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From classical to blockchain consensus: What are the exact algorithms?

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contributionpeer-review

2 Scopus citations

Abstract

This tutorial describes well-known algorithms for distributed consensus problems, from classical consensus to blockchain consensus, and discusses exact algorithms that are high-level as in pseudocode and directly executable at the same time. The tutorial consists of five parts:(1) A introduction to different distributed consensus problems, from classical consensus and Byzantine consensus to blockchain consensus. (2) An overview of well-known algorithms, from Paxos for classical consensus to the Bitcoin algorithm for blockchain consensus, including important variants such as Viewstamped Replication and Virtual Synchrony, as well as Proof-of-Stake vs. Proof-of-Work. (3) An overview of a method and language, DistAlgo, for expressing distributed algorithms precisely at a high-level as pseudocode and having them be directly executable at the same time. (4) A study of exact algorithms expressed at a high level for the most extensively studied algorithm variants, including Lamport's Paxos for classical consensus and Nakamoto's Bitcoin algorithm for blockchain consensus. (5) A demo of the direct execution of these exact algorithms by distributed processes.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationPODC 2019 - Proceedings of the 2019 ACM Symposium on Principles of Distributed Computing
PublisherAssociation for Computing Machinery
Pages544-545
Number of pages2
ISBN (Electronic)9781450362177
DOIs
StatePublished - Jul 16 2019
Event38th ACM Symposium on Principles of Distributed Computing, PODC 2019 - Toronto, Canada
Duration: Jul 29 2019Aug 2 2019

Publication series

NameProceedings of the Annual ACM Symposium on Principles of Distributed Computing

Conference

Conference38th ACM Symposium on Principles of Distributed Computing, PODC 2019
Country/TerritoryCanada
CityToronto
Period07/29/1908/2/19

Keywords

  • Bitcoin algorithm
  • Blockchain consensus
  • Distributed consensus
  • High-level queries
  • Paxos algorithm
  • Synchronization conditions

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