Secure Incentivization for Decentralized Content Delivery

TL;DR

This paper explores the potential of monetary incentives to encourage peer participation in decentralized P2P content delivery, proposing a secure system called Gringotts with a novel proof mechanism and cryptocurrency payments.

Contribution

It introduces Gringotts, a new incentive system for P2P content delivery that includes a proof of delivery and secure cryptocurrency-based payments.

Findings

51% of surveyed individuals are willing to participate for financial incentives

The proposed system can verify correct delivery of content

Cryptocurrency payments can be securely integrated into P2P systems

Abstract

Prior research has proposed technical solutions to use peer-to-peer (P2P) content delivery to serve Internet video, showing that it can reduce costs to content providers. Yet, such methods have not become widespread except for a few niche instances. An important challenge is incentivization: what tangible benefits does P2P content delivery offer users who bring resources to the table? In this paper, we ask whether monetary incentives can help attract peers in P2P content delivery systems. We commissioned a professional survey of people around theUnited States to answer several relevant questions. We found that 51% of the 876 respondents--substantially larger than our expectations--answered "yes" to whether they would participate for suitable financial incentives. Encouraged by the results of the survey, we propose Gringotts, a system to structure incentives and securely incorporate P2P delivery into content delivery systems. Gringotts provides a novel Proof of Delivery mechanism that allows content providers to verify correct delivery of their files, and shows how to use cryptocurrency to pay peers while guarding against liars and Sybil attacks.