Blockchain@X
Research Center

We bring together researchers in computer science and economics whose research focus on blockchains and associated technologies.

Our mission

The Blockchain & Platform chair combines academic excellence with business & tech leadership to foster blockchain innovation.

Research

The Blockchain@X Research Center is directed by Daniel Augot and Julien Prat. It is composed of researchers and Ph.D. students at the Ecole Poytechnique as well as of associate researchers dedicated to these four areas of expertise :

Publications

Discover the publications produced by the researchers
from Blockchain@X research center at Ecole Polytechnique.
Julien Prat

The Economics of Constant Function Market Makers

We use microeconomic theory to describe the inner workings of Constant Function Market Makers (CFMMs). We show that standard results from consumer theory apply in this new context, endowing us with powerful tools to characterize the optimal design of CFMMs. We employ them to analyze the externalities that traders and liquidity providers exert on each other when interacting through a CFMM. Liquidity providers reduce the execution costs by flattening the bonding curve on which trades are executed. Arbitrageurs impose an adverse selection cost on liquidity providers by unfavorably rebalancing their portfolio. We show that the strengths of these two externalities are pinned down by the curvature of the bonding curve and are inversely related to each other, thereby identifying the fundamental economic tradeoff that market designers have to address.

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SoK: Constant Function Market Makers

We provide an overview of the academic literature on Automated Market Makers for Decentralized Exchanges. Our review puts an emphasis on contributions from researchers in economics and finance. We cover papers that study the optimal design of Automated Market Makers. Then we discuss models that leverage the insights from the literature on two-sided markets to characterize the equilibrium size of liquidity pools and the incentives of liquidity providers. Finally, we review recent research on the interactions between Miner Extractible Value and Decentralized Exchanges.

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Outlooks

Discover the outlooks produced by the team from the Blockchain@X research center at Ecole Polytechnique.

Daniel Augot

Rollups: a Powerful Scaling Mechanism

One of the major challenges in the world of blockchains is that of scaling up, particularly in terms of throughput, i.e. the number of transactions per second. One way to increase throughput is to use a block validation system other than the one based on proof of work…

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Louis Bertucci

A Hitchhiker’s Guide to Decentralized Finance

Decentralized Finance is a major innovation trend that is shaking the FinTech world. DeFi refers to a universe of financial applications that rely on blockchain technology to achieve decentralization. In other words, DeFi applications allow their users to perform traditional financial operations…

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Education

We provide a series of courses at the Ecole polytechnique for students and professionals that wish to foster their understanding of DLT and blockchains.

Events

Discover our physical and online events, as well as the webinars
offered by the Blockchain@X research center at Ecole Polytechnique.

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