Consensus Algorithms in Blockchain Technology

Author(s):  
Hemlata Kohad ◽  
Sunil Kumar ◽  
Asha Ambhaikar
2018 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 51-63 ◽  
Author(s):  
Viktor Diordiiev

Introduction. Blockchain technology is becoming one of the main drivers of innovation in the global economy. Its adoption will have a huge impact on how businesses and governments operate and on the way people organize their everyday lives. Financial services industry is the one experiencing the biggest impact of the blockchain disruption so far, while financial institutions are among the first adopters of the technology. At the same time, being a relatively traditional industry, shipping has not yet seen many use cases with blockchain, but the technology is able to change this industry dramatically. Aim and tasks. As the industries of finance and shipping have huge potential in the blockchain space and often interact, determining how the blockchain technology adoption can influence the industries of finance and shipping in the future was the main purpose of this article. Research results. To fulfill this purpose, it was important to describe the origins of the blockchain technology, its main characteristics, functioning principles and consensus algorithms. Supported by the recent hype, cryptocurrencies are the biggest use case for blockchain so far, therefore, the article analyzes the largest of them, including Bitcoin, Ethereum and some others, as well as the cryptocurrency market as a whole. The level of worldwide adoption of blockchain and the overall market size are defined further in the article. Various applications in finance are also mentioned, paying particular attention to the insurance industry. Based on this information, the key areas in which blockchain can disrupt finance and insurance are identified. As the number of blockchain companies increases rapidly, the two main fundraising channels for such companies, venture capital and initial coin offering, are analyzed and compared. The ways in which blockchain may impact the shipping services industry are identified further. Conclusion. Afterwards, the article describes a number of blockchain consortia formed by public institutions and private entities to research and test possible applications of the technology across various industries and countries. While the potential of blockchain is still largely undiscovered, all the gathered information and performed research help to make a conclusion that the blockchain technology will have a big impact on many different industries, including financial and shipping services. The coming years will definitely see an exponentially growing interest in blockchain in academic and business fields, as the technology becomes more and more mainstream.


2022 ◽  
Author(s):  
Song Tang ◽  
Zhiqiang Wang ◽  
Jian Jiang ◽  
Suli Ge ◽  
GaiFang Tan

Abstract With the continuous development of blockchain technology and the emergence of application scenarios, consensus algorithms are still the bottleneck restricting the number of network nodes and data writing efficiency that blockchain can support. How to improve the performance of alliance blockchains safely and efficiently has become an urgent problem to be solved at present. For the practical Byzantine fault tolerance algorithm (PBFT) commonly used in alliance blockchains, there are some problems, such as large communication overhead, simple selection of master nodes, and inability to expand and exit nodes dynamically in the network. This paper proposes an improved algorithm tPBFT (trust-based practical Byzantine algorithm), which is suitable for the high-frequency transaction scenario of alliance chains and introduces a trust interest scoring mechanism between network nodes to adjust the list of consensus nodes dynamically, simplify the PBFT consensus process and reduce the interaction overhead between network nodes. Theoretical analysis and experiments show that the improved tPBFT algorithm can effectively reduce the amount of information interaction between nodes, improve consensus efficiency and support more network nodes.


2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 78-92
Author(s):  
Vedran Juričić ◽  
Matea Radošević ◽  
Ena Fuzul

AbstractBackgroundBlockchain technology has gained a great public interest due to the appearance of cryptocurrencies, a digital asset used for exchanging funds. Although blockchain calculations offer the benefits of security and reduced costs, blockchain is still strongly criticised for its lack of usefulness and resource-heavy consumption.ObjectivesThe aim of this research is to provide different insights into blockchain technology and to propose NP-complete problems as a suitable alternative to the current consensus algorithm.Methods/approachThis research discusses the current state of proposed alternatives, projects such as distributed volunteering for scientific purposes and different consensus algorithms within cryptocurrencies but focusing on incorporating NP-complete problems as a secondary, more useful option.ResultsUsing the properties of NP-complete problems, it is possible to solve various problems in different areas, such as science, biology, medicine and finance, but also to improve business processes, optimize markets, payments and supply chains while decreasing environmental costs.ConclusionsThis paper shows that the alternative mechanisms are being developed and used to substitute an existing Blockchain algorithm with a more efficient one. It also suggests further investigation in this area because the alternatives greatly improve blockchain’s usability and efficiency.


