ns, including computer science, market design, and game theory. For example, various works over the past few years provide game theory analysis of Nakamoto consensus safety. Other works include empirical studies of financial activity in the Bitcoin and Ethereum networks, e.g., transaction front-running and arbitrage. In the future, more work will be needed to understand the foundations of mechanisms that govern decentralization of Nakamoto consensus and/or new consensus algorithms.
Crypto-economic systems could have a potentially vast impact on the very fabric of economics and society. It is essential to understand the responsibilities that the technology bears concerning customer protection and the prevention of bad usage, such as terrorist activity. Much more cross-domain work will incorporate law, economics, and computer science considerations in order both to identify the gaps that this disruption has created and to innovate to help society understand and embrace it.
The final workshop of the semester, Blockchain in Society: Applications, Economics, Law, and Ethics, was co-organized by Abhi Shelat, Helen Nissenbaum, and Peter Van Valkenburgh and took place from November 18 to 22, 2019. The workshop was devoted to questions concerning technical, economic, legal, and ethical implications of recent advances in consensus, blockchain data structures, and zero-knowledge proofs.
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