7 ms·

Ledger – the first peer-reviewed journal on blockchains and cryptocurrencies

179 points by aspenmayer 5y ago

aspenmayer 5y ago
Current issue (2021) https://ledger.pitt.edu/ojs/ledger/issue/view/7 https://ledger.pitt.edu/ojs/ledger/issue/view/7 Seems to be published annually, so we’re due for another issue any day now! > Ledger was launched in 2015 to address the growing need for a traditional academic journal dedicated to cryptocurrency research. Ledger aims to encourage greater involvement by academics in cryptocurrency and foster a culture of rigorous analysis and peer-review within the Bitcoin community. It also aims to spur the aggregation and filtering of important content generated across relevant communication channels. The journal strives to serve both the general public and the Bitcoin research community through the dissemination of high-quality and timely scholarly content. Ledger is published in an open-access format by the University of Pittsburgh. Interview with co-founder Christopher Wilmer (2018) https://www.geekwire.com/2018/qa-inside-story-ledger-academic-journal-blockchain-cryptocurrency-research/ https://www.geekwire.com/2018/qa-inside-story-ledger-academi... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ledger_(journal) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ledger_(journal)
Uptrenda 5y ago
Everyone in the blockchain space self-publishes all relevant material hence a journal like this is completely pointless. It also slows down the rate of publishing by requiring ridiculously tedious formatting requirements all so a self-elected panel of experts can deem if a piece of content is worthwhile. Of course, to get through this process we end up with a 'paper' with no runnable code, and its considered a good academic result even if no users ever benefit from it. Waste of time, just a circle jerk for status. Also didn't even mention the most important part: that major contributions to the blockchain space have notably come from outsiders. No thanks to these 'academic' 'experts.'
- Aissen 5y ago
  Self publishing has value, and its value is not reduced by peer review publications. No one sets to lose anything from this, except maybe dishonest people.
- bawolff 5y ago
  Blockchain stuff is also pretty famous for fraudsters writing technical gobbley-gook in order to hoodwink investors,so its not like the current system is without issue.
  - q-big 5y ago
    > Blockchain stuff is also pretty famous for fraudsters writing technical gobbley-gook in order to hoodwink investors Caveat emptor [1] in particular holds for investors who invest huge sums of money. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caveat_emptor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caveat_emptor
    - ludamad 5y ago
      I was sure that your footnote would be some link about the increasing danger of being say 90% of a liquidity pool, made me chuckle when I realized it was just defining the term
- nefitty 5y ago
  Of course the crypto space is allergic to accountability mechanisms.
- ramraj07 5y ago
  Lol do you even know what the concept of peer review means? Not a big fan of what it’s current iteration is in academia but it has its place.
  - hnbad 5y ago
    Peer reviews will just nitpick and point out that the tech solves none of the alleged problems and instead adds a whole nother layer of problems on top of them and is mostly used for pump and dump schemes and money laundering. Totally pointless. We should just mint all the research papers as NFTs and use smart contracts to vet them.
    - ModernMech 5y ago
      Shouldn't those issues be addressed head-on for the field to flourish though? It seems to me that if peer reviewers in the field hold this perception, many more outside of the fields do as well. If a paper makes a claim that a technology solves a problem, and then fails to support that claim to a sufficient degree such that it cannot pass peer review, that sounds like way more than a nitpick.
    - tantalor 5y ago
      Not sure if this comment is brilliant satire or serious.
      - hnbad 5y ago
        Doesn't that in itself say more about the crypto tech space than I could ever have tried to spell out?
- anyfactor 5y ago
  I don't know. I would find it to be useful if I am doing research based investing in Crypto. I have skimmed through two papers- the intraday behavior one and the abnormal return one. I enjoyed some of the insights as a layperson. Those methodology can be applied to other coins that are not bitcoin or other investable assets. Also these papers have aggregated a pretty good collection of other papers in their citations. So all in all, I see value in this journal.
- ShamelessC 5y ago
