Blockchain mechanism tutorial — IMS Games, Learning, and Networks 2023
As part of the IMS “Games, Learning, and Networks” seminar, the Ethereum Foudation’s Robust Incentives Group is presenting a one-day tutorial on blockchain mechanism design, with the following abstract:
The blockchain mechanism design tutorial will present recent results on market structures and mechanisms for the operation of decentralised blockchain networks. Blockchain networks follow protocols, which must incentivise their clients to follow some honest protocol behaviour. When the protocol is followed, the blockchain network provides secure and valuable blockspace, a novel economic good aggregating multiple resources such as data or computation. Allocating scarce blockspace to user demand motivates novel market design questions, as any such market must navigate constraints unique to both the decentralised blockchain environment and the nature of blockspace itself. We offer an introduction to participants of the tutorial, along with a review of current questions and results from practitioners and academics.
Schedule
The morning session of the tutorial will cover recent developments in mechanism design for blockchain, introducing attendees to the latest consensus, fee markets and MEV results, mostly centred on Ethereum. The sessions will be offered by researchers of the Robust Incentives Group, a research team of the Ethereum Foundation studying mechanism design for blockchain protocols.
The afternoon session will feature industry and academic experts sharing the latest updates on their work.
| Time | Title | Speaker |
| 09:00 - 09:30 | Registration | ㅤ |
| 09:30 - 10:45 | Blockchain mechanism design tutorial part I | Barnabé Monnot (Ethereum Foundation) |
| 10:45 - 11:15 | BREAK | ㅤ |
| 11:15 - 12:30 | Blockchain mechanism design tutorial part II | Davide Crapis (Ethereum Foundation) |
| 12:30 - 14:30 | LUNCH BREAK | ㅤ |
| 14:30 - 14:50 | On the design of Ethereum’s EIP-1559 Fee Market | Daniël Reijsbergen (Nanyang Technological University) |
| 14:50 - 15:10 | Economic Mechanism for App-specific Rollups | Yaoqi Jia (AltLayer) |
| 15:10 - 15:30 | Filecoin Models and FIPs | Shyam Sridhar (Protocol Labs) |
| 15:30 - 16:00 | BREAK | ㅤ |
| 16:00 - 16:20 | Mapping the transaction pathway from intent to block finality | Delane Foo (Blocknative) |
| 16:20 - 16:40 | Level Up Your MEV Game with Formal Methods | Palina Tolmach (Nanyang Technological Industry) |
| 16:40 - 17:00 | RIG Open Problems (ROPs) | Davide Crapis (Ethereum Foundation) Barnabé Monnot (Ethereum Foundation) |
Abstracts + Speaker details
Tutorial
Afternoon talks
Economic Mechanism for App-specific Rollups (Yaoqi Jia)
Mapping the transaction pathway from intent to block finality [open for slides] (Delane Foo)
Level Up Your MEV Game with Formal Methods (Palina Tolmach)
RIG Open Problems (ROPs)
References
Tutorial part 1
- EIP-1559 analysis, by Tim Roughgarden
- The different types of zkEVM, by Vitalik Buterin
- Tiers of transaction finality in rollups, by Patrick McCorry
- Revisiting bridges, by 0xjim
Tutorial part 2
- Multidimensional EIP-1559, by Vitalik Buterin
- MEV Resilient Ethereum, by Davide Crapis
- Latency arms race in blockspace markets, by Davide Crapis
- Seeing like a protocol, by Barnabé Monnot
On the design of EIP-1559 Fee Market
- Optimality despite chaos in fee markets, by Leonardos et al.
- Transaction fees on a honeymoon: EIP-1559 one month later, by Reijsbergen et al.
- Dynamical Analysis of the EIP-1559 Ethereum Fee Market, by Leonardos et al.
Economic Mechanism for App-specific Rollups
Filecoin models and FIPs
- Termination Fee Analysis, by Sridhar et al.
Mapping the transaction pathway from intent to block finality
Level Up Your MEV Game with Formal Methods
- Formal Analysis of Composable DeFi Protocols, by Tolmach et al.