[TYPES/announce] 1st Workshop on Formal Methods for Blockchains (FMBC) 2019 - First Call

[Néstor Cataño Collazos]

1st Workshop on Formal Methods for Blockchains (FMBC) 2019

https://sites.google.com/view/fmbc/home

Porto, Portugal, October 11

Part of the 3rd World Congress on Formal Methods 

http://formalmethods2019.inesctec.pt/ 

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IMPORTANT DATES
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Abstract submission: June 23, 2019
Full paper submission: June 30, 2019
Notification: July 31, 2019
Camera-ready: September 2, 2019
Conference: October 11, 2019
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TOPICS OF INTEREST
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Blockchains are decentralized transactional ledgers that rely on
cryptographic hash functions for guaranteeing the integrity of the
stored data. Participants on the network reach agreement on what valid
transactions are through consensus algorithms.

Blockchains may also provide support for Smart Contracts. Smart
Contracts are scripts of an ad-hoc programming language that are
stored in the blockchain and that run on the network. They can
interact with the ledger’s data and update its state. These scripts
can express the logic of possibly complex contracts between users of
the blockchain. Thus, Smart Contracts can facilitate the economic
activity of blockchain participants.

With the emergence and increasing popularity of cryptocurrencies such
as Bitcoin and Ethereum, it is now of utmost importance to have strong
guarantees of the behavior of blockchain so ware. These guarantees
can be brought by using Formal Methods. Indeed, Blockchain software
encompasses many topics of computer science where using Formal Methods
techniques and tools are relevant: consensus algorithms to ensure the
liveness and the security of the data on the chain, programming
languages specifically designed to write smart contracts,
cryptographic protocols, such as zero-knowledge proofs, used to ensure
privacy, etc.

This workshop is a forum to identify theoretical and practical
approaches of formal methods for blockchain technology. Topics
include, but are not limited to:

* Design and implementation of Smar Contract languages
* Formal models of blockchain applications or concepts
* Formal methods for consensus protocols
* Formal methods for blockchain-specific cryptographic primitives or
  protocols Formal languages for Smart
* Verification of Smart Contracts
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SUBMISSION
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Submit original manuscripts (not published or considered elsewhere)
with a maximum of twelve pages (regular papers), six pages (short
papers), and two pages (extended abstract) describing new and emerging
ideas or summarizing existing work). Each paper should include a title
and the name and affiliation of each author. Authors of selected
extended-abstracts are invited to give a short lightning talk of up to
15 minutes.

At least one author of an accepted paper is expected to present the
paper at the workshop as a registered participant. All accepted
contributions will be reviewed once more by the program committee
after the workshop and before being included in the post-proceedings.

submission link https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=fmbc19
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PROCEEDINGS
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All submissions will be peer-reviewed by at least three members of the
program committee for quality and relevance. Accepted regular papers
(full and short papers) will be included in the FM workshop
post-proceedings, published as a volume of the Lecture Notes in
Computer Science (LNCS) by Springer.
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INVITED SPEAKER
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Ilya Sergey - Tenure-track Associate Professor at Yale-NUS College
(Singapore), holding a joint appointment with NUS School of Computing.
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PROGRAM committee
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Program Chairs
Néstor Cataño (nestor.catano at gmail.com)
Diego Marmsoler (diego.marmsoler at tum.de)
Bruno Bernardo (bruno at nomadic-labs.com)

Program Committee
Bruno Bernardo (Nomadic Labs, France)
Néstor Cataño (Universidad del Norte, Colombia)
Diego Marmsoler (Technische Universitat Munchen, Germany)
Simão Melo de Sousa (Universidade da Beira Interior, Portugal)
Pietro Abate (Nomadic Labs, France)
Anastasia Mavridou (NASA Ames, USA)
Peter Csaba Ölveczky (University of Oslo, Norway)
Xi Wu (The University of Queensland, Australia)
Bernhard Beckert (Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Germany)
Mark Staples (Data61, Australia)
Sukriti Bhattacharya (LIST, Luxembourg) 
Camilo Rueda (Pontificia Universidad Javeriana, Colombia)
Jorge Sousa Pinto (Universidade do Minho, Portugal)
Ijaz Ahmed (University of Lahore, Pakistan)
Sorren Hanvey (LERO, Ireland)
Steve Reeves (University of Waikato, New Zealand)
Andreas Lochbihler (Digital Asset, Swiss)
Jonathan Aldrich (Carnegie Mellon University, USA)
Davide Grossi (University of Groningen, Netherlands)
Wolfgang Ahrendt (Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden)
Fabio Mogavero (Università degli Studi di Napoli, Italy)
Christoph Sprenger (ETH, Zürich)
Georges Gonthier (Inria, France)
Bas Spitters (Aarhus University, Denmark)
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For any inquiries contact
Néstor Cataño - nestor.catano at gmail.com