Johnnatan Messias
Main website: https://johnnatan-messias.github.io
I am a Research Scientist at the Max Planck Institute for Software Systems (MPI-SWS) and a former Research Scientist at Matter Labs. I hold a Ph.D. in Computer Science from MPI-SWS, completed in collaboration with Universität des Saarlandes (UdS), under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Krishna P. Gummadi. My research focuses on advancing fairness in blockchain technology and Decentralized Finance (DeFi). In 2022, I undertook a 6-month research internship at Chainlink Labs. I earned my Master’s degree in Computer Science from the Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais (UFMG), Brazil, in 2017, advised by Prof. Dr. Fabrício Benevenuto. During my MSc, I held two research internships at MPI-SWS in Saarbrücken, Germany. I completed my B.Sc. in Computer Science at the Universidade Federal de Ouro Preto (UFOP) in 2015 and participated in an exchange program at Eötvös Loránd University (ELTE) in Budapest, Hungary, through the Brazilian Science Without Borders (CAPES) program in 2013-2014.
I have also worked on machine learning projects focused on risk and loan default prediction as well as health insurance characterization and forecasting. One of these projects was recognized in 2019 as the most innovative health software in Brazil by IT Forum 365, promoted by PwC and ITMidia. In 2018, I contributed to the "Eleições sem Fake" project to promote transparency in Brazilian elections and counter misinformation.
I'm delighted to have contributed as a Program Committee member for FC25, AFT24, and WWW24.
Full Name: Johnnatan Messias Peixoto Afonso.
MPI-SWS
Session
Although rollups have attracted significant attention, there is limited empirical research on their performance under high load. To address this, we present a data-driven analysis of the transaction surge in late 2023 and early 2024, attributed to inscriptions—a method for recording data on the blockchain. Initially introduced on Bitcoin, inscriptions enable the representation of NFTs or ERC-20-like tokens without smart contracts, and have since expanded to other blockchains. This paper examines inscription-related transactions on Ethereum and major EVM-compatible rollups, assessing their impact on scalability during transaction surges. Our results show that, on certain days, inscriptions accounted nearly 90% of transactions on Arbitrum and ZKsync Era, while 53% on Ethereum, with 99% of these inscriptions involving meme coin minting. Furthermore, we show that ZKsync and Arbitrum saw lower median gas fees during these surges. ZKsync Era, a ZK-rollup, showed a greater fee reduction than the optimistic rollups studied—Arbitrum, Base, and Optimism.