  > Everyone in the blockchain space self-publishes all relevant material hence a journal like this is completely pointless. Hopefully one can do both, as is standard practice for lots of institutions these days. > It also slows down the rate of publishing by requiring ridiculously tedious formatting requirements all so a self-elected panel of experts can deem if a piece of content is worthwhile. One can self-publish simultaneously and continuously post revised editions as review is received. This is pretty ubiquitous. > Of course, to get through this process we end up with a 'paper' with no runnable code. This is entirely voluntary. The most frequent offenders when it comes to not uploading code are companies who think they're giving up IP by publishing research code. Institutions (and companies, lately) frequently cite github.com url's in papers in the machine learning space. I see no reason why they couldn't with a journal submission.
- ModernMech 5y ago
  Historically it's been shown that academia can be a very successful incubator of nascent technologies, ones that often bloom into billion dollar industries. From the internet to robotics to medicine, it's been shown time and again that academia is effective in this regard. If you like blockchain technology, you should want academics focused on this work; they have access to millions of dollars in government grants just waiting to be applied to this area. Academics need legitimate venues to publish peer reviewed-research (because that's how they convince the government to give them millions of dollars in grants. You don't get grants by self-publishing).
- alexvoda 5y ago
  I do agree that structuring this as a print journal is pointless and a relic if a past era. This should be something implemented using something like science-octopus.org or osf.io
samoshay 5y ago
Peer review seems counter to the ethos of blockchain/crypto... no gatekeepers no longer.
- 58x14 5y ago
  Hmm... isn't consensus the inherent ethos of blockchain?
  - Closi 5y ago
    Yeah, but the consensus shouldn’t be held by experts, it should be held by whoever is willing to spend the most money on eth gas fees.
    - capableweb 5y ago
      Not sure you meant in jest (if so, ignore me) or just displaying your misunderstanding on how "Consensus" works in computer science and more specifically in blockchains. Here is a starting point if so: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consensus_(computer_science) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consensus_(computer_science) The short answer is that Ethereum gas fees have nothing to do with consensus in the blockchain Ethereum maintains.
      - Closi 5y ago
        It was satire and take your point on gas fees (I thought eth gas fees sounded funnier than ownership of hash compute share), but the general point is that consensus in blockchains is really controlled by the richest participants (i.e. who can own and run the largest mining rigs and have the highest hash rate) rather than consensus being equal across all participants or held by experts. The power of your consensus 'vote' is proportional to how rich you are (i.e. how much mine power you have), rather than one-person-one-vote.
        capableweb 5y ago
        > consensus in blockchains is really controlled by the richest participants I think that remains to be seen. Bitcoin miners have tried to show their "control" over the network by forking the chain (see Bitcoin Cash and other forks) while Bitcoin mainline remained the leader. Ethereum is moving towards PoS even though current miners obviously don't want that. If successful, I think Ethereum will prove the opposite, the network is indeed controlled by it's participants and experts/developers, and not by the miners.
58x14 5y ago
From the abstract of an article in vol. 6 (most recent): > We show that, contrary to the usual implications of network effects, they do not serve to concentrate the cryptocurrency market, nor do they accord any one cryptocurrency a definitive competitive advantage, nor are they consistent enough to be reliable valuation tools. Therefore, while network effects do occur in cryptocurrency networks, they are not (yet) a defining feature of the cryptocurrency market as a whole. In the paper: > we acknowledge that addresses with non-zero balance still do not reflect a one-to-one mapping between addresses and actual users. Not only can a single user have multiple addresses, but also a single address can represent multiple users So, I can understand their arguments and their research, but it feels fundamentally flawed, because it's impossible to quantify the number of users of a blockchain. Am I wrong here? 4 of the 7 articles in vol. 6 are particularly about price activity, not underlying technology. I wonder why. I hope to see more peer-reviewed articles covering protocol-level advances, or perhaps more socioeconomic topics. Maybe that's too fuzzy for Ledger's editors?
- ekanes 5y ago
  > > We show that, contrary to the usual implications of network effects, they do not serve to concentrate the cryptocurrency market, nor do they accord any one cryptocurrency a definitive competitive advantage, nor are they consistent enough to be reliable valuation tools. Therefore, while network effects do occur in cryptocurrency networks, they are not (yet) a defining feature of the cryptocurrency market as a whole. Interesting. If there are ways to quickly/cheaply "bridge" between blockchains, presumably the entire space will benefit as one from increasing network effects.
