# DecentralU <>CENFOTEC - Blockchain Research Topics

⁠ ⁠⁠En esa misma lista comparto una lista de temas para el evento, ordenados del mas cercano a “aplicaciones” al mas tirado a “investigacion”

## Background
- Ethereum Foundation Grant Rounds
1. Año 2023 $1M
2. 2024 $2M
3. https://esp.ethereum.foundation/academic-grants
4. https://blog.ethereum.org/2024/12/10/academic-grants-22
5. https://blog.ethereum.org/2024/08/14/data-collection-round
- ETH Kipu
- ONG sin fines lucro, regional latinoamericana para impulsar el desarrollo blockahin e Ethereum en la region
- http://www.cids.frc.utn.edu.ar/node/437
- Red UniBlockchain
- Ethereum Developer Pack
- .

## 🎓 Research Topics for Universities

**From Applied (Undergraduate/Engineering Projects) → to Theoretical (Graduate/PhD Research)**

### 🧪 Applications & Engineering

#### **Verifiable Data and Its Applications**
- zkTLS and breaking data silos [i.e. ](https://arxiv.org/abs/2409.17670)
- POD: portable object data and self-attested formats
#### **Privacy Tools for Vulnerable Communities**
- Privacy-preserving coordination (MPC, FHE)
- Community-specific privacy guides
- Private data analysis using MPC
- UX research for consent & privacy tools
- Threat modeling for secure communication
#### **Client Engineering**
- Optimizing EVM interpreters, JITs, and compilers
- Parallelizing the EVM
- Advanced database performance tuning
- Efficient node syncing and state compression
#### **Privacy Infrastructure**
- Tutorials/boilerplates for ZK, MPC, FHE frameworks
- Integration of verifiable ID into governance tools
- Testing/auditing data provenance systems
#### **Formal Verification & Testing**
- Tools for p2p network health/anomaly detection
- Stress testing and fuzzing of clients, EVM, networking
- Cross-client testing analysis (consensus-spec, hive, etc)
- Formal verification of critical components
### 🌐 Protocols, Consensus & Networks
#### **Security & Privacy**
- Devp2p/libp2p security research and enhancements
- Analysis of widely-used ecosystem dependencies
- Privacy leakage and defense techniques in p2p systems
#### **Consensus & Protocol Design**
- Rational Byzantine consensus models
- Censorship resistance in mutable-state tx environments
- Beacon chain light client protocol improvements
- Analysis of confirmation rules and alternatives
### **Networking & P2P**
- Robust distributed hash tables (DHTs)
- Efficient, secure gossip protocols (e.g., gossipsub, episub)
- Data dissemination methods for DHTs
- Design and simulation of PeerDAS/Danksharding
- Data availability sampling techniques
- Signature aggregation for large-scale consensus
- Privacy techniques at the p2p layer (VPNs, TOR, etc.)

### 🔐 Cryptography & Zero-Knowledge

#### **ZK and Cryptographic Engineering**
- ZK-EVM optimizations and formalizations
- zk-friendly modifications to the Beacon chain
- Post-quantum aggregate/multi-signature schemes
- Improving prover time in Proof-Carrying Data systems
- Groebner basis computation in cryptographic contexts
- Witness encryption theorems and constructions
- Efficient time-lock puzzles without trusted setup
- Random beacon analysis in PoS systems
### 📈 Economic, Game-Theoretic & Societal

#### **Economics & Game Theory**
- Incentive design in rollups, DA layers, and consensus
- Game-theoretic models of validator behavior
#### **Humanities & Society**
- Privacy, data sovereignty, and digital self-determination
- Community co-design methodologies for Web3 tools
- Governance models for public goods infrastructure

----------
### Narrowing Down
1. Blockchain Lab <> Quantum Computing Lab (more for Cybersecurity School)
1. Post-quantum signatures, algorithms, standards, aggregation. Usage on blockchain context.
2. Data Provenance (more for Cybersecurity School)
2. Data Portability: zkTLS, zkFirmaDigital, PODs
3. Self Sovereign Identities: zkID
4. Otto Mora
3. AI to model, simulate and defend attacks on Blockchain (more for Cybersecurity School x AI School x )
1. [Alonso Ramirez](https://www.linkedin.com/in/alonsoramirezcybersecurity/?originalSubdomain=cr) (AI x Ciberseguridad GBM)
2. Andres Gomez
4. Verification and Testing
1. Gustavo Marquez (Testing Blockchain Applications)
2. Ignacio Trejos
5. Distributed Systems, Networking, Consensus Mechanism
**Consensus & Protocol Design**
- Rational Byzantine consensus models
- Censorship resistance in mutable-state TX environments
- Beacon chain light client protocol improvements
- Analysis of confirmation rules and alternatives
### **Networking & P2P**
- Robust distributed hash tables (DHTs)
- Efficient, secure gossip protocols (e.g., gossipsub, episub)
- Data dissemination methods for DHTs
- Design and simulation of PeerDAS/Danksharding
- Data availability sampling techniques
- Signature aggregation for large-scale consensus
- Privacy techniques at the p2p layer (VPNs, TOR, etc.)
**Explicación:**
- Todos estos temas vienen a responder: "como una red distribuida sin jerarquia se pone de acuerdo en el estado de la red de forma: rápida, segura, barata y con alta capacidad."
- Rediseño de Ethereum consensus protocol con el uso de zero knowledge Virtual Machines (zkVMs)
- Escalabilidad, networking, seguridad, mantener datos a través del tiempo con Data Availability Sampling. P2P libraries, conflict resolutions.
6. **Open Government + Transparent Government**
1. **Proyecto de Tokenización y Pagos de Progreso de Obra Publica:**
1. **Se hace pagos con base en el avance de obras publicas, los fondos se envían por la blockchain y se toma como base los videos y datos de IoT.**
2. **Alejandro Herrera (Contraloría)**
3. **[Ilan Meléndez Lugo ( BID )](https://www.linkedin.com/in/ilanmelendez/)**
4. **Mision: busca de la transparencia del manejo del gobierno.**
7. Data Mining & Analytics on Node Data
4. Dashboards, Analysis, Projection and Understanding of how the network is behaving and being used.

### People:
- Andres Obando
- Santiago Nuñez
- Personas graduadas de los cursos de Optimism e ETH Kipu