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Blockchain Peer-to-Peer Network: Performance and Security

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Handbook on Blockchain

Part of the book series: Springer Optimization and Its Applications ((SOIA,volume 194))

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Abstract

Mistrusting nodes in a blockchain can reach consensus without the need of a trusted central entity. Instead, the nodes reach consensus through exchanging information on a peer-to-peer (P2P) network, without pre-established identities. Serving as the foundation of the blockchain, the P2P network plays critical roles in all performance and security aspects of the blockchain system. While P2P networks had been previously examined for many applications domains, including the file sharing systems, there is relatively less understanding on blockchain P2P networks that differs substantially from traditional P2P systems. In this chapter, we will cover different aspects of blockchain P2P networks from topology, peer discovery, known attacks, and defenses to improvement proposals to increase the throughput and reduce the latency in blockchain. Finally, we investigate theoretical limit on the throughput of blockchain systems in which nodes have heterogeneous capacities. We provide insights and discussion on how to construct a network to achieve the maximum theoretical limit in throughput.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    https://github.com/ethereum/wiki.

  2. 2.

    In Ethereum, the invite messages are equivalent to the NewBlockHashes or NewPooledTransactionHashes messages.

  3. 3.

    According to Bitcoin historical data [39], at the time of this writing (April 2021), the average block size is 1.08 MB and the average transaction size is 459 B.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported in part by NSF under grant CNS 2140411.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA, USA

    Phuc D. Thai, Hong-sheng Zhou & Thang N. Dinh

  2. Harmony.one, Pittsburgh, PA, USA

    Minh Doan

  3. Mayo Clinic, Jacksonville, FL, USA

    Wei Liu

  4. University of Georgia, Athens, GA, USA

    Tianming Liu & Sheng Li

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  1. Phuc D. Thai
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  2. Minh Doan
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Correspondence to Phuc D. Thai .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Computer Science, University of Massachusetts Boston, Boston, MA, USA

    Duc A. Tran

  2. Department of Computer and Information Science and Engineering, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, USA

    My T. Thai

  3. Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, USA

    Bhaskar Krishnamachari

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Thai, P.D. et al. (2022). Blockchain Peer-to-Peer Network: Performance and Security. In: Tran, D.A., Thai, M.T., Krishnamachari, B. (eds) Handbook on Blockchain. Springer Optimization and Its Applications, vol 194. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-07535-3_2

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