Bano, S;
Sonnino, A;
Al-Bassam, M;
Azouvi, S;
McCorry, P;
Meiklejohn, S;
Danezis, G;
(2019)
SoK: Consensus in the Age of Blockchains.
In:
AFT '19: Proceedings of the 1st ACM Conference on Advances in Financial Technologies.
(pp. pp. 183-198).
ACM: Association for Computing Machinery: New York, NY, USA.
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Abstract
The core technical component of blockchains is consensus: how to reach agreement among a distributed network of nodes. A plethora of blockchain consensus protocols have been proposed---ranging from new designs, to novel modifications and extensions of consensus protocols from the classical distributed systems literature. The inherent complexity of consensus protocols and their rapid and dramatic evolution makes it hard to contextualize the design landscape. We address this challenge by conducting a systematization of knowledge of blockchain consensus protocols. After first discussing key themes in classical consensus protocols, we describe: (i) protocols based on proof-of-work; (ii) proof-of-X protocols that replace proof-of-work with more energy-efficient alternatives; and (iii) hybrid protocols that are compositions or variations of classical consensus protocols. This survey is guided by a systematization framework we develop, to highlight the various building blocks of blockchain consensus design, along with a discussion on their security and performance properties. We identify research gaps and insights for the community to consider in future research endeavours.
| Type: | Proceedings paper |
|---|---|
| Title: | SoK: Consensus in the Age of Blockchains |
| Event: | 1st ACM Conference on Advances in Financial Technologies (AFT) |
| Location: | Zurich, SWITZERLAND |
| Dates: | 21 October 2019 - 23 October 2019 |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.1145/3318041.3355458 |
| Publisher version: | https://doi.org/10.1145/3318041.3355458 |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | This version is the author accepted manuscript. For information on re-use, please refer to the publisher’s terms and conditions. |
| Keywords: | Computer Science, blockchains, consensus, proof-of-work, proof-of-stake, Byzantine Fault Tolerance |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of Engineering Science UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of Engineering Science > Dept of Computer Science |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10115267 |
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