Blockchain Consensus Protocols in the Wild
release_wicbybpnqbhazpwdohh4rxrnky
by
Christian Cachin, Marko Vukolić
2017
Abstract
A blockchain is a distributed ledger for recording transactions, maintained
by many nodes without central authority through a distributed cryptographic
protocol. All nodes validate the information to be appended to the blockchain,
and a consensus protocol ensures that the nodes agree on a unique order in
which entries are appended. Consensus protocols for tolerating Byzantine faults
have received renewed attention because they also address blockchain systems.
This work discusses the process of assessing and gaining confidence in the
resilience of a consensus protocols exposed to faults and adversarial nodes. We
advocate to follow the established practice in cryptography and computer
security, relying on public reviews, detailed models, and formal proofs; the
designers of several practical systems appear to be unaware of this. Moreover,
we review the consensus protocols in some prominent permissioned blockchain
platforms with respect to their fault models and resilience against attacks.
The protocol comparison covers Hyperledger Fabric, Tendermint, Symbiont,
R3~Corda, Iroha, Kadena, Chain, Quorum, MultiChain, Sawtooth Lake, Ripple,
Stellar, and IOTA.
In text/plain
format
Archived Files and Locations
application/pdf 201.3 kB
file_vigjsgjgbnbhte7f72hfohtugq
|
arxiv.org (repository) web.archive.org (webarchive) |
1707.01873v2
access all versions, variants, and formats of this works (eg, pre-prints)