- ShamelessC 5y ago
  Haven't taken the time to read that quote in context. It seems like they're making statements based on the possible nature of the network, not on the current specific distribution of users, no?
jagger27 5y ago
I didn’t see a single disclosure of any of the authors’ personal holdings of the discussed coins, though maybe I missed it. The tone and topics seem neutral and levelheaded, in fairness. I think it is just as important as a disclosing who sponsored your research and being transparent about any potential conflicts of interest. The listed Bitcoin wallet address of “Peter R. Rizun, Co-Managing Editor” (1BWZe6XkGLcf6DWC3TFXiEtZmcyAoNq5BW) has some pretty juicy trade volume. There’s no way to tell if that’s all there is to see, of course. Framed another way, would it be expected for a shareholder of a company writing a paper about that company (or its direct competitors) to disclose their stake and relationships?
- say_it_as_it_is 5y ago
  - robbedpeter 5y ago
    A glowing, peer reviewed paper could easily pump a currency. Disclosure imposes accountability and context. For example, if ten currencies are investigated and each time the researchers bet in the direction of their paper, they're engaged in manipulation and their work is biased. Disclosure should be a no brainer in this context.
  - capableweb 5y ago
    There is an obvious conflict-of-interest if I hold Bitcoins and then start a journal that is supposed to write objectively about Bitcoin, as my worth-in-USD depends on the value of Bitcoin. If Bitcoin goes up in price, I benefit, hence I might avoid writing about certain things that could make the price go down.
  - jagger27 5y ago
    This isn't a serious question, is it? Can you prove that someone with a vested interest in a particular asset would write 100% objectively and not lean towards a more positive result in the paper? No, of course you can't prove that. The least an author can do is put their cards on the table.
jl6 5y ago
I hope their method of peer review allows anyone to be a reviewer and then the article gets published as long as >50% of the reviewers agree it is valid.
- jimmydorry 5y ago
  That wouldn't be in the spirit of all things blockchain. What would stop a sybil-style attack of one bad actor reviewing a given article thousands of times?
  - notahacker 5y ago
    > What would stop a sybil-style attack of one bad actor reviewing a given article thousands of times? We could make it an energy consumption competition? Consume the energy output of a small town for a year and the authors can trust that adding that comma into the opening sentence is the correct editorial decision to make
    - newswasboring 5y ago
      Seriously cannot tell if you are joking or not. That in itself is scary.
- ShamelessC 5y ago
  Seems authors suggest three reviewers. from the website: [...] suggests three potential reviewers. Reviewers should be: Experts in the subject matter, Disinterested (i.e. not collaborators or personal friends). You do not need to know the reviewers beforehand, and a good starting point for finding reviewers are the authors of the related work you cite in your paper.
keyle 5y ago
Peer reviewed, as in... proof of stake?
- capableweb 5y ago
  No, you seem to be mixing things. To clear things up: Proof of Stake: > class of consensus mechanisms https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proof_of_stake https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proof_of_stake - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consensus_(computer_science) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consensus_(computer_science) Peer review: > evaluation of work by one or more people with similar competencies as the producers of the work https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peer_review https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peer_review - https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/peer https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/peer Peer Review doesn't require people to have any stake in the outcome they propose, while in PoS they (obviously) do, as the protocol is based around the idea of stakes (surprise!).
  - keyle 5y ago
    Apologies, I was being sarcastic and I forgot the `/s`.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
m3kw9 5y ago
I smell of big conflict of interests.
mudlus 5y ago
Peer review is a waste of time, it becomes gatekeepers. Even Einstein got in a huge argument with a journal that went over his head because of this kind of gatekeeping. The best ideas can't be bought with money or PhDs. Bitcoin itself is a great example of this. But so is: geocentricism, relativity, quantum multiverse, etc etc.

