Research
Research grounded
in practice.
Academic excellence and innovation in blockchain and confidential computing that shapes our work.
Our research and patent record attests to both our expertise and our inventiveness, from decentralised protocols for consensus and checkpointing to verified attestation protocols and key-storage mechanisms using trusted hardware.
PAPERS
The research.
This work spans two areas: decentralised systems, where we study consensus, checkpointing and on-chain randomness, and confidential computing, where we analyse enclave code and attestation protocols. Both feed directly into the business: Blockchain Consulting and TEE Consulting apply these results for clients, while our security division carries out its own formal methods research, detailed below.
Decentralised systems
Hierarchical Consensus: Scalability Through Optimism and Weak Liveness
Pedro Antonino, Antoine Durand, A. W. Roscoe · DISC 2025
A new approach to reaching agreement across a blockchain network without sacrificing liveness under partial synchrony.
Read paper ↗Hooks: A Simple and Modular Checkpointing Protocol for Blockchains
Pedro Antonino, Antoine Durand, Namrata Jain, Garry Lancaster, Jonathan Lawrence, A. W. Roscoe · IEEE NCA 2024
A modular protocol for recovering blockchain state after failure, designed to plug into existing systems rather than replace them.
Read paper ↗The Consensus Machine: Formalising Consensus in the Presence of Malign Agents
A. W. Roscoe, Pedro Antonino, Jonathan Lawrence · Theories of Programming and Formal Methods, 2023
A formal model of blockchain consensus that accounts for participants who deviate from the protocol, not just ones who fail silently.
Read paper ↗Abstracting and Verifying Decentralised Systems in CSP
A. W. Roscoe, Pedro Antonino, Jonathan Lawrence · The Application of Formal Methods, 2024
A method for modelling decentralised systems in CSP at a level of abstraction precise enough to verify, without drowning in implementation detail.
Read paper ↗An Unbiassable Random Oracle for Blockchains
A. W. Roscoe, Pedro Antonino, Jonathan Lawrence · Oxford Blockchain Research Centre
A source of on-chain randomness designed to resist manipulation by the parties generating it.
Read paper ↗
Trusted hardware
Flexible Remote Attestation of Pre-SNP SEV VMs Using SGX Enclaves
Pedro Antonino, Ante Derek, Wojciech Aleksander Woloszyn · IEEE Access 2023
A way to remotely verify the integrity of AMD SEV virtual machines using SGX enclaves, ahead of native SEV-SNP support.
Read paper ↗Guardian: Symbolic Validation of Orderliness in SGX Enclaves
Pedro Antonino, Wojciech Aleksander Woloszyn, A. W. Roscoe · CCSW '21
A symbolic method for checking that code inside an SGX enclave executes operations in the order it claims to.
Read paper ↗Trusted And Confidential Program Analysis (TCPA)
Han Liu, Pedro Antonino, Zhiqiang Yang, Chao Liu, A. W. Roscoe · arXiv 2021
A framework for analysing programs intended to run inside confidential-computing environments before they're deployed.
Read paper ↗
PATENTS
The protected inventions.
These patents translate the same research into protected invention: consensus handover and randomness mechanisms in decentralised systems, and key-storage and enclave-management mechanisms in trusted hardware. The trusted hardware patents describe the actual key-management mechanics behind Cloud Wallet and Custody; the decentralised systems patents reflect the research behind Blockchain Consulting.
Decentralised systems
Performing tasks in distributed computer systems
Roscoe, Antonino · GB2625227B · granted 2025
A consensus handover scheme: if one group of nodes can't reach a timely decision, a larger, more robust group takes over without producing a conflicting result.
View patent ↗Method and device for preventing forking of blockchain
Chen, Roscoe · US12,254,468 B2 · granted 2025
A backlinking method that lets a newly joined node work out which chain is legitimate without re-verifying the network's full history.
View patent ↗Public random number generation method and device based on blockchain
Chen, Roscoe · US12,192,347 B2 · granted 2025
A method using a group of trusted nodes and two defined time points to produce randomness that's publicly verifiable.
View patent ↗
Trusted hardware
Storing cryptographic keys securely
Capkun, Matijasevic, Novoselac · GB2611412B · granted 2023
Splits a key into independently generated components, secret-shared across separate stores, so compromising some shares isn't enough to reconstruct the key.
View patent ↗Custody service for authorising transactions
Antonino, Derek, Hecimovic, Matijasevic, Novoselac, Vidakovic · GB2607282B · granted 2023
A TEE-based custody server that signs a transaction only when the request satisfies a configurable access policy.
View patent ↗Code deployment
Roscoe, Antonino · GB2602680B · granted 2023
Analyses third-party source code inside a TEE to produce a trust rating before allowing deployment.
Also granted in the US as US 12,462,040 B2 (2025).
View patent ↗Enclave architecture
Antonino, Capkun, Derek, Hecimovic, Matijasevic, Kralj, Novoselac, Vidakovic · GB2622355B · granted 2025
Manages a set of enclaves as a trusted group: a gatekeeper verifies each new enclave's code and issues the credentials that let existing enclaves communicate with it safely.
View patent ↗
FORMAL METHODS
The TBTL security division's own research
Alongside the blockchain and TEE record above, the TBTL security division keeps a deeper, ongoing research record of its own — formal analysis of Ethereum smart contracts, including Solidifier, our Solidity model checker, and work on safe contract upgradeability, and formal verification of Noir zero-knowledge programs, including NAVe, our ZK verifier, and a soundness bug we found and fixed in the cvc5 SMT solver it depends on.
Visit security.tbtl.com/research →