{"id":{"repo_id":"uiuc","oai_identifier":"oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/115493"},"canonical_url":"https://search.dev.ndltd.org/etd/uiuc/oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/115493","repository":{"repo_id":"uiuc","name":"University of Illinois - Urbana-Champaign","base_url":"https://www.ideals.illinois.edu/oai-pmh"},"display":{"title":"A full-stack study of blockchains on security, performance, and incentive","abstract":"Submission original under an indefinite embargo labeled 'Open Access'. The submission was exported from vireo on 2022-11-11 without embargo terms","abstract_html":"Submission original under an indefinite embargo labeled 'Open Access'. The submission was exported from vireo on 2022-11-11 without embargo terms","abstract_has_math":false,"creators":["Wang, Gerui"],"institution":"University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign","degree_name":"Ph.D.","degree_level":"Dissertation","degree_discipline":"Computer Science","degree_department":null,"school":null,"contributors":["Viswanath, Pramod","Rosu, Grigore","Miller, Andrew","Ren, Ling","Nayak, Kartik"],"advisors":[],"committee_chairs":[],"committee_members":[],"year":2022,"date_issued":"2022-05","date_published":"2022-05","updated_at":"2026-07-22T22:24:54Z","subjects":["blockchain","consensus","incentive","blockchain performance","smart contract","blockchain forensics"],"languages":["en","eng"],"rights":["Copyright 2022 Gerui Wang"],"rights_urls":[],"identifier_entries":[]},"links":{"outbound_url":"https://hdl.handle.net/2142/115493","outbound_label":"Handle","outbound_source":"dc:identifier"},"metadata_groups":[{"id":"people","label":"People","entries":[{"key":"dc:contributor","label":"Contributor","values":["Viswanath, Pramod","Rosu, Grigore","Miller, Andrew","Ren, Ling","Nayak, Kartik"]},{"key":"dc:creator","label":"Author","values":["Wang, Gerui"]}]},{"id":"academic_context","label":"Academic Context","entries":[{"key":"dc:date","label":"Dc Date","values":["2022-05","2022-04-19"]},{"key":"dc:type","label":"Dc Type","values":["text","Thesis"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_discipline","label":"Discipline","values":["Computer Science"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_level","label":"Degree Level","values":["Dissertation"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_name","label":"Degree Name","values":["Ph.D."]},{"key":"thesis:institution_name","label":"Thesis Institution Name","values":["University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign"]}]},{"id":"subjects_keywords","label":"Subjects and Keywords","entries":[{"key":"dc:subject","label":"Dc Subject","values":["blockchain","consensus","incentive","blockchain performance","smart contract","blockchain forensics"]}]},{"id":"language_rights","label":"Language and Rights","entries":[{"key":"dc:language","label":"Dc Language","values":["en","eng"]},{"key":"dc:rights","label":"Dc Rights","values":["Copyright 2022 Gerui Wang"]}]},{"id":"identifiers","label":"Identifiers","entries":[{"key":"dc:identifier","label":"Identifier","values":["https://hdl.handle.net/2142/115493"]}]},{"id":"additional","label":"Additional Metadata","entries":[{"key":"dc:description","label":"Description","values":["Submission original under an indefinite embargo labeled 'Open Access'. The submission was exported from vireo on 2022-11-11 without embargo terms","The student, Gerui Wang, accepted the attached license on 2022-04-19 at 09:57.","The student, Gerui Wang, submitted this Dissertation for approval on 2022-04-19 at 10:09.","This Dissertation was approved for publication on 2022-04-19 at 16:51.","DSpace SAF Submission Ingestion Package generated from Vireo submission #17789 on 2022-11-11 at 13:15:49","Blockchains have attracted colossal attention recently and are impacting various research areas while encountering several stiff challenges. This thesis makes contributions to blockchains by addressing three vital challenges in security, performance, and incentive. First, the security challenge arises when malicious parties are beyond the threshold and launch a successful safety attack. A novel action called forensics is designed to detect the attackers with irrefutable proof. Moreover, the forensic support metric is mathematically formalized and systematically characterized for Byzantine fault-tolerant (BFT) protocols such as PBFT, HotStuff, and VABA, all of which possess strong