SURFACE: A Practical Blockchain Consensus Algorithm for Real-World Networks

SURFACE, standing for Secure, Use-case adaptive, and Relatively Fork-free Approach of Chain Extension, is a consensus algorithm that is designed for real-world networks and enjoys the benefits from both the Nakamoto consensus and Byzantine Fault Tolerance (BFT) consensus. In SURFACE, a committee is randomly selected every round to validate and endorse the proposed new block. The size of the committee can be adjusted according to the underlying network to make the blockchain mostly fork-free with a reasonable overhead in communication. Consequently, the blockchain can normally achieve fast probabilistic confirmation with high throughput and low latency. SURFACE also provides a BFT mechanism to guarantee ledger consistency in case of an extreme network situation such as large network partition or being under massive DDoS attacks.