We study the design of self-enforcing mechanisms that rely on neither a trusted third party (e.g., court, trusted mechanism designer) nor a long-term relationship. Instead, we use a smart contract written on blockchains as a commitment device. We design the digital court, a smart contract that...

Mining application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) is an essential facility for mining in Proof-of-Work (PoW) based blockchain systems. This paper regards ASIC as a financial asset and proposes a theoretical estimate of the pricing of ASIC. We show that the payouts from ASIC can be replicated...