Abstract
In blockchain technology, consensus protocols serve as mechanisms to reach agreements among a distributed network of nodes. Using a centralized party or consortium, private blockchains achieve high transaction throughput and scalability, Hyperledger Sawtooth is a prominent example of private blockchains that uses Proof of Elapsed Time (PoET) (SGX-based) to achieve consensus. In this paper, we propose a novel protocol, called Proof of Queue (PoQ), for private (permissioned) blockchains, that combines the lottery strategy of PoET with a specialized round-robin algorithm where each node has an equal chance to become a leader (who propose valid data blocks to the chain) with equal access. PoQ is relatively scalable without any collision. Similar to PoET, our protocol uses Intel SGX, a Trusted Execution Environment, to generate a secure random waiting time to choose a leader, and fairly distribute the leadership role to everyone on the network. PoQ scales fairness linearly with SGX machines: the more the SGX in the network, the higher the number of chances to be selected as a leader per unit time. Our analysis and experiments show that PoQ provides significant performance improvements over PoET.
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Notes
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Intel, “Software sealing policies– intel® software guard extensions developer guide,” 2017. [Online]. Available: https://software.intel.com/en-us/documentation/sgx-developer-guide.
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Max Memory Bandwidth is the maximum rate at which data can be read from or stored into a semiconductor memory by the processor (in GB/s).
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Bashar, G.D., Avila, A.A., Dagher, G.G. (2020). PoQ: A Consensus Protocol for Private Blockchains Using Intel SGX. In: Park, N., Sun, K., Foresti, S., Butler, K., Saxena, N. (eds) Security and Privacy in Communication Networks. SecureComm 2020. Lecture Notes of the Institute for Computer Sciences, Social Informatics and Telecommunications Engineering, vol 336. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-63095-9_8
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