2014/12/26 by Christian Decker, Jochen Seidel, Decker, Christian +3
Computer Science · #Cryptography and Security (cs.CR) #Distributed #FOS: Computer and information sciences #Parallel #and Cluster Computing (cs.DC) #cs.CR #cs.DC
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.1412.7935
arxiv created 2014/12/26 · arxiv updated 2014/12/30
The Bitcoin system only provides eventual consistency. For everyday life, the time to confirm a Bitcoin transaction is prohibitively slow. In this paper we propose a new system, built on the Bitcoin blockchain, which enables strong consistency. Our system, PeerCensus, acts as a certification authority, manages peer identities in a peer-to-peer network, and ultimately enhances Bitcoin and similar systems with strong consistency. Our extensive analysis shows that PeerCensus is in a secure state with high probability. We also show how Discoin, a Bitcoin variant that decouples block creation and transaction confirmation, can be built on top of PeerCensus, enabling real-time payments. Unlike Bitcoin, once transactions in Discoin are committed, they stay committed.