Erica Blum - Abraxas: A Black-Box Framework for Throughput-Efficient Hybrid Asynchronous Consensus

Erica Blum --- Reed College
Abraxas: A Black-Box Framework for Throughput-Efficient Hybrid Asynchronous Consensus
Blockchain protocols often face a tradeoff between throughput under low network delay and resilience under high network delay. Hybrid protocols (also called optimistic protocols) attempt to meet in the middle by pairing a high-throughput, low-latency “fast path” with a robust “slow path.” This talk discusses Abraxas, a recent framework that allows mixing and matching fast and slow paths via a black-box approach. Instantiating the framework with a specific choice of fast and slow paths produces a hybrid protocol with the throughput of the fast path under optimistic conditions, and the security of the slow path under arbitrary conditions. Notably, Abraxas maintains stable throughput even when the network experiences frequent “flip flopping” (alternating between the optimistic case and the general case). The talk will conclude with a discussion of takeaways from a protocol design perspective.
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Science and Engineering of Consensus Workshop
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An affiliated workshop of The Science of Blockchain Conference 2024
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