====
News
====
**01.07.21**:
Jonas published a blog post about `Nominating and Validator Selection on Polkadot `_ where he stressing the importance of building and maintaining a trusting relationship between nominators and their validators and shows how various economic and socio-economic aspects can guide that process.
**21.06.21**:
Handan will present her paper `Coin-based Multi-party Fair Exchange `_ on `ACNS 2021 `_
**15.05.21**:
Alistair and Samuel finished a `working paper `_ on front-running in the candle auction, showing that with many rounds the format essentially turns into a second-price auction.
**29.01.21**:
Fatemeh shared her thoughts on "Interoperability - Where are we now and what can we expect for 2021" in an online-presentation at the Bitcoin Suisse Crypto Outlook 2021. Additionally, she features an article in the corresponding `research report `_.
**16.01.21**:
The Web3 Foundation successfully hosted the `Workshop on Real-World Decentralized Cryptography `_ with presentations of leading experts in topics such as distributed key generation, threshold cryptography, and multiparty computation.
**10.11.20**:
Is slashing a good idea? Alistair `talks `_ about slashing and how to apply it to scaling in proof of stake at the DISC 2020 workshop on "Blockchain Interoperability and Sharding".
**23.09.20**:
Register today for `DISC 2020 `_ (October 12-16, 2020)! W3F will host a `Workshop on Blockchain Interoperability and Sharding `_. Participation is free and the conference is held online.
**27.08.20**:
Fatemeh has been program committee member of USENIX Security 2021.
**21.08.20**:
After the first `democratic vote `__ in Polkadot the community decided that the “DOT” token will undergo a redenomination (1 DOT will now hold 1e10 plancks, instead of 1e12). More information can be found `here `_.
**18.08.20-20.08.20**:
W3F researchers and some Parity Technology developers joined together for a 2 day workshop in Berlin discussing implementations details of Polkadot components such as the AnV and XCMP protocols.
**18.08.20**:
Token transferrability in Polkadot was enabled at block number 1,205,128.
**10.08.20**:
Alistair has developed a design for ultralight clients that can be used for Ethereum bridges.
**01.08.20**:
Oana joined the research team and will be working on security and privacy projects, with a focus on (ZK)snarks.
**31.07.20**:
Our proposal to organize a workshop on Sharding and Interoperability at `DISC 2020 `__ got accepted.
**22.07.20**:
Alfonso gave a talk on “Incentive Schemes and Blockchain Security” in CAS summer school organised by University of Zurich.
**20.07.20**
The sudo module was removed by council motion and Polkadot officially becomes a self-governed and permissionless blockchain!
**02.07.20**:
Alistair gave a `talk `__ in CV labs on shared security.
**01.07.20**:
:doc:`Jonas ` has started an internship research position to apply insights from behavioral economics and to analyze the human interaction with the protocol.
**28.06.20**:
Alistair has designed a succinct GRANDPA protocol.
**23.06.20**:
Alfonso and Alistair came up with an efficient algorithm to test the quality of solutions that can be submitted for a validator-nominatior setup on chain.
**15.06.20**:
Jeff got invited to be on the program committee of the Financial Cryptography 2021 conference.
**09.06.20**:
Alistair has designed a succinct GRANDPA protocol.
**01.06.20**:
Samuel has started a part-time researcher position to analyze the theoretical properties of the auctions, which will be used to allocate parachain slots.
**26.05.20**:
After many years of hard work, the initial version of Polkadot has finally `launched `__ today! During this phase, we retain superuser control of the network via a “sudo module”, which can be used easily deploy runtime upgrades containing fixes.
**15.05.20**:
Aleixo will start his Master thesis at W3F desiging a private interoperability protocol between Polkadot and zCash.
**09.05.20**:
Fatemeh is giving guest lecture on Interoperability at CAS courses organised by University of Applied Science of Zurich (ZHAW).