2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 8-18 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alessio Meneghetti ◽  
Massimiliano Sala ◽  
Daniele Taufer

We provide a historical overview of proof-of-work techniques and the fields in which it plunges its roots. We are interested in PoW-techniques applied to blockchain technology and therefore we survey the state-of-the-art protocols employing these methods for consensus algorithms, emphasizing the differences between the efficient hashcash systems and the promising bread pudding protocols. Afterwards, the consensus mechanisms are discussed and some interesting known attacks to these algorithms are collected and classified according to their underlying ideas.


Author(s):  
Jiayang Yao ◽  
Lan Wei ◽  
Tianqi Liu

The advantage of electronic voting is that the voting is convenient and quick and the counting of votes is simple, but it is difficult to meet the requirements of both high security and large-scale application. This paper proposes an electronic voting protocol and system based on blockchain technology. The blockchain layer will use the P2P network to build a distributed database, use digital signature algorithms and encryption technologies to ensure that the data cannot be tampered with, and consensus algorithms to ensure the consistency of the data in the network, and use time stamping technology to connect the data blocks end to end chain structure preservation. And the application of Ethereum fully integrates different functional modules as a whole, achieves consensus through a proof-of-work mechanism, miners mine, and the new network protocol is formulated to achieve synchronous operation of the blockchain. Finally, the smart contract deployed on Ethereum runs on an Ethereum-specific virtual machine, and interacts with the underlying blockchain through the Ethereum virtual machine and RPC interface.


Radiotekhnika ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 25-37
Author(s):  
N.A. Poluyanenko ◽  
Yu.I. Gorbenko ◽  
V.E. Safonenko ◽  
A.A. Kuznetsov

Blockchain technology is being studied in many innovative applications, such as: cryptocurrencies, smart contracts, communication systems, healthcare, Internet of Things, financial systems, software development, electronic voting and many others. Using a transparent and fully distributed peer-to-peer blockchain architecture, applications benefit from a data-only model, in which “transactions” are accepted into the blockchain ledger and, if the system is functioning properly, cannot be modified or deleted. The transparency of blockchain systems makes it possible to store publicly available and irrefutable records. A peer-to-peer blockchain system provides verifiable ledger maintenance without centralized management, which solves the problems of a single point of failure and a single point of trust. The article deals with the issue of the security of application of accounting systems built on decentralized principles using blockchain technology. Particular attention is paid to the problem of the possibility of double spending in such accounting systems. The article exemplifies the reorganization of records in blockchain ledgers, performed by successfully carrying out a 51% attack on consensus algorithms based on proof of work. Given refinement of analytical expressions of 51% attack probability obtained in the works of S. Nakamoto and M. Rosenfeld using a more general model, namely, the model of independent players, where the probability of block formation by attackers and an honest network are independent events. The results of comparing of the success probability of a double-spending attack on the blockchain systems calculated according to different models are presented.


Author(s):  
Ben van Lier

Thinking in terms of blockchain technology has developed rapidly over the past decade, with the focus primarily being on all the new possibilities created by this essentially technology-driven development. At its core, blockchain technology consists of a combination of reliable communication mechanisms between systems and the performance of joint decision-making processes by these systems. Consensus algorithms enable combinations of hardware, algorithms, and software (i.e., cyber-physical systems) to operate in networks and engage in secure intercommunication and interaction in these networks. Thanks to intercommunication, cyber-physical systems are able to reach consensus on decisions on information transactions to perform. This, in turn, empowers interconnected systems to increase their level of autonomy and adapt their individual and joint operations to changes that emerge from within them or from their environment.


Author(s):  
Rajalakshmi Krishnamurthi ◽  
Tuhina Shree

Blockchain is the world's most trusted service. It serves as a ledger that allows transaction to take place in a decentralized manner. There are so many applications based on blockchain technology, including those covering numerous fields like financial services, non-financial services, internet of things (IoT), and so on. Blockchain combines a distributed database and decentralized ledger without the need of verification by central authority. This chapter surveys the different consensus algorithms, blockchain challenges, and their scope. There are still many challenges of this technology, such as scalability and security problems, waiting to be overcome. The consensus algorithms of blockchain are proof of work (POW), proof of stake (POS), ripple protocol consensus algorithm (RPCA), delegated proof of stake (dPOS), stellar consensus protocol (SCP), and proof of importance (POI). This chapter discusses the core concept of blockchain and some mining techniques, consensus problems, and consensus algorithms and comparison algorithms on the basis of performance.


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