# Dennis Trautwein

> Markdown version of https://dtrautwein.eu/

Software engineer and researcher. I measure peer-to-peer networks and feed what I find
back into protocol design. Co-founder of [ProbeLab](https://probelab.io).

## Recognition

- **Applied Networking Research Prize** (2023), IRTF and Internet Society. For the SIGCOMM '22 paper on the design and evaluation of IPFS. One of six winners that year, with an invited talk at the IRTF open meeting at IETF 118. [More](https://www.ietf.org/blog/anrp-2023/)
- **PhD Fellowship** (2021), Protocol Labs. Two years of funding for my doctoral research on content discovery and retrieval in IPFS. [More](https://gipplab.uni-goettingen.de/dennis-trautwein-receives-prestigious-phd-fellowship-from-protocol-labs-research/)
- **BEXUS 19 balloon flight** (2014), DLR and the Swedish National Space Agency. Our Kiel student team's ADAM experiment flew to the stratosphere on BEXUS 19 and measured the angular distribution of charged particles. My bachelor thesis simulated its sensor system. [More](https://adam.physik.uni-kiel.de/)
- **Deutschlandstipendium** (2011), German federal government and private sponsors. Germany's national merit scholarship, given for my results in the Abitur, the German highschool-leaving exams. One of 70 recipients in Schleswig-Holstein that year.

## Selected publications

### Large-Scale Measurement of NAT Traversal for the Decentralized Web: A Case Study of DCUtR in IPFS

Dennis Trautwein, Cornelius Ihle, Moritz Schubotz, Corinna Breitinger, Bela Gipp. ACM IMC '26, 2026.

[Paper](https://arxiv.org/abs/2604.12484), [PDF](https://ipfs.io/ipfs/bafybeiajjmielazwmcv6gpq4shuhmckipz3os3wucqxww36ugxgfo7hdxe), [Code](https://github.com/libp2p/punchr)

### IPFS in the Fast Lane: Accelerating Record Storage with Optimistic Provide

Dennis Trautwein, Yiluo Wei, Yiannis Psaras, Moritz Schubotz, Ignacio Castro, Bela Gipp, Gareth Tyson. IEEE INFOCOM '24, 2024.

[Paper](https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/10621404), [PDF](https://ipfs.io/ipfs/bafybeic4p5j7ifze4fk5fag5jjawyp5hi4na7f5vxb7qlzy5jr3hlsguzi), [DOI](https://doi.org/10.1109/INFOCOM52122.2024.10621404), [Code](https://github.com/dennis-tra/optimistic-provide)

### The Eternal Tussle: Exploring the Role of Centralization in IPFS

Yiluo Wei, Dennis Trautwein, Yiannis Psaras, Ignacio Castro, Will Scott, Aravindh Raman, Gareth Tyson. USENIX NSDI '24, 2024.

[Paper](https://www.usenix.org/conference/nsdi24/presentation/wei)

### Design and Evaluation of IPFS: A Storage Layer for the Decentralized Web

Dennis Trautwein, Aravindh Raman, Gareth Tyson, Ignacio Castro, Will Scott, Moritz Schubotz, Bela Gipp, Yiannis Psaras. ACM SIGCOMM '22, 2022. Applied Networking Research Prize 2023.

[Paper](https://www.gipp.com/wp-content/papercite-data/pdf/trautwein2022a.pdf), [DOI](https://doi.org/10.1145/3544216.3544232), [Code](https://github.com/dennis-tra/nebula)

All 16 publications: https://dtrautwein.eu/publications/index.md

## Experience

- **Co-founder**, [ProbeLab](https://probelab.io) (2025 to now, Kiel, Germany). Founded with Yiannis Psaras and Mikel Cortes-Goicoechea. We measure various peer-to-peer networks, publish what we find, and feed it back into protocol design.
- **Research engineer**, [Protocol Labs / IPShipyard](https://protocol.ai/) (Sep 2022 to 2025, Remote). Measurement of the IPFS and libp2p networks: crawlers, telemetry, and the analysis that turns raw data into something a protocol team can act on. The ProbeLab team started here.
- **Doctoral researcher**, [University of Göttingen](https://gipp.com) (2020 to 2026, Göttingen, Germany). PhD in computer science in Bela Gipp's group. The thesis measures and optimises peer-to-peer networks, with IPFS as the case study.
- **Industrial PhD candidate**, [OriginStamp AG](https://originstamp.com/) (May 2020 to 2022, Kreuzlingen, Switzerland). Frontend work in Angular, alongside the infrastructure work that kept the company running on AWS and Terraform.
- **Software engineer**, [freiheit.com](https://freiheit.com/) (Jul 2018 to Apr 2020, Hamburg, Germany). Built the real time event backend behind Daimler's Mercedes me app, in a Go and Kubernetes setup on Azure.
- **Web and mobile developer**, [weluse GmbH](https://weluse.de) (Jan 2017 to Jun 2018, Kiel, Germany). Led a web application for property managers and worked on client sites mostly in React.
- **Research assistant**, [CAU Kiel](https://www.uni-kiel.de/) (2017, Kiel, Germany). Frequency analysis of image sets from a photoemission electron microscope, plus a Java tool that drove the microscope and its peripherals.
- **Software developer**, [TouchTech Labs](https://touchtechlabs.com) (Mar to Sep 2016, Melbourne, Australia). Interactive web applications for a mixed set of clients, and the client meetings that came with them.
- **iOS developer intern**, [TouchTech](https://www.touchtech.co.nz) (Jul 2015 to Mar 2016, Wellington, New Zealand). Shipped two iOS apps on my own, one promotional and one for tracking employee performance.

## Education

- **PhD, Computer Science**, University of Göttingen, 2026. Thesis: [Measuring and Optimizing Peer-to-Peer Networks: A Case Study of the InterPlanetary File System](https://ediss.uni-goettingen.de/handle/11858/16480).
- **MSc, Physics**, Kiel University, 2018. Thesis: [Plasmonic excitations in TMDC-gold hybrid systems](https://dtrautwein.eu/files/MA-Dennis-Trautwein.pdf) (in German).
- **BSc, Physics**, Kiel University, 2014. Thesis: [GEANT4 simulations of the ADAM sensor system for BEXUS 19](https://dtrautwein.eu/files/BA-Dennis-Trautwein.pdf) (in German).

## Service

- **Reviewer, JCDL** (ACM/IEEE Joint Conference on Digital Libraries).

## Where I have lived

- Kiel, Germany (until 2015)
- Wellington, New Zealand (2015 to 2016)
- Melbourne, Australia (2016)
- Kiel, Germany (2017 to 2018)
- Hamburg, Germany (2018 to 2020)
- Kreuzlingen, Switzerland (2020 to 2025)
- Kiel, Germany (since 2025)

## Selected talks

- **Design and Evaluation of IPFS: A Storage Layer for the Decentralized Web**. IRTF Open Meeting, IETF 118, November 2023. [Recording](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4O1NsdOeXgU&t=2483)
- **Nebula: A Network Agnostic DHT Crawler**. libp2p-day Istanbul, November 2023. [Recording](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QDgvCBDqNMc)
- **Decentralized NAT Hole-Punching**. IPFS Camp, October 2022. [Recording](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bzL7Y1wYth8)

All 16 talks: https://dtrautwein.eu/talks/index.md

## Contact

- Email: contact@dtrautwein.eu
- GitHub: https://github.com/dennis-tra
- Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=g75P038AAAAJ
- ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8567-2353
- Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/dtrautwein.eu
- ProbeLab: https://probelab.io