**06.05.20**:
Al will give a talk at Layer One online conference titled “Polkadot’s cross-chain Messaging Protocol”.
**04.05.20**:
Jeff gave a talk at Layer One online conference titled “Availability & Validity on Polkadot”.
**02.05.20**:
The first version of the `Polkadot Overview paper `__ is ready. Have a look!
**27.04.20**:
Alfonso and Alistair prepared the first draft of the `NPoS paper `__. Have a look!
**27.03.20**:
Fatemeh is programm committee member of IWPE 2020.
**05.03.20**:
The interlay (http://interlay.io) project has been comissioned by Web3 Foundation to work on Bitcoin-Polkadot bridge specification.
**19-20.02.20**:
Alistair is going to attend the Standford Blockchain Conference 2020 and a co-located `Polkadot meetup `__ organized by Web3 Foundation.
**10.02.20**
Handan and Jeff attended Financial Crypto 2020 and presented their posters.
**13.01.20**
We published a medium blogpost on `XCMP `__ giving an overall overview of XCMP and descriping a number of design decisions.
**20.12.19**
We updated our :doc:`XCMP implementation considerations `.
**05.12.19**
Handan has finished a paper titled: `Consensus on Clock in Universally Composable Timing Model `__. It is an updated version of Ouroboros Clepsydra that doesn’t rely on existence of some syncronized parties anymore.
**03.12.19**
Syed attended the `ECC workshop `__ in Bochum, Germany.
**02.12.19**
A poster from Jeff on incentivized mixing and a poster from Handan on consensus on clocks have been accepted at Financial Crypto 2020.
**28.11.19**
Alistair gave a presentation on Polkadot's governance and participated in a panel at "the Governance on blockchain systems" meetup in Geneva, Switzerland.
**20.11.19**
Some members of the research and HR teams will present a recruitment talk for masters and PhD students at EPFL, Switzerland.
**12.11.19**
Alistair presented a poster session about the Grandpa finality gadget at the Conference on Computer and Communications Security (CSS) in London.
**08.11.19**
Alfonso and Syed hosted a 3 hour Thinktank session about Polkadot in Paris, organized by LaBChain and hosted by Caisse des Dépôts.
**30.10.19**
Fatemeh gave a talk titled 'Decentralization and privacy' and Alfonso gave a talk introducing Polkadot's at a Web3 meetup.
**12.10.19**
Alistair will be participating in panel at an event on cross-app communication organized by Near protocol right after Devcon 5.
**09.10.19**
At Devcon day 1, Fatemeh will give a short presentation about Polkadot's needs for p2p. On day 4, Alistair will give a devcon talk on our availabiltiy and validity scheme. Also on day 4, Alfonso will give a short presentation about governenace.
**05.10.19**
Alistair gave a talk at the `NodeTokyo 2019 `__ about our NPoS solution.
**17.09.19**
Alistair's poster on GRANDPA has been accepted as an ACM CCS poster and will be pesented in CCS'19 in London.
**16.09.19**
Alistair will be giving a number of talks in China in the next two weeks.
**18.08.19**
Handan wrote a paper describing the relevant time technique used in Polkadot’s block production protocol BABE with the title: “Ouroboros Clepsydra: Ouroboros Praos in Universally Composable Relative Time Model” that will be shortly available online.
**15.08.19**
Syed and Alfonso will hold an exercise session for Polkadot’s bridge design in Copenhagen Blockchain Summer School. In addition, Alfonso will be giving a talk at the Nordic Blockchain Summit 2019.
**05.08.19**
Alistair, Fatemeh, and Jeff are in Berlin for our networking workshop with Parity.
**22.07.19**
Alistair gave a number of talks focusing on Polkadot’s Validity and Avalibility scheme in Beijing, Shanghai, Hangzhou, and Chengzhu during Polkadot China tour in July.
**28.06.19**
Fatemeh is PC member for CBT 2019.