At Rimon, we believe that curiosity, persistence and rigorous inquiry drive not only technical excellence but also strategic insight. Today, we are proud to celebrate a major milestone for one of our leaders: Gary Shapiro, Co-Managing Director at Rimon, has earned his Master of Philosophy (MPhil) in Computer Science, submitting a thesis on Performance of Byzantine Fault Tolerant Blockchains. This achievement underscores our commitment to depth, innovation and staying at the cutting edge of technology.
Like many others, the emergence of blockchain and cryptocurrency created a deep fascination for Gary, not because of the speculative hype, but because of the underlying technology itself. He became intrigued by how complex systems could achieve trust and reliability without central control. Over time, Gary observed that many blockchain implementations struggled under real-world constraints such as network latency, message loss, throughput demands, and fault tolerance limits. Wanting to understand these challenges more rigorously, he decided to explore them through formal academic research.
Enrolling in a postgraduate program, Gary balanced his responsibilities at Rimon with late nights of reading, modeling, simulating and iterating. His thesis focused on evaluating the performance characteristics of Byzantine Fault Tolerant (BFT) blockchains under varying network conditions, adversarial behaviors and concurrency demands. He investigated how consensus protocols degrade, where bottlenecks emerge and what design adjustments might improve resilience and throughput.
Throughout the process, Gary drew on both theoretical foundations and empirical work. He built simulation frameworks, validated results with controlled experiments and compared different BFT consensus variants. He also engaged in rigorous peer review, integrating feedback and refining his models. The result is a thesis that not only advances understanding of performance trade-offs in BFT systems but also offers guidance for engineers and architects building real blockchain infrastructure.
Gary’s research extends far beyond blockchain. It sits at the intersection of computer science, distributed systems, and software engineering, fields that underpin many of today’s emerging technologies. The lessons he uncovered have direct relevance to projects involving distributed ledger technologies, secure consensus, and high-availability systems, but also to the broader challenges of designing resilient, efficient computing architectures.
His MPhil also strengthens Rimon’s reputation as a firm where intellectual rigor meets business impact. That fusion is especially relevant in fields like crypto, fintech, secure infrastructure and any domain where systems must be robust under failure or attack. It’s another signal that in addition to offering R&D Tax Incentive and EMDG consulting services, we deeply understand the technical frontiers our clients care about.
Gary’s MPhil is not an endpoint, it’s a springboard. He continues to mentor others in our team who are curious about computer science, distributed systems, and emerging technologies. At Rimon, we see this as part of a broader culture: fostering lifelong learning, integrating research into consulting, and aligning technical curiosity with client value.
If you’d like to understand how our leadership in technical expertise can help improve the quality, compliance and overall potential of your R&D Tax Incentive (RDTI) claim, feel free to get in touch with us.