179 points by aspenmayer 5y ago

Current issue (2021) https://ledger.pitt.edu/ojs/ledger/issue/view/7 https://ledger.pitt.edu/ojs/ledger/issue/view/7 Seems to be published annually, so we’re due for another issue any day now! > Ledger was launched in 2015 to address the growing need for a traditional academic journal dedicated to cryptocurrency research. Ledger aims to encourage greater involvement by academics in cryptocurrency and foster a culture of rigorous analysis and peer-review within the Bitcoin community. It also aims to spur the aggregation and filtering of important content generated across relevant communication channels. The journal strives to serve both the general public and the Bitcoin research community through the dissemination of high-quality and timely scholarly content. Ledger is published in an open-access format by the University of Pittsburgh. Interview with co-founder Christopher Wilmer (2018) https://www.geekwire.com/2018/qa-inside-story-ledger-academic-journal-blockchain-cryptocurrency-research/ https://www.geekwire.com/2018/qa-inside-story-ledger-academi... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ledger_(journal) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ledger_(journal)

Uptrenda 5y ago

Everyone in the blockchain space self-publishes all relevant material hence a journal like this is completely pointless. It also slows down the rate of publishing by requiring ridiculously tedious formatting requirements all so a self-elected panel of experts can deem if a piece of content is worthwhile. Of course, to get through this process we end up with a 'paper' with no runnable code, and its considered a good academic result even if no users ever benefit from it. Waste of time, just a circle jerk for status. Also didn't even mention the most important part: that major contributions to the blockchain space have notably come from outsiders. No thanks to these 'academic' 'experts.'

Aissen 5y ago
Self publishing has value, and its value is not reduced by peer review publications. No one sets to lose anything from this, except maybe dishonest people.
bawolff 5y ago
Blockchain stuff is also pretty famous for fraudsters writing technical gobbley-gook in order to hoodwink investors,so its not like the current system is without issue.
- q-big 5y ago
  > Blockchain stuff is also pretty famous for fraudsters writing technical gobbley-gook in order to hoodwink investors Caveat emptor [1] in particular holds for investors who invest huge sums of money. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caveat_emptor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caveat_emptor
  - ludamad 5y ago
    I was sure that your footnote would be some link about the increasing danger of being say 90% of a liquidity pool, made me chuckle when I realized it was just defining the term
nefitty 5y ago
Of course the crypto space is allergic to accountability mechanisms.
ramraj07 5y ago
Lol do you even know what the concept of peer review means? Not a big fan of what it’s current iteration is in academia but it has its place.
- hnbad 5y ago
  Peer reviews will just nitpick and point out that the tech solves none of the alleged problems and instead adds a whole nother layer of problems on top of them and is mostly used for pump and dump schemes and money laundering. Totally pointless. We should just mint all the research papers as NFTs and use smart contracts to vet them.
  - ModernMech 5y ago
    Shouldn't those issues be addressed head-on for the field to flourish though? It seems to me that if peer reviewers in the field hold this perception, many more outside of the fields do as well. If a paper makes a claim that a technology solves a problem, and then fails to support that claim to a sufficient degree such that it cannot pass peer review, that sounds like way more than a nitpick.
  - tantalor 5y ago
    Not sure if this comment is brilliant satire or serious.
    - hnbad 5y ago
      Doesn't that in itself say more about the crypto tech space than I could ever have tried to spell out?
anyfactor 5y ago
I don't know. I would find it to be useful if I am doing research based investing in Crypto. I have skimmed through two papers- the intraday behavior one and the abnormal return one. I enjoyed some of the insights as a layperson. Those methodology can be applied to other coins that are not bitcoin or other investable assets. Also these papers have aggregated a pretty good collection of other papers in their citations. So all in all, I see value in this journal.
ShamelessC 5y ago
> Everyone in the blockchain space self-publishes all relevant material hence a journal like this is completely pointless. Hopefully one can do both, as is standard practice for lots of institutions these days. > It also slows down the rate of publishing by requiring ridiculously tedious formatting requirements all so a self-elected panel of experts can deem if a piece of content is worthwhile. One can self-publish simultaneously and continuously post revised editions as review is received. This is pretty ubiquitous. > Of course, to get through this process we end up with a 'paper' with no runnable code. This is entirely voluntary. The most frequent offenders when it comes to not uploading code are companies who think they're giving up IP by publishing research code. Institutions (and companies, lately) frequently cite github.com url's in papers in the machine learning space. I see no reason why they couldn't with a journal submission.
ModernMech 5y ago
Historically it's been shown that academia can be a very successful incubator of nascent technologies, ones that often bloom into billion dollar industries. From the internet to robotics to medicine, it's been shown time and again that academia is effective in this regard. If you like blockchain technology, you should want academics focused on this work; they have access to millions of dollars in government grants just waiting to be applied to this area. Academics need legitimate venues to publish peer reviewed-research (because that's how they convince the government to give them millions of dollars in grants. You don't get grants by self-publishing).
alexvoda 5y ago
I do agree that structuring this as a print journal is pointless and a relic if a past era. This should be something implemented using something like science-octopus.org or osf.io

