The top student must be diligent.

Chapter 112: Building a blockchain?

Maynard also said quietly: "Professor Kleinlock, I feel like you are saying that my math is not good."

He didn't come up with the answer so quickly!
"No, no!" Kleinlock quickly waved his hands to explain.

Just kidding, he is really bad at math!
"Three professors, what are you talking about?" Xiao Yi, who was standing next to him, saw these three people starting to whisper to each other after he solved the problem, and couldn't help but ask.

"Ah, we are saying that your plan is perfect!"

"Yes Yes."

"That's right!"

The three of them responded quickly.
"Ahem, of course, the millionaire problem is just an introductory question for our ultimate goal. It is mainly to help you understand the logic of a multi-party security algorithm. Moreover, this millionaire problem is only a two-party security algorithm. We can also expand it to n people comparing wealth."

Kleinrock felt he had to save some face for the computer.

But Xiao Yi quickly replied: "If it is expanded to n people, it won't be a big problem. Just use the protocol I just mentioned to perform repeated comparisons and it will eventually be completed."

"Of course, considering the larger the n, repeated comparisons will become a bit troublesome, um..."

Then Xiao Yi started writing on the blackboard again.

Soon, he put the pen down again and clapped his hands, "Done."

"In the end, it's just a matter of Boolean functions. If you program them and input all these numbers, you can get the result for n people."

"Hmm... Although I haven't studied programming, it's probably just an if statement, right?"

Xiao Yi said this with a slightly outsider look.

Kleinrock finally gave up.

Terence Tao and Maynard nearby patted the old man on the shoulders.

"Why bother?" Tao shook his head.

He is not even 18 years old this year, you can't beat him.

"Okay, okay." Kleinlock accepted the reality.

After all, he is 85 years old, so he should let go.

“That’s pretty much the logic of multi-party secure computation.”

"I will now formally explain to you the goal of this project."

Kleinlock knocked on the blackboard, as if he was about to start a class.

“Blockchain facilitates secure and atomic transactions between mutually untrusting parties on that chain.”

“However, at present, although there are multiple blockchains with different interfaces and security properties, in this multi-blockchain world, there are always problems in actual operation due to the lack of cross-chain communication and universality in computing.”

“Current cross-chain communication bridges have a wide variety of low-level interfaces, which makes it difficult to develop portable applications, and current multi-chain atomic transaction methods are also limited to cryptocurrency exchanges.”

“So our goal is to develop a new protocol that can guarantee the atomicity of cross-chain transactions.”

“In this regard, I think LayerZero cross-chain bridge would be a good idea as a prototype…”

As Professor Kleinlock continued to talk, they gradually got to the core point.

Although Xiao Yi didn't understand computers, fortunately, his current ability to understand was far beyond that of ordinary people, so he roughly understood the final requirements.

Simply put, it is to come up with a protocol that can ensure secure multi-party communication and transactions across blockchains, and prove the security and feasibility of this protocol.

After all, there are so many banks and countries in the world. There is a lack of trust between different banks, and of course there is a lack of trust between different countries. Everyone is doing their own thing and establishing their own blockchain. Naturally, there are too many blockchains in the world.

According to Professor Kleinlock, the number of blockchains in the world may exceed 2023 by 1000.

Therefore, the World Bank, as a specialized agency under the United Nations, took the lead and hoped to develop a public protocol for such complex situations to facilitate secure information communication and transactions between individuals who do not trust each other.

It's like there are so many millionaires who want to compare their assets without revealing their secrets.

The multi-party security algorithm is for this purpose.

“This is a big project.”

After listening to Kleinrock's story, Terence Tao couldn't help but exclaim.

"Yes." Kleinrock nodded and said, "Of course, there are many project teams participating in this topic, such as MIT, Princeton, etc. There are also many people who contribute money. Those blockchain companies are very supportive of this research. After all, it is convenient for them."
"In short, that's it. With my reputation, I was able to apply for $20 in research funding. If our results are eventually selected, they will also pay us $1000 million."

"So I came here this time to ask Professor Tao if he is willing to join, but..."

Kleinlock looked at James Maynard and Xiao Yi, and said with a smile: "Professor Maynard, and Xiao Yi, do you want to join us?"

Upon hearing the amount of funding, Terence Tao, Xiao Yi and Maynard were all surprised.

Just by applying for a project, I was able to get $20 in funding.

