Scaling Blockchains: Can Committee-Based Consensus Help?

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Benhaim, Alon; Falk, Brett H.; Tsoukalas, Gerry
• 署名单位: University of Pennsylvania; University of Pennsylvania; Boston University; International Institute for Management Development (IMD)
• 刊物名称: MANAGEMENT SCIENCE
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0025-1909
• DOI: 10.1287/mnsc.2022.03177
• 发表日期: 2023
• 页码: 6525-6539
• 关键词: Approval voting; Blockchain; consensus protocols; decentralized governance; stake-weighted voting

摘要

In the high-stakes race for scalability, some blockchains have turned to committee-based consensus (CBC), whereby the chain's recordkeeping rights are entrusted to a committee of block producers elected via approval voting. Smaller committees boost speed and scalability but can compromise security when voters have limited information. In this environment, voting strategies are naturally nonlinear, and equilibria can become intractable. Despite this, we show that elections converge to optimality asymptotically (in voter numbers), exponentially quickly, and under relatively weak informational requirements. Compared to popular stake-weighted lottery and single-vote protocols used in practice, we find that CBC, when paired with approval voting, can offer meaningful efficiency and robustness gains if enough voters are engaged.