samoshay 5y ago

Peer review seems counter to the ethos of blockchain/crypto... no gatekeepers no longer.

58x14 5y ago
Hmm... isn't consensus the inherent ethos of blockchain?
- Closi 5y ago
  Yeah, but the consensus shouldn’t be held by experts, it should be held by whoever is willing to spend the most money on eth gas fees.
  - capableweb 5y ago
    Not sure you meant in jest (if so, ignore me) or just displaying your misunderstanding on how "Consensus" works in computer science and more specifically in blockchains. Here is a starting point if so: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consensus_(computer_science) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consensus_(computer_science) The short answer is that Ethereum gas fees have nothing to do with consensus in the blockchain Ethereum maintains.
    - Closi 5y ago
      It was satire and take your point on gas fees (I thought eth gas fees sounded funnier than ownership of hash compute share), but the general point is that consensus in blockchains is really controlled by the richest participants (i.e. who can own and run the largest mining rigs and have the highest hash rate) rather than consensus being equal across all participants or held by experts. The power of your consensus 'vote' is proportional to how rich you are (i.e. how much mine power you have), rather than one-person-one-vote.
      - capableweb 5y ago
        > consensus in blockchains is really controlled by the richest participants I think that remains to be seen. Bitcoin miners have tried to show their "control" over the network by forking the chain (see Bitcoin Cash and other forks) while Bitcoin mainline remained the leader. Ethereum is moving towards PoS even though current miners obviously don't want that. If successful, I think Ethereum will prove the opposite, the network is indeed controlled by it's participants and experts/developers, and not by the miners.

58x14 5y ago

From the abstract of an article in vol. 6 (most recent): > We show that, contrary to the usual implications of network effects, they do not serve to concentrate the cryptocurrency market, nor do they accord any one cryptocurrency a definitive competitive advantage, nor are they consistent enough to be reliable valuation tools. Therefore, while network effects do occur in cryptocurrency networks, they are not (yet) a defining feature of the cryptocurrency market as a whole. In the paper: > we acknowledge that addresses with non-zero balance still do not reflect a one-to-one mapping between addresses and actual users. Not only can a single user have multiple addresses, but also a single address can represent multiple users So, I can understand their arguments and their research, but it feels fundamentally flawed, because it's impossible to quantify the number of users of a blockchain. Am I wrong here? 4 of the 7 articles in vol. 6 are particularly about price activity, not underlying technology. I wonder why. I hope to see more peer-reviewed articles covering protocol-level advances, or perhaps more socioeconomic topics. Maybe that's too fuzzy for Ledger's editors?

