter has grown 112% since the token sale on July 15).” 

It’s worth noting that many blockchain or distributed ledger technology (DLT) projects claim that they’re decentralized, however, this might not necessarily be the case. For example, there have been many cases where these so-called decentralized platforms were hacked and the founding members or developers had to step in to bring things back to normal. In many cases, this has involved shutting down the network completely until the issue is resolved. A truly decentralized system would be almost impossible to shut down so easily.

Despite these issues, Jay confirmed that Ava Labs is focused on making it easier to launch DeFi apps by leveraging blockchain or DLT. The organization aims to help individuals and businesses with creating an open, democratic internet of finance.

As noted by the organization’s team members:

“Ava Labs makes it simple to launch finance applications … with highly scalable and efficient networks, customizable public and private blockchains, the capability to create any digital asset, and more.”

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