Author: Mike Brooks 2020-09-24 19:40:46
Published on: 2020-09-24T19:40:46+00:00
A paper titled "Floating-Point Nakamoto Consensus" has been released, proposing a new update to the Bitcoin network. The proposed update aims to make the network more secure against short-term disagreement and malicious attacks. Floating-Point Nakamoto consensus is introduced in the paper as a method for improving the consensus generation process in blockchain networks.The proposed method expedites the formation of a global consensus and incentivizes all miners to adopt the dominant chain. This is achieved by using a fitness test to determine the most fit solution block. If two solution blocks are advertised for the same height, a floating-point fitness value is calculated, and the solution with the higher fitness value is chosen as the winner and propagated to all neighbors. Each replacement of the current tip of the blockchain must be more fit than the previous one to avoid thrashing between competitive solutions.To have a purely decentralized solution, this kind of agreement must be empirically derived from the existing proof-of-work so that it is universally and identically verifiable by all nodes on the network. Additionally, this fitness-test evaluation needs to ensure that no two competing solutions can be numerically equivalent. To weigh the value of a given solution, a fitness score is calculated using a floating-point representation of the hash value.The proposed update can be viewed on the provided pull request link on GitHub. It can be implemented as a soft-fork, allowing patched and non-patched nodes to co-exist, and non-patched nodes to benefit from herd immunity in overall network stability. Any blockchain using Nakamoto Consensus can be modified to use a fitness constraint such as Floating-Point Nakamoto Consensus.The paper also highlights the potential threat of a malicious miner with knowledge of a specific kind of denial-of-service (DoS) vulnerability that could undermine the security guarantees developers rely upon. It is emphasized that any solution to such threats must be fully decentralized, and future-proofing was never really a consideration in the initial design of Bitcoin.In conclusion, Floating-Point Nakamoto Consensus proposes a new method for improving the consensus generation process in blockchain networks. It can be implemented as a soft-fork and can be adapted by other networks. The proposed update aims to make the Bitcoin network more secure against short-term disagreement and malicious attacks while ensuring full decentralization.
Updated on: 2023-06-14T15:31:26.927281+00:00