Related papers: A Fast Confirmation Rule (aka Fast Synchronous Fin…
Designing an efficient difficulty control algorithm is an essential problem in Proof-of-Work (PoW) based blockchains because the network hash rate is randomly changing. This paper proposes a general difficulty control algorithm and provides…
This paper presents IBFT, a simple and elegant Byzantine fault-tolerant consensus algorithm that is used to implement state machine replication in the \emph{Quorum} blockchain. IBFT assumes a partially synchronous communication model, where…
Blockchain is a decentralised, immutable ledger technology that has been widely adopted in many sectors for various applications such as cryptocurrencies, smart contracts and supply chain management. Distributed consensus is a fundamental…
Consensus protocols play a pivotal role to balance security and efficiency in blockchain systems. In this paper, we propose an evaluation framework for blockchain consensus protocols termed as AlphaBlock. In this framework, we compare the…
In the paper, we present designs for multiple blockchain consensus primitives and a novel blockchain system, all based on the use of trusted execution environments (TEEs), such as Intel SGX-enabled CPUs. First, we show how using TEEs for…
Executing smart contracts is a compute and storage-intensive task, which currently dominates modern blockchain's performance. Given that computers are becoming increasingly multicore, concurrency is an attractive approach to improve…
Blockchain technology and related frameworks have recently received extensive attention. Blockchain systems use multi-party consensus protocols to reach agreements on transactions. Hyperledger Fabric framework exposes a multi-party…
Tetris is an Asynchronous Byzantine Fault Tolerance consensus algorithm designed for next generation high-throughput permission and permissionless blockchain. The core concept of Tetris is derived from Reasoning About Knowledge, which we…
We use historical data to estimate the potential benefit of speculative techniques for executing Ethereum smart contracts in parallel. We replay transaction traces of sampled blocks from the Ethereum blockchain over time, using a simple…
In this paper, we identify a new form of attack, called the Balance attack, against proof-of-work blockchain systems. The novelty of this attack consists of delaying network communications between multiple subgroups of nodes with balanced…
Safety and liveness are the two classical security properties of consensus protocols. Recent works have strengthened safety with accountability: should any safety violation occur, a sizable fraction of adversary nodes can be proven to be…
Blockchain is based on a P2P network, supporting decentralized consensus of current cryptocurrencies. Since bitcoin and altcoins all utilize an underlying blockchain, they are therefore greatly affected by the performance of the P2P…
Bitcoin derives a verifiable temporal order from probabilistic block discovery and cumulative proof-of-work rather than from a trusted global clock. We show that block arrivals exhibit stable exponential behavior across difficulty epochs,…
Most current blockchains require all full nodes to execute all tasks limits the throughput of existing blockchains, which are well documented and among the most significant hurdles for the widespread adoption of decentralized technology.…
Since the inception of Bitcoin, cryptocurrencies and the underlying blockchain technology have attracted an increasing interest from both academia and industry. Among various core components, consensus protocol is the defining technology…
We propose a model suggesting that honest-but-rational consensus participants may play timing games, and strategically delay their block proposal to optimize MEV capture, while still ensuring the proposal's timely inclusion in the canonical…
Blockchain performance has historically faced challenges posed by the throughput limitations of consensus algorithms. Recent breakthroughs in research have successfully alleviated these constraints by introducing a modular architecture that…
The classic Fischer, Lynch, and Paterson impossibility proof demonstrates that any deterministic protocol for consensus in either a message-passing or shared-memory system must violate at least one of termination, validity, or agreement in…
Smart contracts are the artifact of the blockchain that provide immutable and verifiable specifications of physical transactions. Solidity is a domain-specific programming language with the purpose of defining smart contracts. It aims at…
Consensus protocols inherently rely on the notion of leader election, in which one or a subset of participants are temporarily elected to authorize and announce the network's latest state. While leader election is a well studied problem,…