A scalable consent protocol for blockchain

A team of researchers from the Pyrofex Corporation recently introduced Casanova, an optimistic consensus algorithm without leading suitable for use in a blockchain. Rather than producing a chain, Casanova produces blocks in a direct acyclic graph (DAG), which is essentially a direct graph without cycles. Casanova conducts voting rounds and blocks production to improve scalability and has a "veto" of unique line items for conflicting transactions, such as double expenses.

"We were looking for a scalable consensus algorithm that we could use to implement a couple of different blockchain projects in progress," said the Pyrofex research team at TechXplore, via e-mail. "Initially we thought Casper was right and he tried to prove that he was safe and lived in ideal network conditions." It did not take long to prove that this was not the case and to conclude that we would have to make some significant changes. it solves all the problems we have had to deal with, but it has required many deviations from the previous approaches ".

Most existing blockchain technologies waste considerable time and resources to allow the entire network to agree on the overall order of each individual transaction. Although this may seem reasonable, the researchers believe that a good blockchain approach should be able to process transactions in any order.

"We should use energy and resources only to reach consensus when it is necessary to do so – that is, when there are two conflicting transactions and the network has to choose exactly one," the researchers said. "Other blockchains have tried something similar, but with Casanova we were able to specify exactly how to get this result."

A notable feature of Casanova is that it does not build a blockchain in itself, but rather builds a DAG. The researchers refer to the Casanova structure as a "blockdag". If the structure of a blockchain can be compared to a string, a blockdag resembles a piece of fabric with multiple strings intertwined together.

"Therefore, instead of confirming one block at a time, Casanova confirms one block at a time for a member of the network," the researchers said. "So if the network has 1,000 members, we can confirm 1,000 blocks at once rather than just 1. We do all of this at the same time that a regular blockchain would pass to consensus on a single block."

Casanova has validators instead of miners and these produce blocks on a regular basis, once every minute or so. When the validators receive a transaction from a customer, they enter it in the next block and sign the block to prove they have seen it.

The validators also exchange blocks with one another, to ensure that everyone can see all the transactions. When a validator is ready to produce a new block, it includes information about the blocks he has seen from everyone else.

"The only concern is when two conflicting transactions arrive, such as when a user tries to double spending," the researchers explained. "When validators see a conflict, they include information about it in the next block: using information from all blocks, the network decides which transaction will be valid and will be deleted."

While it may appear that this process is not sufficient to ensure security, validators use mathematical structures to track both the transactions and the votes of the other validators. According to the researchers, this allows them to draw important conclusions, which ultimately guarantee security.

"One of the most beautiful features of Casanova is this: you can spam the network with a double expense, which will slow it down, but the network will only slow down for the spammer's account," said the Pyrofex research team. "All other transactions are processed at normal speed, because you can not force them to conflict with your transactions, Casanova has a kind of" veto voice "on spam transactions that are unique in the industry, as far as we know."

Although there are many blocking algorithms, most of them are proof of work (PoW), while Casanova is a game test (PoS). Furthermore, most existing protocols try to give total order in cases where a partial order would be sufficient.

"We are the first proof-of-stake blockdag consent algorithm that we know and maintain transactions in a partial order," the researchers wrote. "We have also made fundamentally new observations on how members of a blockchain should record and track information."

Researchers will publish a new article explaining why their observations are more general, mathematically stronger and have a clearer meaning than those collected using other blockchains or cryptocurrencies. A big advantage of Casanova is that it is quite general, making it easy for users to customize the algorithm based on their specific needs.

"Also the observation of the claim is important, is one of the main reasons why we expect our consent algorithm to be screaming fast," the researchers explained. "We designed a consent algorithm to be fast, secure, and robust against network failures, so we created a transaction model that could be used to build a blockchain, which is why we think our technology will be faster and simpler than most technologies available today. "

To broaden the scope of their study, researchers are now working to implement a demonstration of the concept and formally test it in the Agda test assistant. The development of Casanova has allowed them to gather valuable information on the existing pool of consensus literature, which they intend to write and publish in the coming months.

"We have also developed a register model to be used with Casanova, which we will build in a blockchain in the near future," the researchers said. "We are working on a calculation model that is suitable and will allow us to build a smart bargaining blockchain.There is a lot to do, including most of the pole test machinery such as rewards, commissions, bonding, unbonding and so on, it will be a busy year ".

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