The Swiss Blockchain Winter School

Welcome to the website of the Swiss Blockchain Winter School 2019

This event is the follow-up to the highly successful Swiss Blockchain Summer School 2017 and an IACR Cryptology School.

We aim to bring together students (Bachelor, Master, PhD), academic researchers, industry professionals,
 and government employees for an in-depth exchange on the latest trends and developments around
cryptocurrencies, blockchain technology, and decentralized applications.

The school takes place at the Interlaken Congress Center, Switzerland, on February 11th to 14th , 2019, and 
is jointly organized by EPFL, ETHZand The Initiative for CryptoCurrencies & Contracts (IC3).

IC3 Winter Retreat

The Winter School is co-located with the IC3 Winter Retreat on February 14th and 15th , 2019.
For more information please refer to their event website.

Registration

Note: The winter school registration does not include an automatic sign-up to the IC3 Winter Retreat.

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Students

Bachelor, Master, PhD

 500 CHF
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Academics

Postdocs, fellows, lecturers, professors

1’000 CHF
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Non-academics

 

2’000 CHF

Speakers

Program

Note: The schedule is still subject to change. A compact version is available here.

11.02.19 – Monday
  • Morning: Arrival
  • 1200 – 1330: Lunch
  • 1330 – 1430: Eduard Bugnion, Srdjan Capkun, James Larus, Roger Wattenhofer – Welcome
  • 1430 – 1530: Prateek Saxena – Better Consensus in the Bitcoin Model [slides]
  • 1530 – 1600: Break
  • 1600 – 1630: Vincent Botbol – Tezos, an Overview of a Self-amending Crypto-ledger [slides]
  • 1630 – 1730: Giulia Fanti – Compounding of Wealth in Proof-of-Stake Cryptocurrencies [slides]
  • 1730 – 1745: Break
  • 1745 – 1845: Sergey Gorbunov – Algorand: Distributed Ledger and Digital Signatures for Consensus
  • Evening: Welcome Dinner
 
12.02.19 – Tuesday
  • Morning: Free
  • 1200 – 1330: Lunch
  • 1330 – 1430: David Mazières – The Stellar Consensus Protocol: Byzantine Agreement from the Internet Hypothesis [slides]
  • 1430 – 1530: Ewa Syta – Scaling Decentralized Ledgers via Sharding [slides]
  • 1530 – 1600: Break
  • 1600 – 1630: Henri Stern – Filecoin: Open Problems Building Storage-based Consensus Systems
  • 1630 – 1730: Jan Camenisch – Cryptography in Crypto [slides]
  • 1730 – 1745: Break
  • 1745 – 1845: Rainer Böhme – Privacy and Economics [slides]
  • Evening: Free
 
13.02.19 – Wednesday
  • 0830 – 0930: Dahlia Malkhi – Three-Step BFT Replication Rule [slides]
  • 0930 – 1000: Ethan Buchman – The Latest Gossip on Byzantine Fault Tolerant Replicated State Machines [slides]
  • 1000 – 1030: Break
  • 1030 – 1130: Matteo Maffei – Security and Privacy for Payment Channel Networks [slides]
  • 1130 – 1200: Alistair Stewart – GRANDPA: Consensus and Finality and Polkadot’s Finality Gadget
  • 1200 – 1330: Lunch
  • 1330 – 1430: Andrew Miller – Measurement and Topology Inference in Bitcoin’s P2P Network [slides]
  • 1430 – 1530: Peter Van Valkenburgh – Persuading Policymakers about Privacy and Digital Cash [slides]
  • 1530 – 1600: Break
  • 1600 – 1630: Fabian Schulz – Approaching Blockchain Scalability and Governance with Polkadot and Parity Substrate [slides]
  • 1630 – 1730: Rafael Pass – Thunder Consensus
  • 1730 – 1745: Break
  • 1745 – 1845: Patrick McCorry – Scaling Cryptocurrencies via State Channels [slides]
  • Evening: Apero + Swiss Dinner Event
 
14.02.19 – Thursday
  • Morning: Free
  • 1200 – 1330: Lunch
  • 1330 – 1430: Roger Wattenhofer – Rationality and Altruism [slides]
  • 1430 – 1530: Vassilis Zikas – Security of Blockchains against Incentive-Driven Attacks
  • 1530 – 1600: Break
  • 1600 – 1630: JP Aumasson – Secure Wallet and Storage Solutions [slides]
  • 1630 – 1730: Bryan Ford – Coins, Clubs, and Crowds: Scaling and Decentralization in Next-Generation Blockchains [slides]
  • 1730 – 1745: Break
  • 1745 – 1845: Krishna Gummadi – Fairness and Discrimination in Algorithmic Decision Making
  • 1845 – 1900: Closing remarks
  • Evening: Free

Sponsors

We are very grateful for the generous support of our sponsors who made this event possible.

Gold

Silver

Venue & Accommodation

This year’s location is the picturesque Interlaken Congress Center in Interlaken, Switzerland. 

You can book your accommodation directly on the hotel portal by using the booking button below.
This will take you to a platform with a choice of rooms in neighboring hotels close to the venue.

You have to indicate a credit card as guarantee of the booking.
This service expires on December 28, 2018 after which you
need to contact hotels directly to book a room.

Venue

Interlaken Congress & Events AG

Strandbadstrasse 44
CH-3800 Interlaken
Phone: +41 33 827 62 00

©Interlaken Congress Centre. The EPFL is not responsible for the content of this third-party video.

Stipends

We anticipate being able to award a small number of travel stipends for students whose
research groups cannot readily cover the full cost of attendance.

To apply for a stipend, please click the button below and fill out the form.

Please be advised that we cannot guarantee funding availability for all applicants,
and stipends we award will likely cover only a part of the overall expenses.