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The First ACM Workshop on Blockchain, Cryptocurrencies and Contracts (BCC’17)
April 2, 2017, Abu Dhabi, UAE
https://sites.google.com/view/bcc17/home

In Conjunction With
ACM AsiaCCS’17
April 2-6, 2017, Abu Dhabi, UAE

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Blockchain is a verifiable distributed ledger that can be used for a variety of applications like financial transactions, smart properties, credential management, internet-of-things, supply chain management and even decentralizied autonomous organizations (DAO). The popularity of Bitcoin has resulted in creation of alternate cryptocurrencies based on Blockchain technology. Smart contracts on blockchain is believed to be a disruptive technology. There has been a hype about blockchain technology, cryptocurrency and contracts and governments and industries have shown great interest in developing and deploying this technology. Is the hype justified? What can and cannot be done efficiently using blockchain? What applications can be put on blockchain? How to design a scalable, robust, secure blockchain? How vulnerable are current designs and how can they be mitigated? What are the cryptographic issues that need be addressed?

The workshop aims at finding answers to the above questions and much more. The workshop will bring researchers and practitioners to discuss current blockchain technology, underlying theoretical foundations, and applications. BCC'17 will discuss and analyze current cryptographic protocols underlying blockchains, and cryptocurrencies and propose new ways to design secure, robust, scalable blockchains. The workshop welcomes academia, government, industry, and contributing individuals to submit unpublished, original papers in theoretical and practical aspects of blockchain technologies, cryptocurrencies and smart contracts.

Possible topics of interest include, but are not limited to:

· Cryptographic protocols for blockchains

· Cryptocurrencies: Bitcoins and Altcoins

· Privacy and Anonymity for Cryptocurrencies

· Scaling issues of blockchains

· Applications of blockchain

· Permissioned and permissionless blockchain designs

· Consensus protocols

· Proof of work/ proof of stake

· Smart contracts

· Economics of cryptocurrencies

· Attacks on existing blockchain protocols and platforms

· Analytics, prediction of cryptocurrency markets

· Fraud in cryptocurrencies, contracts and blockchain

Workshop Organizers

Technical Program Co-Chairs

Satya Lokam, Microsoft Research, India
Kouichi Sakurai, Kyushu University, Japan
Sushmita Ruj, Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata, India


Important Dates

Submissions due: Jan 10, 2017
Author notification: Feb 15, 2017
Camera-ready due: Feb 25, 2017
Workshop date: April 2, 2017

Contribution Format:

Papers must be at most 10 pages including bibliography. Note that appendices cannot exceed 3 pages even if the main text is less than 12 pages. All submissions should be appropriately anonymized. Submissions must be in double-column ACMSIG Proceedings format with page numbers. Submissions must be in Portable Document Format (.pdf). Authors should devote special care that fonts, images, tables and figures comply with common standards and do not generate problems for reviewers. Systematization of Knowledge (SoK) papers (Maximum 12 pages), Short papers (Maximum 6 pages) and work-in-progress (Maximum 3 pages) will be considered.

Submissions to the workshop must not substantially overlap with papers that are published or simultaneously submitted to other venues (including journals or conferences/workshops). Double-submission will result in immediate rejection. At least one author of the paper must be registered at the appropriate full conference rate.

Submission link: https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=bcc17