Oleksii Konashevych’s scientific contributions

Randpay is a technology developed in Emercoin for blockchain micropayments that can be more effective in some scenarios than the Lightning Network, as seen in the paper. The protocol is based on the concept of Ronald L. Rivest published in the paper ‘Electronic Lottery Tickets as Micropayments’ (1997). The “lottery ticket” was designed for centralized systems where a trusted third party is required to provide payments, and in some scenarios, is also a lottery facilitator. The existing blockchain protocol cannot accommodate peer-to-peer “lottery” micropayments at least, without creating payment channels. Therefore, the implementation requires the development of an upgrade to the blockchain core. In the result, RandpayUTXO was introduced – an infinitely spendable zero output that requires the payee's signature to be published in the blockchain. Randpay is considered to be the first blockchain protocol to require the payee to sign the transaction by their private key. This is a significant feature to improve, not only microtransactions but also extend the use of the blockchain for legal deeds that require a payee's consent to be recognized in legal applications. The second important innovation of this research is the implementation of Blum's ‘coin flipping by telephone’ problem to design a ‘lottery ticket’ that does not require any third party to facilitate the lottery. The paper offers an analysis of the mathematical model, and proof of how ‘lottery’ can be beneficial, an API description is also added. There is also an attack analysis and an overview of existing solutions.

Randpay is a technology developed in Emercoin for blockchain micropayments that can be more effective in some scenarios than the Lightning Network as we show in the paper. The protocol is based on the concept of Ronald L. Rivest and published in the paper "Electronic Lottery Tickets as Micropayments" (1997). The "lottery ticket" was designed for centralized systems where a trusted third party is required to provide payments, and in some scenarios is also a lottery facilitator. The existing blockchain protocol cannot accommodate peer-to-peer "lottery" micropayments at least without the need to create payment channels, which is analysed in the paper. Therefore, the implementation required the development of an update to the blockchain core. In the result, RandpayUTXO was introduced - infinitely spendable zero output that requires the payee's signature to be published in the blockchain. Randpay is considered to be the first blockchain protocol to require the payee to sign the transaction by their private key. This is a significant feature to improve not only microtransactions but also extend the use of the blockchain for legal deeds that require a payee's consent to be recognised in legal applications. The second important innovation of this research is the implementation of Blum's "coin flipping by telephone" problem to design a "lottery ticket" that does not require any third party to facilitate the lottery. The paper offers an API description, an analysis of the mathematical model, and proof of how "lottery" can be beneficial. There is also an attack analysis and overview of existing solutions.

This paper discusses how to use blockchain tokens to represent real estate titles. Tokens on the blockchain as a technological concept is the closest solution to the legal concept of titles, because it provides for evidence of ownership and can be transferred from one address to another, while giving exclusive access to such an address to the owner. This paper contains the analysis of the concept of tokens in the context of its applicability to title rights on real estate. There is also a discussion of the outcomes of conducted interviews with professionals in the field of Computer Science, technologies, blockchain and smart contracts. Some critical mismatches were found: tokens are not able to satisfy current demand to manage title rights online. To develop a mature and sustainable electronic system, there are certain issues that need to be addressed: inheritance procedures, litigation, guardianship, delegation of rights and rights of third parties (liens and encumbrances) as well as the legal concept of bundle of rights (possession, disposition, enjoyment, etc.), which requires a strong mathematical model. During the abovementioned interviews, some weaknesses were found in the existing ideas of the use of the blockchain for real estate, mostly related to the undesirable centralization and issues with security. As the result of this research, it is obvious what needs to be developed is the concept of a high-level design of the technology, capable of managing title rights on the blockchain, which includes a three-level mechanism of (1) e-voting, which provides for a democratic implementation of governing algorithms; (2) Smart Laws, as the concept of high level “smart” algorithms that implement (by e-voting) existing laws related to property rights in a form of the program/protocol; and (3) smart contract templates which are based on the smart laws, that allow people to manage their title rights online.

There is an ongoing competition among blockchain technologies, and the existence of one ultimate blockchain is impossible for many reasons. Though, such variety can create difficulties in adoption, especially for the governments and corporations. The proposed technology ensures a blockchain agnostic approach and is aimed to create a unified ecosystem of multiple networks without changes in their protocols. The cross-blockchain protocol can be used to develop services where end-users decide for themselves their preferred blockchain. Moreover, it also ensures the interaction of users from different networks and transferability of assets across the bundle of chains. The invention addresses problems of duplication of tokens in the result of hardforks, issues with scalability, digital identity and even the “problem” of immutability, including issues with the enforceability of smart contracts and token inheritance. A cross-blockchain DB means a consistent non-conflicting key-value database across a bundle of defined blockchains. It is not a new blockchain, but a protocol for developing databases on existing ledgers. The protocol is also a basis for “smart laws” which are a frame-work for public registries and governance.