Abstract / Description of output
A fundamental open problem in the area of blockchain protocols is whether the Bitcoin protocol is the only solution for building a secure transaction ledger. A recently proposed and widely considered alternative is the \GHOST protocol which, notably, was proposed to be at the core of Ethereum as well as other recent proposals for improved Bitcoin-like systems. % The \GHOST variant is touted as offering superior performance compared to Bitcoin (potentially offering block production speed up by a factor of more than 40) without a security loss. Motivated by this, in this work, we study from a provable security point of view the \GHOST protocol.
We introduce a new formal framework for the analysis of blockchain protocols that relies on trees (rather than chains) and we showcase the power of the framework by providing a unified description of the \GHOST and Bitcoin protocols, the former of which we extract and formally describe. We then prove that \GHOST implements a ``robust transaction ledger'' (i.e., possesses liveness and persistence) and hence it is a provably secure alternative to Bitcoin; moreover, our bound for the liveness parameter is superior to that proven for the bitcoin backbone in line with the original expectation for \GHOST. Our proof follows a novel methodology for establishing that \GHOST is a robust transaction ledger compared to previous works, which may be of independent interest and can be applicable to other blockchain variants.
We introduce a new formal framework for the analysis of blockchain protocols that relies on trees (rather than chains) and we showcase the power of the framework by providing a unified description of the \GHOST and Bitcoin protocols, the former of which we extract and formally describe. We then prove that \GHOST implements a ``robust transaction ledger'' (i.e., possesses liveness and persistence) and hence it is a provably secure alternative to Bitcoin; moreover, our bound for the liveness parameter is superior to that proven for the bitcoin backbone in line with the original expectation for \GHOST. Our proof follows a novel methodology for establishing that \GHOST is a robust transaction ledger compared to previous works, which may be of independent interest and can be applicable to other blockchain variants.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Title of host publication | Progress in Cryptology – LATINCRYPT 2017 |
| Subtitle of host publication | 5th International Conference on Cryptology and Information Security in Latin America, Havana, Cuba, September 20–22, 2017, Revised Selected Papers |
| Editors | Tanja Lange, Orr Dunkelman |
| Publisher | Springer |
| Number of pages | 25 |
| Volume | 11368 |
| Edition | 1st ed. 2019 edition |
| ISBN (Electronic) | 978-3-030-25283-0 |
| ISBN (Print) | 978-3-030-25282-3 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 8 Sept 2019 |
| Event | Latincrypt 2017, the Fifth International Conference on Cryptology and Information Security in Latin America - La Havana, Cuba Duration: 20 Sept 2017 → 22 Sept 2017 Conference number: 5 http://latincrypt.matcom.uh.cu/ |
Publication series
| Name | Lecture Notes in Computer Science (LNCS) |
|---|---|
| Publisher | Springer, Cham |
| Volume | 11368 |
| ISSN (Print) | 0302-9743 |
| ISSN (Electronic) | 1611-3349 |
Conference
| Conference | Latincrypt 2017, the Fifth International Conference on Cryptology and Information Security in Latin America |
|---|---|
| Abbreviated title | Latincrypt 2017 |
| Country/Territory | Cuba |
| City | La Havana |
| Period | 20/09/17 → 22/09/17 |
| Internet address |
Keywords / Materials (for Non-textual outputs)
- Cryptology