Blockchain

1. BetterHash: Decentralizing Bitcoin Mining With New Hashing Protocols

2. A Bayesian approach to identify Bitcoin users

Abstract

When a user initiates a Bitcoin transaction, his Bitcoin client program relays messages to other clients through the Bitcoin network. Monitoring the propagation of these messages and analyzing them carefully reveal hidden relations. In this paper, we develop a mathematical model using a probabilistic approach to link Bitcoin addresses and transactions to the originator IP address. To utilize our model, we carried out experiments by installing more than a hundred modified Bitcoin clients distributed in the network to observe as many messages as possible. During a two month observation period we were able to identify several thousand Bitcoin clients and bind their transactions to geographical locations.

3. Leveraging blockchain to make machine learning models more accessible

From arXiv:

Abstract

Machine learning has recently enabled large advances in artificial intelligence, but these tend to be highly centralized. The large datasets required are generally proprietary; predictions are often sold on a per-query basis; and published models can quickly become out of date without effort to acquire more data and re-train them. We propose a framework for participants to collaboratively build a dataset and use smart contracts to host a continuously updated model. This model will be shared publicly on a blockchain where it can be free to use for inference. Ideal learning problems include scenarios where a model is used many times for similar input such as personal assistants, playing games, recommender systems, etc. In order to maintain the model’s accuracy with respect to some test set we propose both financial and non-financial (gamified) incentive structures for providing good data. A free and open source implementation for the Ethereum blockchain is provided at this https URL.