Introduction

Recently there has been a burst of interest in blockchain and cryptocurrencies, which blends computer science, finance, and business in unprecedented ways. Multiple computer science areas, including cryptography, distributed systems, programming languages, game theory, and system security techniques, are involved, and today’s blockchain and cryptocurrency systems still face security, availability, scalability and performance issues. This special section is an effort to encourage and promote research on this area from the computer architecture and software perspective.

Aims and Scopes

The goal of this special section is to present the state-of-the-art and high-quality original research papers in the area of computer architecture and systems on blockchain and cryptocurrencies. Extended versions of papers published in conferences, symposiums, or workshop proceedings may be submitted. Especially we welcome the extended versions of papers published in first class architecture and system conferences. However, survey papers will not be considered. The topics of interest include, but are not limited to:

l processor architecture,

l memory architecture,

l storage architecture,

l programming framework and compiler,

l operating systems,

l runtime systems,

l virtual machines,

l security techniques on blockchain, smart contracts and cryptocurrency systems.

Important Dates

Submission: October 31, 2017

First Revision: November 30, 2017

Final Decision: December 20, 2017

Camera-Ready: December 30, 2017

Publication: March 2018

Leading Editor

Wen-Guang Chen, Department of Computer Science and Technology, Tsinghua University, Beijing cwg@tsinghua.edu.cn

Guest Editor

Xue-Ming Si, Deputy Director, Shanghai Key Laboratory of Data Science, Fudan University, Shanghai sxm@fudan.edu.cn