Abstract
In this paper we investigate the impact of transaction validation of two tip selection mechanisms in DAG blockchains such as the tangle of IOTA on the performance of the consensus mechanism. The tip selection algorithm determines which prior transactions are validated by a transaction. With validating a tip a transaction is appended to the tangle. We present TangleSim, our simulator based on OMNeT++, which allows to evaluate the transaction validation time and the time a transaction will spend as a tip in DAG blockchains. We find that the weighted random walk selection can achieve a lower transaction validation time than the random tip selection algorithm in many cases.
The work was done while the author was at Cardiff University.
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Notes
- 1.
PayPal, during second quarter of 2018 processed 2,327,000,000 transactions which equates to an average of 294.93 Tx/s.
- 2.
Available on Github at https://github.com/richardg93/TangleSim.
- 3.
It has been shown that given certain conditions and strategies this proportion can decrease to 30% [8].
- 4.
- 5.
The network choosing to discard a sub-chain for a longer sub-chain could be considered a state change as well. In contrast, in the Tangle transactions attached are never discarded, but can be left behind when other transactions choose not to approve them.
- 6.
The IOTA team place their walkers at regular intervals, it is not clear exactly what mechanism they use to achieve this. TangleSim uses the backtrack method per walker.
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Acknowledgements
We would like to thank the anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments, especially regarding comparison with the parameter settings in IOTA.
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Gardner, R., Reinecke, P., Wolter, K. (2020). Performance of Tip Selection Schemes in DAG Blockchains. In: Pardalos, P., Kotsireas, I., Guo, Y., Knottenbelt, W. (eds) Mathematical Research for Blockchain Economy. Springer Proceedings in Business and Economics. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-37110-4_8
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