On the Synchronization Power of Token Smart Contracts
Orestis Alpos, Christian Cachin, Giorgia Azzurra Marson, Luca Zanolini

TL;DR
This paper analyzes the synchronization requirements of ERC20 token smart contracts on blockchains, revealing they have stronger and state-dependent synchronization needs than simple cryptocurrencies, impacting scalability and robustness.
Contribution
It introduces a framework to measure how ERC20 tokens' synchronization power varies with state and method use, highlighting their greater complexity and dynamic synchronization needs.
Findings
ERC20 tokens require stronger synchronization than cryptocurrencies.
Synchronization power of ERC20 depends on the object's state.
Method invocations can modify the synchronization requirements.
Abstract
Modern blockchains support a variety of distributed applications beyond cryptocurrencies, including smart contracts -- which let users execute arbitrary code in a distributed and decentralized fashion. Regardless of their intended application, blockchain platforms implicitly assume consensus for the correct execution of a smart contract, thus requiring that all transactions are totally ordered. It was only recently recognized that consensus is not necessary to prevent double-spending in a cryptocurrency (Guerraoui et al., PODC'19), contrary to common belief. This result suggests that current implementations may be sacrificing efficiency and scalability because they synchronize transactions much more tightly than actually needed. In this work, we study the synchronization requirements of Ethereum's ERC20 token contract, one of the most widely adopted smart contacts. Namely, we model a…
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