At the Web3 Scholar Summit, Yale Professor publicly unveiled the LiDO model for the first time.

At the Web3 Scholars Summit in 2025, Professor Zhao Zhong of the Computer Science Department at Yale University delivered a keynote speech titled "Refined Consensus Protocol Security and Liveness Proofs: LiDO and Its Extended Framework," publicly unveiling the LiDO model and the LiDO-DAG extension framework developed by his team for the first time. This groundbreaking achievement aims to provide mechanizable verification of security and liveness proofs for complex Byzantine Fault Tolerance (BFT) consensus protocols, laying a technological foundation for the reliability and scalability of the Web3 ecosystem.

Professor Shao Zhong pointed out that existing consensus protocols such as PBFT are widely used, but their complex implementation often hides potential vulnerabilities. To address this issue, the LiDO model innovatively proposes a three-layer refined verification framework:

1. Security abstraction layer: Maps protocols to a linearized state machine to ensure log consistency (security);
2. Active Assurance Layer: Introduces the "Pacemaker" mechanism to solve the network latency problem through timeout broadcasting and round synchronization;
3. DAG Extension Layer: Supports emerging DAG protocols to achieve efficient verification of leaderless consensus.

Currently, LiDO has been successfully applied to the industrial-grade protocol Jolteon (two-phase BFT) and multiple DAG protocols, completing the mechanized proof of over ten thousand lines of Coq code, with safety and liveness verification code amounts reaching 4000 lines and 1700 lines respectively. Professor Shao Zhong pointed out in his speech: "Currently, PoS consensus protocols generally face the dilemma of being unable to achieve safety, liveness, and decentralization simultaneously. The LiDO model is a systematic design solution proposed to break this dilemma."

Professor Shao Zhong's team developed CertiKOS, the world's first "bug-free" operating system verified through formal verification, hailed as a "milestone in cyber-physical system security." This achievement not only establishes a strong foundation in the field of system security but also provides a solid basis for subsequent research. In recent years, Professor Shao Zhong has focused on blockchain security, introducing formal verification technology to ensure the security of smart contracts and on-chain protocols, providing robust support for the security of crypto assets.

LiDO has currently completed model design and formal verification, and has begun exploring the integration possibilities with mainstream public chains and decentralized protocols. Professor Shao Zhong stated that they are committed to verifying the key mechanisms in Web3.0 to provide full-cycle products and services, better supporting the long-term development strategies of Web3 enterprises and ecosystems. At the end of the speech, Professor Shao Zhong emphasized: "A trustworthy, secure, and verifiable network protocol stack will be the key path to a truly decentralized future."