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Time-locked DFAs

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Time-locked DFAs

Deterministic Finite Automata are a type of finite automaton used in automata theory and formal language theory.

The Bitcoin Masterclass (London) Day 2

Dr Craig S. Wright, Chief Scientist at nChain, held another edition of his Bitcoin Masterclass series at an exclusive venue in London in April. The Masterclass course forms part of a monthly series aimed at helping attendees understand the fundamentals of Bitcoin and the technology behind it.

The Bitcoin Masterclass series will give you a comprehensive overview of Bitcoin’s history, theory and design. Wright discussed the future of Bitcoin and the unbounded scalability of nChain’s blockchain solutions, with potential use cases across several industries.

In the second session on day two, Dr Wright asked attendees to think of ways to use time-locked Deterministic Finite Automata (DFAs) to create processes for creating products or services. This included everything from shipbuilding and construction to issuing degrees.

What are DFAs?

Deterministic Finite Automata are a type of finite automaton used in automata theory and formal language theory. They are abstract mathematical models that represent computation processes. Effectively it is a way in which a programmer might use provable results from one event to feed into Bitcoin transaction inputs to produce another result later.

DFAs have a finite set of states, a finite alphabet of input symbols, a transition function that specifies how the automaton moves from one state to another based on the input, a designated initial state, and a set of accepting (or final) states.

The term “deterministic” indicates that for any given input symbol, there is only one possible transition from the current state to the next state. In other words, the behaviour of a DFA is entirely determined and unambiguous, with no need for backtracking or guessing. Each input symbol leads to a unique state transition, and the automaton processes the input in a strictly sequential manner.

DFAs are capable of recognising regular languages, which are a class of languages that can be described by regular expressions. They are used in various applications, including lexical analysis (tokenisation) in programming languages, pattern recognition, and parsing simple grammar.

In contrast to DFAs, there are also Non-Deterministic Finite Automata (NFAs), where multiple transitions from a single state on the same input symbol or the possibility of transitioning to multiple states from the same state on the same input symbol are allowed.

Use-cases and breakout session

In this session, Dr Wright asked the attendees to break out into groups to discuss how time-locked DFAs can be used in real-world use cases. Some of the suggestions and discussions included:

  • Boats, shipping and logistics;
  • Generating interim reports;
  • Large-scale construction projects;
  • Managing IP portfolios;
  • Distributing and managing university degrees.

Ryan Brothwell

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