An Efficient and Secure Node-sampling Consensus Mechanism for Blockchain Systems

Zhelin Liang, Hao Xu, Xiulong Liu, Shan Jiang, Keqiu Li

Research output: Chapter in book / Conference proceedingConference article published in proceeding or bookAcademic researchpeer-review

Abstract

The consensus mechanism plays a pivotal role in guaranteeing the security and consistency of blockchain systems and substantially affects system performance. However, an increasing number of blockchain nodes degrade the consensus performance dramatically because of the high communication complexity in traditional consensus mechanisms. In this paper, we propose NS-consensus, a secure node-sampling blockchain consensus mechanism reducing the communication complexity significantly. The key novelty lies in the sampling of blockchain nodes so that the leader only needs to interact with the sampling nodes in each consensus epoch. However, NS-consensus imposes two challenges in determining an optimal sample size and denying malicious proposals. To address the challenges, we determine the sample size under the constraints of a confidence level and a margin of error to enhance communication efficiency without compromising system security. Furthermore, we design a mechanism to enable the leader to interact with all blockchain nodes in the last consensus phase, ensuring the denial of malicious proposals. The extensive experimental results indicate that NS-consensus outperforms the state-of-the-art with up to 175.1% higher system throughput and 79.9% lower time overhead in the sampling phases.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationProceedings - 2022 18th International Conference on Mobility, Sensing and Networking, MSN 2022
PublisherInstitute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc.
Pages371-378
Number of pages8
ISBN (Electronic)9781665464574
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2022
Event18th International Conference on Mobility, Sensing and Networking, MSN 2022 - Virtual, Online, China
Duration: 14 Dec 202216 Dec 2022

Publication series

NameProceedings - 2022 18th International Conference on Mobility, Sensing and Networking, MSN 2022

Conference

Conference18th International Conference on Mobility, Sensing and Networking, MSN 2022
Country/TerritoryChina
CityVirtual, Online
Period14/12/2216/12/22

Keywords

  • Blockchain
  • Consensus
  • Sampling
  • Security

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Computer Networks and Communications
  • Hardware and Architecture
  • Safety, Risk, Reliability and Quality
  • Instrumentation

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