research-article

Algorand: : A secure and efficient distributed ledger

Authors:

Silvio MicaliAuthors Info & Claims

Volume 777, Issue C

Pages 155 - 183

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tcs.2019.02.001

Published: 19 July 2019 Publication History

Abstract

A distributed ledger is a tamperproof sequence of data that can be publicly accessed and augmented by everyone, without being maintained by a centralized party. Distributed ledgers stand to revolutionize the way a modern society operates. They can secure all kinds of traditional transactions, such as payments, asset transfers and titles, in the exact order in which the transactions occur; and enable totally new transactions, such as cryptocurrencies and smart contracts. They can remove intermediaries and usher in a new paradigm for trust. As currently implemented, however, distributed ledgers scale poorly and cannot achieve their enormous potential.

In this paper we propose Algorand, an alternative, secure and efficient distributed ledger. Algorand is permissionless and works in a highly asynchronous environment. Unlike prior implementations of distributed ledgers based on “proof of work,” Algorand dispenses with “miners” and requires only a negligible amount of computation. Moreover, its transaction history “forks” only with negligible probability: that is, Algorand guarantees the finality of a transaction the moment the transaction enters the ledger.

References

[1]

M. Ben-Or, Another advantage of free choice: completely asynchronous agreement protocols, in: 2nd Symposium on Principles of Distributed Computing, PODC, 1983, pp. 27–30.

[2]

: BitShares. https://bitshares.org/.

[3]

: BlackCoin. https://blackcoin.co/.

[4]

S. Bubna, Bitcoin mining now consumes as much electricity as Iceland, Frontera.net, October, 2017.

[5]

M. Castro, B. Liskov, Practical Byzantine fault tolerance, in: 3rd Symposium on Operating Systems Design and Implementation, OSDI, 1999, pp. 173–186.

[6]

Chaum, D. (2012): Random-sample elections. https://chaum.com/publications/Random-SampleElections.pdf.

[7]

Chen, J.; Micali, S. (2017): Algorand. Technical report https://arxiv.org/abs/1607.01341v9.

[8]

B. Chor, C. Dwork, Randomization in Byzantine agreement, in: S. Micali (Ed.), Advances in Computing Research 5: Randomness and Computation, JAI Press, 1989, pp. 443–497.

[9]

J. Clark, K. Whitbourne, How much actual money is there in the world? HowStuffWorks.com, September, 2009.

[10]

B. David, P. Gaži, A. Kiayias, A. Russell, Ouroboros praos: an adaptively-secure, semi-synchronous proof-of-stake blockchain, in: EUROCRYPT, 2018, pp. 66–98. in press.

[11]

C. Decker, R. Wattenhofer, Information propagation in the Bitcoin network, in: 13th International Conference on Peer-to-Peer Computing, P2P, 2013.

[12]

D. Dolev, The Byzantine generals strike again, J. Algorithms 3 (1) (1982) 14–30.

[13]

D. Dolev, H.R. Strong, Authenticated algorithms for Byzantine agreement, SIAM J. Comput. 12 (4) (1983) 656–666.

[14]

J.R. Douceur, The Sybil attack, in: 1st International Workshop on Peer-to-Peer Systems, IPTPS, 2002, pp. 251–260.

[15]

C. Dwork, M. Naor, Pricing via processing or combatting junk mail, in: CRYPTO, 1992, pp. 139–147.

[16]

EOS : https://eos.io/.

[17]

: Ethereum. https://www.ethereum.org/.

[18]

P. Feldman, S. Micali, An optimal probabilistic algorithm for synchronous Byzantine agreement, SIAM J. Comput. 26 (4) (1997) 873–933. (Preliminary version in STOC'88).

[19]

M. Fischer, The consensus problem in unreliable distributed systems (a brief survey), in: International Conference on Foundations of Computation Theory, FCT, 1983, pp. 127–140.

[20]

M. Fischer, N. Lynch, M. Paterson, Impossibility of distributed consensus with one faulty process, J. ACM 32 (2) (1985) 374–382.

Digital Library

[21]

Y. Gilad, R. Hemo, S. Micali, G. Vlachos, N. Zeldovich, Algorand: scaling Byzantine agreements for cryptocurrencies, in: 26th ACM Symposium on Operating Systems Principles, SOSP, October 2017, pp. 51–68.

[22]

O. Goldreich, Foundations of Cryptography: Volume 1, Basic Tools, Cambridge University Press, 2007.

[23]

S. Goldwasser, S. Micali, R. Rivest, A digital signature scheme secure against adaptive chosen-message attack, SIAM J. Comput. 17 (2) (1988) 281–308.

[24]

Gorbunov, S.; Micali, S. (May 2015): Democoin: a publicly verifiable and jointly serviced cryptocurrency. https://eprint.iacr.org/2015/521.

[25]

J. Katz, C-Y. Koo, On expected constant-round protocols for Byzantine agreement, J. Comput. System Sci. 75 (2) (2009) 91–112.

