Abstract
Consensus mechanisms are a core feature for handling negotiation and agreements. Blockchain technology has seen the introduction of different sorts of consensus mechanism, ranging from tasks of heavy computation to the subtle mathematical proofs of Byzantine agreements. This paper presents the pioneer Delegated Byzantine Fault Tolerance (dBFT) protocol of Neo Blockchain, which was inspired by the Practical Byzantine Fault Tolerance (PBFT). Besides introducing its history, this study describes proofs and didactic examples, as well as novel design and extensions for Neo dBFT with multiple block proposals. Finally, we discuss challenges when dealing with strong Byzantine adversaries, and propose solutions inspired on PBFT for current weak-synchrony problems and increasing system robustness against attacks. Key Contribution: Presents an overview of the history of PBFT-inspired consensus for blockchain, highlighting its current importance on the literature, challenges and assumptions. Contributes to the field of Distributed Consensus, proposing novel extensions for the Neo dBFT (dBFT 2.0+, dBFT 3.0 and dBFT 3.0+), with new insights on innovative consensus mechanisms.
Highlights
The emergence of the Bitcoin cryptocurrency [1] boosted the popularity of various applications of blockchain technology, focusing on the financial sector, and several other industries
We explore variants of Practical Byzantine Fault Tolerance (PBFT)-inspired consensus for blockchain, focusing on the Delegated Byzantine Fault Tolerance (dBFT) consensus of the Neo Blockchain and raising theoretical background for the underlying peer-to-peer network and for blockchains
Inspired by the common challenge faced by consensus of guaranteeing one block finality, this paper explores possible Byzantine attacks and frequent natural network failures
Summary
The emergence of the Bitcoin cryptocurrency [1] boosted the popularity of various applications of blockchain technology, focusing on the financial sector, and several other industries. Over 20 years ago, the groundbreaking work on PBFT by Miguel Castro and Barbara Liskov [7] had demonstrated the practical feasibility of dealing with systematic byzantine (The term Byzantine was coined by Leslie Lamport [6], on the Byzantine Generals Problem, which represents a faulty machine that shows arbitrary behavior, invalidating or even attacking the protocol itself.) faults in a distributed system, even in face of a very strong adversary The resiliency of such system was proven to be optimal, resisting up to f faulty/byzantine nodes, from a total of N = 3 f + 1 replicated state machines [11]. Maybe the others were just delayed, so you need extra f + 1 confirmations to be certain of the truth
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