New Strain Secure Auction ETH Blockchain Protocol Developed by Airbus and University of Waterloo Professor

A Professor From University of Waterloo Teams Up With Airbus to Develop Blockchain Protocol for Auctions

A top researcher at the University of Waterloo is in his final touches towards the development of a blockchain auction protocol with Airbus, a Germany aircraft manufacturer. When the blockchain protocol is ready, it will help investors by ending any chances of corruption as well as nepotism that are usually experienced during public auctions.

The white paper authored by a computer science professor, Florian Kerschbaum, who’s also the director of the Cybersecurity and Privacy Institute at the University, and Erik-Oliver Blass, Ph.D. and researcher at the Airbus Company, details that

“Blockchains offer transparency and integrity features which could make them ideal for hosting auctions,” and that “today's blockchain transparency features disqualify them in scenarios where input data must remain confidential.”

The Strain Protocol

This innovation by the two researchers will be based on the Ethereum blockchain. Once it is set to start work, the protocol will use the zero-knowledge (ZK) proofs approach. This is the ideal way to address the confidentiality problem because bidding will be made public. The interesting thing about the Strain Protocol is that although bidding will be public, the amount placed on the bid, the identity of the supplier, and that of the bidder will remain confidential.

Strain Protocol will also have low latency. In addition, the zero-knowledge (ZK) proofs will give both the supplier and the bidder the ability to verify the correctness in 3 blocks. This will bring to the number of blocks to four in the whole Strain protocol.

Security Enhancement

After the release of the Strain protocol, the next step will be to enhance its security, which will be followed by elaborate efforts to open it up to reach more vendors. At the moment, the Strain Protocol has only been tested in small groups. However, it will soon be open for larger, open groups.

Nearly three months ago, there was a story about Dadiani Syndicate, which according to the report was the first fine art gallery in the United Kingdom to accept traders to use crypto. DS used the Maecenas blockchain to conduct Andy Warhol’s ‘fractional ownership’ auction.

For now, the world will wait to see how the Strain Protocol tests will transpire before it is open for even bigger tests.