[26]

A. Kiayias, A. Russell, B. David, R. Oliynykov, Ouroburos: a provably secure proof-of-stake blockchain protocol, in: CRYPTO, 2017, pp. 357–388.

[27]

King, S.; Nadal PPCoin, S. (2012): Peer-to-peer crypto-currency with proof-of-stake. White paper https://peercoin.net/assets/paper/peercoin-paper.pdf.

[28]

V. King, J. Saia, Byzantine agreement in expected polynomial time, J. ACM 63 (2) (2016).

[29]

Y. Lewenberg, Y. Sompolinsky, A. Zohar, Inclusive block chain protocols, in: International Conference on Financial Cryptography and Data Security, FC, 2015, pp. 528–547.

[30]

N. Lynch, Distributed Algorithms, Morgan Kaufmann Publishers, 1996.

Digital Library

[31]

R. Merkle, A digital signature based on a conventional encryption function, in: CRYPTO, 1987, pp. 369–378.

[32]

Micali, S. (July 2016): Algorand: the efficient public ledger. https://arxiv.org/abs/1607.01341.

[33]

S. Micali, Fast and furious Byzantine agreement, in: 8th Innovation in Theoretical Computer Science, ITCS, January 2017, Single-page abstract. Full version available at https://people.csail.mit.edu/silvio/SelectedScientificPapers/DistributedComputation/, with title “Byzantyne Agreement, Made Trivial”.

[34]

S. Micali, M. Rabin, S. Vadhan, Verifiable random functions, in: 40th Foundations of Computer Science, FOCS, 1999, pp. 120–130.

[35]

S. Micali, R.L. Rivest, Micropayments revisited, in: CT-RSA, 2002, pp. 149–163.

[36]

Bitcoin, S. Nakamoto (2008): A peer-to-peer electronic cash system. White paper http://www.bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf.

[37]

R. Pass, L. Seeman, a. shelat, Analysis of the blockchain protocol in asynchronous networks, in: EUROCRYPT, 2017, pp. 643–673.

[38]

R. Pass, E. Shi, FruitChain: a fair blockchain, in: Symposium on Principles of Distributed Computing, PODC, 2017, pp. 315–324.

[39]

R. Pass, E. Shi, The sleepy model of consensus, in: ASIACRYPT, 2017, pp. 380–409.

[40]

M. Pease, R. Shostak, L. Lamport, Reaching agreement in the presence of faults, J. ACM 27 (2) (1980) 228–234.

Digital Library

[41]

(2011): Proof of stake instead of proof of work. Bitcoin Forum https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=27787.0.

[42]

V. Pureswaran, S. Panikkar, S. Nair, P. Brody, Empowering the edge: practical insights on a decentralized Internet of things, in: IBM Institute for Business Value Executive Report, April 2015.

[43]

M. Rabin, Randomized Byzantine generals, in: 24th Foundations of Computer Science, FOCS, 1983, pp. 403–409.

[44]

A. Shamir, Identity-based cryptosystems and signature schemes, in: CRYPTO, 1984, pp. 47–53.

[45]

Sortition : Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sortition.

[46]

: Tendermint. https://tendermint.com/.

[47]

R. Turpin, B. Coan, Extending binary Byzantine agreement to multivalued Byzantine agreement, Inform. Process. Lett. 18 (2) (1984) 73–76.

Cited By

Civit PDzulfikar MGilbert SGuerraoui RKomatovic JVidigueira MKuznetsov PGelles ROlivetti D(2024)DARE to Agree: Byzantine Agreement With Optimal Resilience and Adaptive CommunicationProceedings of the 43rd ACM Symposium on Principles of Distributed Computing10.1145/3662158.3662792(145-156)Online publication date: 17-Jun-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3662158.3662792
Civit PGilbert SGuerraoui RKomatovic JParamonov AVidigueira MKuznetsov PGelles ROlivetti D(2024)All Byzantine Agreement Problems Are ExpensiveProceedings of the 43rd ACM Symposium on Principles of Distributed Computing10.1145/3662158.3662780(157-169)Online publication date: 17-Jun-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3662158.3662780
Chatterjee KEbrahimzadeh AKarrabi MPietrzak KYeo MŽikelić ĐKuznetsov PGelles ROlivetti D(2024)Fully Automated Selfish Mining Analysis in Efficient Proof Systems BlockchainsProceedings of the 43rd ACM Symposium on Principles of Distributed Computing10.1145/3662158.3662769(268-278)Online publication date: 17-Jun-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3662158.3662769
Show More Cited By

Index Terms

Algorand: A secure and efficient distributed ledger

Index terms have been assigned to the content through auto-classification.

