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Weighted voting on the blockchain: Improving consensus in proof of stake protocols

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Listed:
  • Stefanos Leonardos
  • Daniël Reijsbergen
  • Georgios Piliouras

Abstract

Proof of stake (PoS) protocols rely on voting mechanisms to reach consensus on the current state. If an enhanced majority of staking nodes, also called validators, agree on a proposed block, then this block is appended to the blockchain. Yet these protocols remain vulnerable to faults caused by validators who abstain either accidentally or maliciously. To protect against such faults while retaining the PoS selection and reward allocation schemes, we study weighted voting in validator committees. We formalize the block creation process and introduce validators' voting profiles which we update by a multiplicative weights algorithm relative to validators' voting behavior and aggregate blockchain rewards. Using this framework, we leverage weighted majority voting rules that optimize collective decision making to show, both numerically and analytically, that the consensus mechanism is more robust if validators' votes are appropriately scaled. We raise potential issues and limitations of weighted voting in trustless, decentralized networks and relate our results to the design of current PoS protocols.

Suggested Citation

  • Stefanos Leonardos & Daniël Reijsbergen & Georgios Piliouras, 2020. "Weighted voting on the blockchain: Improving consensus in proof of stake protocols," International Journal of Network Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 30(5), September.
    • Handle: RePEc:wly:intnem:v:30:y:2020:i:5:n:e2093
    DOI: 10.1002/nem.2093
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Ben-Yashar, Ruth C & Nitzan, Shmuel I, 1997. "The Optimal Decision Rule for Fixed-Size Committees in Dichotomous Choice Situations: The General Result," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 38(1), pages 175-186, February.
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    Cited by:

    1. Hans Gersbach & Akaki Mamageishvili & Manvir Schneider, 2021. "Vote Delegation and Misbehavior," Papers 2102.08823, arXiv.org, revised May 2021.
    2. Alon Benhaim & Brett Hemenway Falk & Gerry Tsoukalas, 2021. "Scaling Blockchains: Can Committee-Based Consensus Help?," Papers 2110.08673, arXiv.org, revised Dec 2022.

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