Ouroboros, developed by a team led by IOHK chief scientist Aggelos Kiayias, made it through a tough admission process for the prestigious conference. This year, 311 papers were submitted and of those 72 were accepted. Only three papers at the conference were on the subject of blockchain. All three papers were supported by IOHK funding.
Speaking after his presentation, Professor Kiayias said: “We’re very happy that we had the opportunity to present Ouroboros at the conference. The protocol and especially its security analysis were very well received by fellow cryptographers.”
“Our next steps will be to focus on the next version of the protocol, Ouroboros Praos which improves even further the security and performance characteristics of the protocol.”
The Ouroboros protocol stands out as the first proof of stake algorithm that is provably secure, meaning that it offers security guarantees that are mathematically proven. This is essential for a protocol that is intended to be used in cryptocurrency, an infrastructure that must be relied on to carry billions of dollars worth of value. In addition to security, if blockchains are going to become infrastructure for new financial systems they must be able to comfortably handle millions of users.
The key to scaling up is proof of stake, a far more energy efficient and cost effective algorithm, and as such this research represents a significant step forward in cryptography. Ouroboros also has the distinction of being implemented – the protocol will be an integral part of Cardano, a blockchain system currently in development.
