Peiyao Sheng - Technical Framework for Unifying DePIN Coordination

Peiyao Sheng - Princeton University
Technical Framework for Unifying DePIN Coordination
Physical Infrastructure Networks (PINs) form the essential backbone of our daily lives, hosting critical services such as communication, energy, and transportation. These networks are traditionally managed by monopolistic entities, leveraging centralization to maximize economic benefits through network effects. However, the decentralized nature of physical entities demands geographical distribution of infrastructure to facilitate localized supply and demand, providing the gravity to shift PINs to Decentralized PINs.
In this talk, we will explore the transformative potential of DePINs by addressing the main challenges in establishing physical trust and coordinating siloed DePIN sectors. We will showcase three building blocks to construct consensus and bridge economic trust. The first, Proof of Backhaul, is a trust-free speed test where the challengers neither need to be trusted nor have a low latency and high throughput connection to the challenged link. This protocol is a reincarnation of classical Internet telemetry tools like ping and iperf, enhanced with Byzantine fault-tolerant properties. The second, Proof of Location, is designed to securely validate the geographic locations of network participants. It combines cryptographic techniques and Byzantine-resistant data inference with Internet measurements. The last is an incentive design called Proof of Diligence to safeguard state changes within computational tasks. These protocols are crucial for merging physical reliability with digital security, facilitating a unified and functional DePIN economy.
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Science and Engineering of Consensus Workshop
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An affiliated workshop of The Science of Blockchain Conference 2024
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