Although it doesn't seem like much, it's not a small amount for their type of project. Professor Kleinrock is worthy of this. Even at such an old age, he can still raise 20 in funding. Not to mention that once completed, they can also get a reward of 1000 million US dollars. If the four of them share it equally, each of them will get 250 million.

Of course, the high prize money did not immediately fascinate them. After all, Professor Kleinlock also said that the prerequisite is that their plan can finally stand out from a large number of plans in order to get the final reward.

Winner takes all.

God knows if there are any more powerful competitors among them.

Xiao Yi and Maynard looked at each other, and the former said, "Well... I really don't have any foundation in computers, and I don't know much about blockchain technology. Besides, Professor Kleinlock, you should know that I won't stay here for long."

Maynard nodded. "Me too. After attending the academic conference held by AMS at the end of the month, I will be going back to Oxford."

Maynard was able to follow Tao mainly to attend the academic conference to be held by AMS.

This academic conference of AMS is also called the JMM Joint Mathematics Meeting. In addition to awarding various awards such as the Cole Algebra Medal, it will also hold a series of mathematics lectures.

Maynard has received an invitation and will make a report at this joint data conference.

Of course, Xiao Yi did not receive the invitation.

Who made Princeton move so quickly?

After hearing what the two said, Kleinrock smiled and waved his hands, saying, "Don't worry, for our topic, it doesn't matter where we do the research."

"The most important thing about this topic is the logical thinking of pure mathematics, so your mathematical thinking and the rigorous logic unique to you mathematicians are the key."

"Just like what Xiao Yi showed on the millionaire issue just now."

Under Kleinlock's persuasion, Xiao Yi and Maynard did not hesitate and agreed to join the project.

Of course, there is no need to say more about Terence Tao. After all, he and Kleinrock are from the same school, so it is easier for them to work together.

In this way, their topic was expanded to include the original x^2+1 prime number problem.

So they had one more project to plan.

The first day discussed the prime number x^2+1, and the second day discussed the protocol for cross-blockchain transactions.

Of course, this is not a discussion we have every day.

After all, there is no research group that holds group meetings every day.

……

A week passed quietly.

“Hmm… We need to come up with a countermeasure to the role of the sorting screen in cracking cross-blockchain encrypted transactions…”

In the student dormitory where Xiao Yi is temporarily staying.

Facing sheets of draft paper, he fell into deep thought.

Looking back on his research over the past few days, he finally figured out what blockchain is. At the same time, he also gained a deeper understanding of cryptography.

The core technology of blockchain is cryptography.

The core foundation of cryptography is mathematics, especially number theory.

The relationship between cryptography and number theory is very close. The simplest example is RSA encryption technology, which uses the difficulty of factoring large prime numbers to achieve encryption. This and the prime number problem that people like to study most in number theory are exactly taught by the same master.

For example, the famous Bitcoin is the world's first application of blockchain. The simplest understanding of Bitcoin mining is to use computers to continuously factorize extremely large numbers. As long as the result is calculated, Bitcoin can be obtained.

"If you think about it this way, if those miners use my sorting screen, will the mining speed be faster?"

Xiao Yi thought so in his heart.

To increase the speed of mining, we can either improve the performance of the hardware or optimize the algorithm.

As for Bitcoin, if the classification screen is used to optimize the algorithm, the mining speed will definitely be greatly improved.

“Maybe I can make money this way?”

He couldn't help but have this thought.

Just like those Bitcoin mining software, the software provides an algorithm, and then miners use the algorithm of the software to mine and pay a commission fee, which is generally 1% of the mining income. Mining software such as Bitminter charges in this way.

"Maybe I can give it a try, but the prerequisite is that I can write such software and come up with an algorithm. Of course, I should be able to directly build an HTML webpage, so there is no need to develop software or anything like that."

He can even build a blockchain himself. After all, this thing is decentralized, so he can just set up a small server and start working on it. So far, many people who are engaged in blockchain have made a lot of money, such as the Russian who developed Ethereum.

The only problem is that the blockchain he created needs to be widely recognized. It is definitely impossible to replicate the Bitcoin myth, after all, it is the first blockchain application.

To a certain extent, this is a kind of stock. The more trust investors have in this thing, the higher its price will be. For Bitcoin to be worth so much money, there must be a lot of international financial black hands behind it.

(End of this chapter)