Information Theory & Blockchain with Sreeram Kannan

This week, Anna and Tarun Chitra chat with Sreeram Kannan, Associate Professor at University of Washington where he runs the UW Blockchain Lab. In this episode, they look at how information theory and blockchain intersect and map the progression of Bitcoin security. They discuss Sreeram’s early work on P2P mobile networks and how this evolved to work on consensus and fair sequencing. Sreeram takes us through his philosophical reasoning of shifting from genomic research to blockchain research and the two major areas in P2P systems that he focuses on: maximum throughput and low latency.

Here are some links for the episode:

• Sreeram on Twitter
• Sreeram’s homepage
• Episode 136 - Math competitions, crypto as alchemy & Gasper with Yan Zhang
• Prism: Scaling Bitcoin by 10,000x
• Prism: Deconstructing the Blockchain to Approach Physical Limits
• The Bitcoin Backbone Protocol: Analysis and Applications
• Everything is a Race and Nakamoto Always Wins
• Themis: Fast, Strong Order-Fairness in Byzantine Consensus
• Babylon: Reusing Bitcoin Mining to Enhance Proof-of-Stake Security
• Blockchain CAP Theorem Allows User-Dependent Adaptivity and Finality
• Combining GHOST and Casper

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