Recommendations

BlockGraph: a scalable secure distributed ledger that exploits locality
Abstract
Distributed public ledgers, the key to modern cryptocurrencies and the heart of many novel applications, have scalability problems. Ledgers such as the blockchain underlying Bitcoin can process fewer than 10 transactions per second (TPS). The cost ...
Fractal: A New Paradigm for High-Performance Proof-of-Stake Blockchains
SCC '19: Proceedings of the Seventh International Workshop on Security in Cloud Computing

The phenomenal successes of cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum have demonstrated the exciting promise of blockchain in powering a new decentralized economy. Yet, the current technologies exhibit many limitations, from the huge energy waste to ...
Overcoming Limits of Blockchain for IoT Applications
ARES '17: Proceedings of the 12th International Conference on Availability, Reliability and Security

Blockchain technology allows the implementation of a public ledger securely recording transactions among peers without the need of trusted third parties. For both researchers and industry IoT appears a domain in which there would be extraordinary ...

Comments

Information & Contributors

Information

Published In

cover image Theoretical Computer Science

Theoretical Computer Science Volume 777, Issue C

Jul 2019

490 pages

ISSN:0304-3975

Issue’s Table of Contents

The Authors.

Publisher

Elsevier Science Publishers Ltd.

United Kingdom

Publication History

Published: 19 July 2019

Author Tags

Qualifiers

Research-article

Contributors

Other Metrics

View Article Metrics

Bibliometrics & Citations

Bibliometrics

Article Metrics

71
Total Citations
View Citations
0
Total Downloads

Downloads (Last 12 months)0
Downloads (Last 6 weeks)0

Reflects downloads up to

Other Metrics

View Author Metrics

Citations

Cited By

Civit PDzulfikar MGilbert SGuerraoui RKomatovic JVidigueira MKuznetsov PGelles ROlivetti D(2024)DARE to Agree: Byzantine Agreement With Optimal Resilience and Adaptive CommunicationProceedings of the 43rd ACM Symposium on Principles of Distributed Computing10.1145/3662158.3662792(145-156)Online publication date: 17-Jun-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3662158.3662792
Civit PGilbert SGuerraoui RKomatovic JParamonov AVidigueira MKuznetsov PGelles ROlivetti D(2024)All Byzantine Agreement Problems Are ExpensiveProceedings of the 43rd ACM Symposium on Principles of Distributed Computing10.1145/3662158.3662780(157-169)Online publication date: 17-Jun-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3662158.3662780
Chatterjee KEbrahimzadeh AKarrabi MPietrzak KYeo MŽikelić ĐKuznetsov PGelles ROlivetti D(2024)Fully Automated Selfish Mining Analysis in Efficient Proof Systems BlockchainsProceedings of the 43rd ACM Symposium on Principles of Distributed Computing10.1145/3662158.3662769(268-278)Online publication date: 17-Jun-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3662158.3662769
Gelles YKomargodski IMohar BShinkar IO'Donnell R(2024)Optimal Load-Balanced Scalable Distributed AgreementProceedings of the 56th Annual ACM Symposium on Theory of Computing10.1145/3618260.3649736(411-422)Online publication date: 10-Jun-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3618260.3649736
Halgamuge MMunasinghe GZukerman M(2024)Time Estimation for a New Block Generation in Blockchain-Enabled Internet of ThingsIEEE Transactions on Network and Service Management10.1109/TNSM.2023.331639421:1(535-557)Online publication date: 1-Feb-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1109/TNSM.2023.3316394
Uriawan WBadr YHasan OBrunie L(2024)Decentralized trustworthiness score management with smart contracts on the trustlend platformIET Blockchain10.1049/blc2.120534:1(59-72)Online publication date: 1-Mar-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1049/blc2.12053
Flamini ALongo RMeneghetti A(2024)Cob: a leaderless protocol for parallel Byzantine agreement in incomplete networksDistributed and Parallel Databases10.1007/s10619-022-07410-042:2(179-216)Online publication date: 1-Jun-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1007/s10619-022-07410-0
Albouy TFrey DRaynal MTaïani F(2024)Good-case early-stopping latency of synchronous byzantine reliable broadcast: the deterministic caseDistributed Computing10.1007/s00446-024-00464-637:2(121-143)Online publication date: 1-Jun-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1007/s00446-024-00464-6
Flamini ALongo RMeneghetti A(2024)Multidimensional Byzantine agreement in a synchronous settingApplicable Algebra in Engineering, Communication and Computing10.1007/s00200-022-00548-535:2(233-251)Online publication date: 1-Mar-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1007/s00200-022-00548-5
Benhamouda FHalevi SKrawczyk HMa YRabin T(2024)SPRINT: High-Throughput Robust Distributed Schnorr SignaturesAdvances in Cryptology – EUROCRYPT 202410.1007/978-3-031-58740-5_3(62-91)Online publication date: 26-May-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1007/978-3-031-58740-5_3
Show More Cited By

View Options

View options

Get Access

Login options

Check if you have access through your login credentials or your institution to get full access on this article.

Full Access

Get this Publication

Media

Figures

Other

Tables

View Issue’s Table of Contents