2018/11/08 by Álvaro García-Pérez, Alexey Gotsman, García-Pérez, Álvaro +1
Computer Science · #Blockchain Technology Applications and Security #Cryptography and Data Security #Distributed #Distributed systems and fault tolerance #FOS: Computer and information sciences #Parallel #and Cluster Computing (cs.DC)
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.1811.03642
openalex publication_date 2018/11/08 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
Some of the recent blockchain proposals, such as Stellar and Ripple, use quorum-like structures typical for Byzantine consensus while allowing for open membership. This is achieved by constructing quorums in a decentralised way: each participant independently chooses whom to trust, and quorums arise from these individual decisions. Unfortunately, the theoretical foundations underlying such blockchains have not been thoroughly investigated. To close this gap, in this paper we study decentralised quorum construction by means of federated Byzantine quorum systems, used by Stellar. We rigorously prove the correctness of basic broadcast abstractions over federated quorum systems and establish their relationship to the classical Byzantine quorum systems. In particular, we prove correctness in the realistic setting where Byzantine nodes may lie about their trust choices. We show that this setting leads to a novel variant of Byzantine quorum systems where different nodes may have different understanding of what constitutes a quorum.