The field of blockchain and cryptography is witnessing significant developments, with a focus on improving security, scalability, and efficiency. Researchers are exploring new consensus protocols, such as semi-parallel proof-of-work and sleepy consensus, to enhance the security and performance of blockchain systems. Additionally, there is a growing interest in developing more efficient and secure cryptographic primitives, including memory-hard functions and lightweight hash functions. The application of blockchain technology is also being expanded to new areas, such as peer-to-peer energy transactions and secure data storage. Noteworthy papers in this area include: A Game-Theoretic Foundation for Bitcoin's Price, which introduces a structural game-theoretic model to value decentralized digital assets. Voting-Based Semi-Parallel Proof-of-Work Protocol, which presents a new protocol that outperforms existing parallel proof-of-work protocols in terms of communication overhead, throughput, and incentive compatibility. Two for One, One for All: Deterministic LDC-based Robust Computation in Congested Clique, which designs a deterministic compiler that makes any computation in the Congested Clique model robust to a constant fraction of adversarial crash faults.