arXiv subjects

Chien-Chih Chen

Publications and source records attributed to Chien-Chih Chen.

8 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

OreProof: Verifiable Provenance with Limited Disclosure for Critical-Minerals Supply Chains Using Zero-Knowledge Proofs

Critical-minerals supply chains face a structural tension: regulators and buyers demand verifiable provenance, yet upstream actors are hesitant to disclose supplier identities, assay grades/yields, and prices that verification appears to require. We report a design science account of OreProof, a prototypical traceability platform addressing this verifiability-disclosure trade-off. Instantiated for gold, OreProof combines a hybrid on-chain/off-chain data model, Groth16 zero-knowledge proofs for selective disclosure, a Merkle-batched anchoring pipeline, and UNTP-aligned verifiable credentials on a public zkEVM testnet. Against a transparent baseline, directly inferable confidential attributes fell from three of four categories to none under a defined attacker model, while batched anchoring substantially improved throughput. Our contributions are the artifact prototype as well as four nascent design principles: prove over committed data rather than exposing it; credential only verifiable origin and flag unknown inputs for blended commodities; emit standards-aligned credentials from the outset; and partition disclosure by supply-chain role.

cs.CR↗

arXiv2026

A Tunable Incentive Mechanism for Binary Aggregation Without Verification

Binary aggregation without verifiable ground truth arises when agents' reports must be aggregated without access to gold-standard labels. This paper studies a tunable reward--penalty mechanism for binary aggregation without verification. Agents choose between a conforming strategy, which reports an informative private signal, and a non-conforming strategy, which follows a deterministic prior-informed report rule. For this mechanism, we derive cost-adjusted sufficient conditions for incentive compatibility and individual rationality as bounds on the reward--penalty ratio. The analysis identifies feasible ratio regions, cases in which ratio adjustment restores feasibility, and parameter regimes in which no ratio satisfies both constraints under the modeled construction. We also state a conditional all-conforming Nash equilibrium result within the restricted strategy set. Entropy-based scaling and stake-weighted redistribution are treated as extensions, with stake-weighted redistribution inducing agent-specific incentive constraints. Numerical checks support the closed-form Tier 1 quantities and illustrate threshold sensitivity.

cs.GT↗

arXiv2026

Credit Limits beyond Full Collateralization in Decentralized Micropayments: Incentive Conditions

In decentralized non-custodial micropayments, the central challenge is not whether payments can be executed directly, but under what conditions such systems can offer credit limits without requiring full collateral backing. Existing approaches typically tie available credit to posted collateral, causing liquidity requirements to scale with transaction volume and settlement exposure and limiting the practical usefulness of credit-based micropayments. This paper characterizes the incentive conditions under which credit-based non-custodial micropayments can operate beyond full collateralization while remaining incentive compatible. We model repeated buyer--merchant interactions under public monitoring and identify the roles of bounded exposure, verifiable settlement outcomes, and continuation value in deterring strategic default under non-custodial execution. The resulting characterization clarifies the trade-off between capital efficiency and the enforcement conditions required to sustain under-collateralized credit expansion without custodial trust. As an illustrative application-layer instantiation, an Arbitrum Nitro prototype provides execution-level evidence that the settlement, commitment, and incentive-enforcement paths of a credit-limit-based design can be realized with low on-chain overhead.

cs.GT↗

arXiv2026

Systematizing Blockchain Research Themes and Design Patterns: Insights from the University Blockchain Research Initiative (UBRI)

The rapid expansion of blockchain and digital asset ecosystems has intensified the challenge of translating academic research into deployable systems and regulatory frameworks. While advances in cryptography, consensus, digital assets, and governance are substantial, institutional mechanisms that sustain research-to-deployment translation at ecosystem scale remain comparatively under-theorized. This paper examines the architectural and coordination patterns that enable such translation, using the University Blockchain Research Initiative (UBRI) network as a representative case of long-term academic and industry collaboration. Drawing on research outputs and convenings from 2022 to 2025, we synthesize recurring design tensions across technical and institutional domains, including scalability versus security, decentralization versus governance, and privacy versus compliance. Rather than cataloging individual projects, we abstract system-level themes that connect research contributions to deployment constraints and policy adaptation, providing a structured lens for understanding how academic research informs production architectures, regulatory development, and ecosystem resilience in emerging decentralized infrastructures.

cs.DC↗

arXiv2024

A Game Theoretic Analysis of Validator Strategies in Ethereum 2.0

Ethereum 2.0 is the second-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization and a widely used smart contract platform. Therefore, examining the reliability of Ethereum 2.0's incentive mechanism is crucial, particularly its effectiveness in encouraging validators to adhere to the Ethereum 2.0's protocol. This paper studies the incentive mechanism of Ethereum 2.0 and evaluates its robustness by analyzing the interaction between block proposers and attesters in a single slot. To this end, we use Bayesian games to model the strategies of block proposers and attesters and calculate their expected utilities. Our results demonstrate that the Ethereum 2.0 incentive mechanism is incentive-compatible and promotes cooperation among validators. We prove that a Bayesian Nash equilibrium and an ex ante dominant strategy exist between the block proposer and attesters in a single slot. Our research provides a solid foundation for further analysis of Ethereum 2.0's incentive mechanism and insights for individuals considering participation as a validator in Ethereum 2.0.

cs.GT↗

arXiv2019

Coupled mechano-electrokinetic Burridge-Knopoff model of fault sliding events and transient geoelectric signals

We introduce the first fully self-consistent model combining the seismic micro-ruptures occurring within a generalized Burridge-Knopoff spring-block model with the nucleation and propagation of electric charge pulses within a coupled mechano-electrokinetic system. This model provides a general theoretical framework for modeling and analyzing geoelectric precursors to earthquakes. In particular, it can reproduce the unipolar pulses that have often been reported before large seismic events, as well as various observed anomalies in the statistical moments of the ambient electric fields and the power-law exponent transition of the power spectra of electric fields.

physics.geo-ph↗

arXiv2019

A paradigm for developing earthquake probability forecasts based on geoelectric data

We examine the precursory behavior of geoelectric signals before large earthquakes by means of an algorithm including an alarm-based model and binary classification. This algorithm, introduced originally by Chen and Chen [Nat. Hazards., 84, 2016], is improved by removing a time parameter for coarse-graining of earthquake occurrences, as well as by extending the single station method into a joint stations method. We also determine the optimal frequency bands of earthquake-related geoelectric signals with the highest signal-to-noise ratio. Using significance tests, we also provide evidence of an underlying seismoelectric relationship. It is appropriate for machine learning to extract this underlying relationship, which could be used to quantify probabilistic forecasts of impending earthquakes, and to get closer to operational earthquake prediction.

physics.geo-ph↗

arXiv2019

Stochastic Dynamics for Earthquake Ruptures

In this paper, we propose a stochastic dynamic model for earthquake rupture and suggest that the Langevin equation of frictions may be used for interpreting the slip distributions of rupture processes in earthquakes. The steady-state solution of the derived Langevin equation analytically attains the truncated exponential (TEX) distribution that is empirically characterized in many rupture models of earthquake events worldwide, as demonstrated by Thingbaijam and Mai (2016, https://doi.org/10.1785/0120150291). Our proposed stochastic dynamic faulting model for earthquake rupture intrinsically includes fluctuations and uncertainties in the heterogeneity of faulting planes as random variables. Specifically, we related the characteristic parameter u_c in TEX functions to the ratio of diffusion and friction coefficients D and γof the Langevin equation.

physics.geo-ph↗