ekanes 5y ago
> > We show that, contrary to the usual implications of network effects, they do not serve to concentrate the cryptocurrency market, nor do they accord any one cryptocurrency a definitive competitive advantage, nor are they consistent enough to be reliable valuation tools. Therefore, while network effects do occur in cryptocurrency networks, they are not (yet) a defining feature of the cryptocurrency market as a whole. Interesting. If there are ways to quickly/cheaply "bridge" between blockchains, presumably the entire space will benefit as one from increasing network effects.
ShamelessC 5y ago
Haven't taken the time to read that quote in context. It seems like they're making statements based on the possible nature of the network, not on the current specific distribution of users, no?

jagger27 5y ago

I didn’t see a single disclosure of any of the authors’ personal holdings of the discussed coins, though maybe I missed it. The tone and topics seem neutral and levelheaded, in fairness. I think it is just as important as a disclosing who sponsored your research and being transparent about any potential conflicts of interest. The listed Bitcoin wallet address of “Peter R. Rizun, Co-Managing Editor” (1BWZe6XkGLcf6DWC3TFXiEtZmcyAoNq5BW) has some pretty juicy trade volume. There’s no way to tell if that’s all there is to see, of course. Framed another way, would it be expected for a shareholder of a company writing a paper about that company (or its direct competitors) to disclose their stake and relationships?

say_it_as_it_is 5y ago
- robbedpeter 5y ago
  A glowing, peer reviewed paper could easily pump a currency. Disclosure imposes accountability and context. For example, if ten currencies are investigated and each time the researchers bet in the direction of their paper, they're engaged in manipulation and their work is biased. Disclosure should be a no brainer in this context.
- capableweb 5y ago
  There is an obvious conflict-of-interest if I hold Bitcoins and then start a journal that is supposed to write objectively about Bitcoin, as my worth-in-USD depends on the value of Bitcoin. If Bitcoin goes up in price, I benefit, hence I might avoid writing about certain things that could make the price go down.
- jagger27 5y ago
  This isn't a serious question, is it? Can you prove that someone with a vested interest in a particular asset would write 100% objectively and not lean towards a more positive result in the paper? No, of course you can't prove that. The least an author can do is put their cards on the table.

jl6 5y ago

I hope their method of peer review allows anyone to be a reviewer and then the article gets published as long as >50% of the reviewers agree it is valid.

jimmydorry 5y ago
That wouldn't be in the spirit of all things blockchain. What would stop a sybil-style attack of one bad actor reviewing a given article thousands of times?
- notahacker 5y ago
  > What would stop a sybil-style attack of one bad actor reviewing a given article thousands of times? We could make it an energy consumption competition? Consume the energy output of a small town for a year and the authors can trust that adding that comma into the opening sentence is the correct editorial decision to make
  - newswasboring 5y ago
    Seriously cannot tell if you are joking or not. That in itself is scary.
ShamelessC 5y ago
Seems authors suggest three reviewers. from the website: [...] suggests three potential reviewers. Reviewers should be: Experts in the subject matter, Disinterested (i.e. not collaborators or personal friends). You do not need to know the reviewers beforehand, and a good starting point for finding reviewers are the authors of the related work you cite in your paper.

keyle 5y ago

Peer reviewed, as in... proof of stake?

capableweb 5y ago
No, you seem to be mixing things. To clear things up: Proof of Stake: > class of consensus mechanisms https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proof_of_stake https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proof_of_stake - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consensus_(computer_science) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consensus_(computer_science) Peer review: > evaluation of work by one or more people with similar competencies as the producers of the work https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peer_review https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peer_review - https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/peer https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/peer Peer Review doesn't require people to have any stake in the outcome they propose, while in PoS they (obviously) do, as the protocol is based around the idea of stakes (surprise!).
- keyle 5y ago
  Apologies, I was being sarcastic and I forgot the `/s`.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

m3kw9 5y ago

I smell of big conflict of interests.

mudlus 5y ago

Peer review is a waste of time, it becomes gatekeepers. Even Einstein got in a huge argument with a journal that went over his head because of this kind of gatekeeping. The best ideas can't be bought with money or PhDs. Bitcoin itself is a great example of this. But so is: geocentricism, relativity, quantum multiverse, etc etc.