In Search of Hardness

The article is a newsletter by a program director introducing the Summer of Protocols research program and the launch of the Protocol Kit, a free open publication of six modules with around 80 pieces, and it argues that "hardness," a concept from Josh Stark's essay Atoms, Institutions, Blockchains, should be central to the study of protocols. The program funded 33 researchers and was run with Tim Beiko and Josh Davis of the Ethereum Foundation, which funded it. The first module is online now, the rest will publish over the next 6-8 months, and 512 physical kits will be distributed free.