[apologies for cross-posting]

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
2nd Workshop on Trusted Smart Contracts (WTSC'18)


March 1-2, 2018
Santa Barbara Beach Resort & Spa
Curaçao

In Association with Financial Cryptography 18 (FC 2018)

http://fc18.ifca.ai/wtsc/

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

CALL FOR PAPERS

A potentially highly transformational technology currently developing
on top of blockchain technologies are smart contracts, i.e. self-enforcing
agreements in the form of executable programs that are deployed to and
run on top of (specialised) blockchains.
Several proposals have developed the idea of algorithmic validation
of decentralised trust, along Szabo's intuition. A prominent example is the
Ethereum blockchain. It has a Turing-complete programming model, and
bears one of the most striking performed attacks, the DAO attack (not to
mention the discussed fork adopted as a counter measure). Possible further
directions, are drawn by in-progress proposals like Tezos, where algorithmic
validation also embraces decentralised consensus: smart contracts can
negotiate the rules themselves which enable decentralised trust.

These technologies introduce a novel programming framework and execution
environment, which are not satisfactory understood at the moment.
Multidisciplinary and multifactorial aspects affect correctness, safety, privacy,
authentication, efficiency, sustainability, resilience and trust in smart contracts.
Existing frameworks, which are competing for their market share, adopt different
solutions to issues like the above ones. Merits of proposed solutions are still to
be fully evaluated and compared by means of systematic scientific investigation,
and further research is needed towards laying the foundations of
Trusted Smart Contracts.

A non-exhaustive list of topics of interest and open problems includes:

- validation and definition of the programming abstractions and execution model,
- foundations of software engineering for smart contracts,
- authentication and anonymity management,
- privacy and privacy-preserving contracts,
- oblivious transfer,
- data provenance,
- access rights,
- game-theoretic approaches for security and validation,
- resilience of the validation/mining/execution model,
- verification of the properties expected to be enforced by smart contracts,
- fairness and decentralisation of contracts and their management,
- effects of consensus mechanisms and proof-of mechanisms on smart contracts,
- blockchain data analysis,
- rewards, economics and sustainability/stability of the framework,
- comparison of the permissioned and non-permissioned scenarios,
- use cases and killer applications of smart contracts,
- future outlook on smart contract technologies.

WTSC focuses primarily on smart contracts as an application layer on top of
blockchains, however aspects of the underlying supporting blockchains may
clearly become relevant in so much as they affect properties of the smart contracts.

The Workshop on Trusted Smart Contracts (WTSC) aims to gather together
researchers from both academia and industry interested in the many facets
of Trusted Smart Contract engineering, and to provide a multi-disciplinary forum
for discussing open problems, proposed solutions and the vision on future developments.

Experts in fields including (but not limited to!):

- programming languages,
- verification,
- security,
- software engineering,
- decision and game theory,
- cryptography,
- finance and economics,
- monetary systems,
- finance and economics

as well as, practitioners and companies interested in blockchain technologies,
are invited to submit their findings, case studies and reports on open problems
for presentation at the workshop, take part in this second edition of WTSC and
make it a lively forum.

INVITED SPEAKER

:: :: TBA :: ::

IMPORTANT DATES

WTSC adopts this year a **novel submission schedule** with double deadline.
A first deadline will allow authors to plan their participation well in advance. A
second deadline will allow authors who need extra time to develop their contributions,
to have a further opportunity to participate. Selected borderline papers from the first
deadline will be considered for and also allowed to resubmit to the second deadline.
Abstract registration is kindly requested in advance.

Abstract Registration: November 26, 2017
Paper Submission Deadline: December 1, 2017
Early Author Notification: December 20, 2017

Late Abstract Registration: January 10, 2018
Late Submission Deadline: January 14, 2018
Late Author Notification: January 30, 2018

Early registration deadline: TBA
Final Papers: TBA

WTSC: March 1-2, 2018
Financial Cryptography: February 26 - March 2, 2018

SUBMISSION

WTSC solicits submissions of manuscripts that represent significant and novel
research contributions. Submissions must not substantially overlap with works
that have been published or that are simultaneously submitted to a journal or a
conference with proceedings.

Submissions should follow the Springer Lecture Notes in Computer Science format
and should be no more than 15 pages including references and appendices. Papers
may also be in a short format, no more than 8 pages including references and appendices.

Accepted papers will appear in the proceedings published by Springer Lecture Notes
in Computer Science. Authors who seek to submit their works to journals may opt-out
by publishing an extended abstract only.

All submissions will be reviewed double-blind, and as such, must be anonymous,
with no author names, affiliations, acknowledgements, or obvious references.

PROGRAM CHAIRS

Andrea Bracciali University of Stirling, UK
Federico Pintore University of Trento, IT
Massimiliano Sala University of Trento, IT

PROGRAM COMMITTEE (To Be Completed)

Bob Atkey Strathclyde University, UK
Marcella Atzori IFIN, IT
Massimo Bartoletti University of Cagliari, IT
Devraj Basu Strathclyde University, UK
Alex Biryukov University of Luxembourg, LU
Daniel Broby Strathclyde University, UK
Bill Buchanan Napier University, UK
Martin Chapman King’s College London, UK
Tiziana Cimoli University of Cagliari, IT
Nicola Dimitri University of Siena, IT
Stuart Fraser Wallet.services, UK
Neil Ghani Strathclyde, UK
Davide Grossi Utrecht University, NL
Yoichi Hirai Ethereum DEV UG, DE
Ioannis Kounelis Joint Research Centre, European Commission
Loi Luu National University of Singapore, SG
Carsten Maple Warwick University, UK
Michele Marchesi University of Cagliari, IT
Peter McBurney King’s College London, UK
Neil McLaren Avaloq, UK
Philippe Meyer Avaloq, UK
Bud Mishra NYU, USA
Ilya Sergey UCL, UK
Thomas Sibut-Pinote INRIA, FR
Jason Teutsch TrueBit Establishment, LIE
Roberto Tonelli University of Cagliari, IT
Luca Vigano’ University of Verona, IT
Philip Wadler University of Edinburgh, UK
Angela Walch St. Mary's University, USA
Santiago Zanella-Beguelin Microsoft, UK