An Empirical Study of Protocols in Smart Contracts

TL;DR

This paper empirically analyzes Ethereum smart contracts to understand the use of protocols, identify common bugs, and explore opportunities for gas optimization, aiming to improve security and efficiency.

Contribution

It provides the first comprehensive empirical study of protocols in Solidity smart contracts, highlighting prevalent bugs and optimization opportunities.

Findings

Protocols are widely used in deployed smart contracts.

Protocol-related bugs are common and impact security.

Opportunities for gas optimization are identified.

Abstract

Smart contracts are programs that are executed on a blockhain. They have been used for applications in voting, decentralized finance, and supply chain management. However, vulnerabilities in smart contracts have been abused by hackers, leading to financial losses. Understanding state machine protocols in smart contracts has been identified as important to catching common bugs, improving documentation, and optimizing smart contracts. We analyze Solidity smart contracts deployed on the Ethereum blockchain and study the prevalence of protocols and protocol-based bugs, as well as opportunities for gas optimizations.