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Robust Proof of Stake: A New Consensus Protocol for Sustainable Blockchain Systems

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  • Aiya Li

    (School of Economics and Management, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190, China)

  • Xianhua Wei

    (School of Economics and Management, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190, China)

  • Zhou He

    (School of Economics and Management, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190, China
    Key Laboratory of Big Data Mining and Knowledge Management, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190, China)

Abstract

In the digital economy era, the development of a distributed robust economy system has become increasingly important. The blockchain technology can be used to build such a system, but current mainstream consensus protocols are vulnerable to attack, making blockchain systems unsustainable. In this paper, we propose a new Robust Proof of Stake (RPoS) consensus protocol, which uses the amount of coins to select miners and limits the maximum value of the coin age to effectively avoid coin age accumulation attack and Nothing-at-Stake (N@S) attack. Under a comparison framework, we show that the RPoS equals or outperforms Proof of Work (PoW) protocol and Proof of Stake (PoS) protocol in three dimensions: energy consumption, robustness, and transaction processing speed. To compare the three consensus protocols in terms of trade efficiency, we built an agent-based model and find that RPoS protocol has greater or similar trade request-satisfied ratio than PoW and PoS. Hence, we suggest that RPoS is very suitable for building a robust digital economy distributed system.

Suggested Citation

  • Aiya Li & Xianhua Wei & Zhou He, 2020. "Robust Proof of Stake: A New Consensus Protocol for Sustainable Blockchain Systems," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(7), pages 1-15, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:12:y:2020:i:7:p:2824-:d:340545
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

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    5. Carlo Gola & Johannes Sedlmeir, 2022. "Addressing the Sustainability of Distributed Ledger Technology," Questioni di Economia e Finanza (Occasional Papers) 670, Bank of Italy, Economic Research and International Relations Area.
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    8. Valerio Mandarino & Giuseppe Pappalardo & Emiliano Tramontana, 2023. "Proof of Flow: A Design Pattern for the Green Energy Market," Future Internet, MDPI, vol. 15(9), pages 1-23, September.
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