The latest results of the Sui Academic Research Award are announced: renowned universities worldwide participated, and 17 projects received funding of $420,000.

Recently, the Sui Foundation announced the winners of the new round of the Sui Academic Research Award. This program aims to fund research that promotes the development of Web3, particularly advancements in blockchain networks, smart contract programming, and technologies related to products built on Sui.

In the past two phases, a total of 17 proposals from internationally renowned universities have been approved, with a total funding amount reaching $425,000. Participating universities include the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, University College London, École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, and the National University of Singapore.

Overview of Winning Proposals

A Study on the Diversity of Voting Communities in Decentralized Autonomous Organizations ( DAOs )

Professor Ari Juels from Cornell University will explore the nature of decentralized organizations and establish metrics to measure the degree of decentralization. The study aims to identify practical methods that can enhance decentralization within organizations.

Adaptive Secure Asynchronous DAG Protocol Consensus

Dr. Philipp Jovanovic from University College London proposed the development of an asynchronous DAG protocol to enhance attack resistance and adapt to changing adversaries. The protocol aims to provide better security and adaptability while maintaining a performance level close to that of partially synchronous adversaries.

Large Language Model Assisted Sui Smart Contract Audit

The Arthur Gervais team at University College London plans to improve Move smart contract auditing using large language models such as GPT-4-32k and Claude-v2-100k. This project will build on previous experience analyzing 52 Solidity DeFi smart contracts and extend to the security assessment of Sui smart contracts.

A comprehensive review of the consensus protocol domain ###

Professor Christopher Cachin from the University of Bern will conduct a comprehensive investigation of the current consensus field, providing new insights into cryptographic consensus protocols. The research findings will help to better understand existing algorithms and provide new ideas for designing distributed protocols.

High-Trust Verification Framework for Decentralized Oracle Protocols

Giselle Reis from Carnegie Mellon University and Bruno Woltzenlogel Paleo from Djed Alliance will create a framework to rigorously analyze and verify blockchain oracles through formal methods. The project will utilize the Coq proof management system to develop a comprehensive library of definitions and proof strategies.

Identify the scalability bottlenecks of blockchain

Professor Roger Wattenhofer from ETH Zurich will focus on identifying bottlenecks arising from design flaws in smart contracts to enhance the parallelization potential of blockchain applications. The research will also explore the impact of adjusting transaction fees on parallelization potential.

Mechanical Verification of Bullshark Protocol

Professor Ilya Sergey from the National University of Singapore plans to use modern computer-aided verification tools to formally verify the properties of Bullshark, advancing the understanding of consensus protocols based on directed acyclic graphs.

Blockchain Benchmarking Standard Framework ( BBSF )

Professor Henry F. Korth of Lehigh University proposed the creation of a benchmark standardized format for fairly comparing the performance of L1 blockchains and L2 scaling solutions. The project aims to provide transparent insights into chain performance for users and developers.

Build a scalable and decentralized shared sequencing layer

Professor Min Suk Kang from the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology will explore the possibility of using Bullshark/Mysticeti as a shared sorter algorithm, studying how to run multiple Rollups that use Sui as the sorting layer.

Local fee market optimization congestion pricing

Professor Abdoulaye Ndiaye from New York University will study the local cost market to optimize congestion pricing and establish an effective pricing mechanism that reflects congestion status for optimal resource allocation.

These research projects cover multiple key areas of blockchain technology, from consensus mechanisms to smart contract security, from oracles to decentralized finance. Their results are expected to bring significant breakthroughs and innovations to the Sui ecosystem and the entire blockchain industry.