Today, IOHK, a leading blockchain research and development company, has announced that Ouroboros Proas, an adaptively secure Proof-of-Stake protocol, has been accepted into Eurocrypt 2018, one of the most prestigious conferences in the cryptography field.
The Ouroboros Proas protocol is a key component of Cardano, the third-generation cryptocurrency developed by IOHK. Cardano is currently a top 5 cryptocurrency by market capitalization.
See the press release below
Update of the IOHK protocol underpinning top five cryptocurrency Cardano receives academic peer review
New York, New York – January 23, 2018 – IOHK, a leading blockchain research and development company, has announced that its research paper describing Ouroboros Praos, an adaptively secure proof of stake algorithm, has been accepted to Eurocrypt 2018. The flagship conference, hosted in Tel Aviv, Israel by the International Association for Cryptologic Research (IACR), is one of the most prestigious academic events in the cryptography field. The process of academic peer review for Eurocrypt is notoriously tough, and the large majority of papers submitted for consideration are rejected.
Ouroboros Praos is the latest version of the Ouroboros protocol, which was released in February 2017. The protocol is the first proof of stake blockchain to provide security against adaptive attackers and is fit to scale for truly widespread use. Ouroboros Praos offers the same security guarantees as Bitcoin in that it can withstand attacks from stronger adversaries in harsh network conditions. No other proof of stake protocol can provably offer this level of security guarantee under these conditions.
Ouroboros Praos was designed by a highly skilled team of cryptographers, led by IOHK Chief Scientist Professor Aggelos Kiayias, who is Chair in Cybersecurity and Privacy at the University of Edinburgh’s School of Informatics, and Director of the Blockchain Technology Laboratory at the University of Edinburgh.
Prof. Aggelos Kiayias said: “We are delighted to have the opportunity to present Ouroboros Praos at Eurocrypt 2018. The protocol is a substantial leap forward compared to Ouroboros and we are glad to share our results with fellow cryptographers in Tel Aviv this May. The 37th Annual Eurocrypt conference is one of the flagship conferences of the International Association for Cryptologic Research and a major attractor for the very best of current cryptography research.”
The Ouroboros Praos protocol is a key component of a third generation blockchain and helps to address the issue of scalability by enabling more efficient and secure blockchains capable of processing a high level of transactions.
Its predecessor, Ouroboros, is the only proof of stake protocol to have been academically peer reviewed through its acceptance to the prestigious Crypto 2017 last August and has gained significant recognition in the academic community as an innovation in cryptography. It was the first proof of stake protocol to be accepted at a flagship conference undergoing a peer review process.
IOHK CEO Charles Hoskinson said: “The acceptance of Ouroboros Praos to Eurocrypt is a significant and well deserved recognition of the achievement of Aggelos and the team. I’m proud to see yet another IOHK research paper admitted to a flagship industry conference. IOHK’s philosophy is that research should undergo robust and scientific testing through the centuries-old process of academic peer review. That rigour is essential when you are building secure and scalable protocols that will be capable of serving the world’s billions of unbanked people.”
Ouroboros is the blockchain protocol underpinning Cardano, a top five cryptocurrency by market capitalization.
Eurocrypt 2018 is the 37th Annual Eurocrypto Conference and will be held in Tel Aviv from April 29 – May 3.
For more information on Ouroboros Praos, visit iohk.io.
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IOHK Chief Scientist Prof. Aggelos Kiayias is available for interview
About IOHK:
Founded in 2015 by Charles Hoskinson and Jeremy Wood, IOHK is a technology company committed to using peer-to-peer innovations to provide financial services to the three billion people who don’t have them.
IOHK is an engineering company that builds cryptocurrencies and blockchains for academic institutions, government entities, and corporations. It is also a research firm with dense academic connections in Europe, America and Asia with many employees holding PhDs in Computer Science, Math or Physics. IOHK focuses on practical, peer reviewed research to create live protocols, and the technological underpinnings to next-generation cryptocurrencies.
To learn more, visit iohk.io
