IOHK | Dr. Peter Gaži, presenting Ouroboros at MIT.IOHK | Dr. Peter Gaži, presenting Ouroboros at MIT.

Developing a secure proof of stake algorithm is one of the big challenges in cryptocurrency. The Ouroboros protocol has the distinction of being the first proof of stake algorithm that is provably secure and has been peer reviewed at a leading cryptography conference, Crypto 2017. This is essential for a protocol that is to be the foundation of a cryptocurrency, an infrastructure that must be relied on to carry billions of dollars worth of value. In addition to security, if blockchains are going to become infrastructure for new financial systems they must be able to comfortably handle millions of users. The key to scaling up is proof of stake, a far more energy efficient and cost effective algorithm, and as such this research represents a significant step forward in cryptography. Ouroboros is the only provably secure, peer reviewed proof of stake protocol to be implemented – the protocol is an integral part of Cardano, a blockchain system launched in September 2017 and undergoing further extensive development. https://iohk.io/research/papers/#XJ6MHFXX Peter Gaži did his master studies in Computer Science at Comenius University in Bratislava, and obtained his PhD. in Cryptography from ETH Zurich under the supervision of Prof. Ueli Maurer. Later he worked as a postdoc in the Cryptography research group of Prof. Krzysztof Pietrzak at Institute of Science and Technology Austria. Currently, he is a full-time research fellow at IOHK. Peter’s research interests include problems related to security analysis of symmetric cryptography constructions, hash functions and memory-hard functions. His work at IOHK is mostly focused on cryptocurrencies and blockchains. https://iohk.io/team/peter-gazi/ -- Input Output See more at: https://iohk.io Get our latest news updates: https://iohk.io/blog/ Meet the team: https://iohk.io/team/ Learn about our projects: https://iohk.io/projects/cardano/ Read our papers: http://iohk.link/paper-ouroboros Visit our library: https://iohk.io/research/library/ In the press: https://iohk.io/press/ Work with us: https://iohk.io/careers/ See more on Cardano: https://iohk.io/projects/cardano/