forensic support. On the contrary, Algorand, a player replaceable protocol, is shown to have no forensic support. A novel protocol with both player replaceability and strong forensic support is presented to demonstrate the feasibility of having both properties in one BFT protocol. Next, the performance challenge refers to the consensus layer bottleneck of permissionless blockchains. This bottleneck is removed by a novel consensus protocol called Prism, implemented in clients with a flexible interface to support smart contracts. Experiments show empirical evidence that Prism has removed the consensus layer performance bottleneck. Finally, the incentive challenge is the phenomenon of token compounding in proof-of-stake (PoS) blockchains which leads to unfair reward distribution and discourages parties with a small number of tokens from joining PoS blockchains. A metric of fair reward distribution called equitability is mathematically formalized and analyzed for extant reward distribution mechanisms. Furthermore, a novel mechanism called the geometric reward is introduced and proved to be the most equitable."]},{"key":"dc:format","label":"Dc Format","values":["application/pdf"]},{"key":"dc:title","label":"Title","values":["A full-stack study of blockchains on security, performance, and incentive"]}]}],"canonical_facts":{"dc:contributor":["Viswanath, Pramod","Rosu, Grigore","Miller, Andrew","Ren, Ling","Nayak, Kartik"],"dc:creator":["Wang, Gerui"],"dc:date":["2022-05","2022-04-19"],"dc:description":["Submission original under an indefinite embargo labeled 'Open Access'. The submission was exported from vireo on 2022-11-11 without embargo terms","The student, Gerui Wang, accepted the attached license on 2022-04-19 at 09:57.","The student, Gerui Wang, submitted this Dissertation for approval on 2022-04-19 at 10:09.","This Dissertation was approved for publication on 2022-04-19 at 16:51.","DSpace SAF Submission Ingestion Package generated from Vireo submission #17789 on 2022-11-11 at 13:15:49","Blockchains have attracted colossal attention recently and are impacting various research areas while encountering several stiff challenges. This thesis makes contributions to blockchains by addressing three vital challenges in security, performance, and incentive. First, the security challenge arises when malicious parties are beyond the threshold and launch a successful safety attack. A novel action called forensics is designed to detect the attackers with irrefutable proof. Moreover, the forensic support metric is mathematically formalized and systematically characterized for Byzantine fault-tolerant (BFT) protocols such as PBFT, HotStuff, and VABA, all of which possess strong forensic support. On the contrary, Algorand, a player replaceable protocol, is shown to have no forensic support. A novel protocol with both player replaceability and strong forensic support is presented to demonstrate the feasibility of having both properties in one BFT protocol. Next, the performance challenge refers to the consensus layer bottleneck of permissionless blockchains. This bottleneck is removed by a novel consensus protocol called Prism, implemented in clients with a flexible interface to support smart contracts. Experiments show empirical evidence that Prism has removed the consensus layer performance bottleneck. Finally, the incentive challenge is the phenomenon of token compounding in proof-of-stake (PoS) blockchains which leads to unfair reward distribution and discourages parties with a small number of tokens from joining PoS blockchains. A metric of fair reward distribution called equitability is mathematically formalized and analyzed for extant reward distribution mechanisms. Furthermore, a novel mechanism called the geometric reward is introduced and proved to be the most equitable."],"dc:format":["application/pdf"],"dc:identifier":["https://hdl.handle.net/2142/115493"],"dc:language":["en","eng"],"dc:rights":["Copyright 2022 Gerui Wang"],"dc:subject":["blockchain","consensus","incentive","blockchain performance","smart contract","blockchain forensics"],"dc:title":["A full-stack study of blockchains on security, performance, and incentive"],"dc:type":["text","Thesis"],"thesis:degree_discipline":["Computer Science"],"thesis:degree_level":["Dissertation"],"thesis:degree_name":["Ph.D."],"thesis:institution_name":["University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign"]},"updated_at":"2026-07-22T22:24:54Z"}