Merkelized Abstract Syntax Trees

Final Project for 6.858 Computer Systems Security

In the context of modern cryptosystems, a common theme is the creation of distributed trust networks. In most of these designs, permanent storage of a contract is required. However, permanent storage can become a major performance and cost bottleneck. As a result, good code compression schemes are a key factor in scaling these contract based cryptosystems. For this project, we formalize and implement a data structure called the Merkelized Abstract Syntax Tree (MAST) to address both data integrity and compression.

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