ONLAY: Online Layering for scalable asynchronous BFT system

TL;DR

ONLAY introduces a scalable asynchronous BFT framework using layering algorithms on DAGs, enabling deterministic consensus without blockchains, improving scalability and fault tolerance in distributed systems.

Contribution

The paper proposes a novel layering-based consensus protocol, $L_{phi}$, for asynchronous DAGs that achieves scalable Byzantine fault tolerance without blockchain reliance.

Findings

Achieves deterministic scalable consensus in asynchronous pBFT.

Uses layering algorithms to organize DAGs for fault tolerance.

Provides a formal model applicable to asynchronous DAG-based systems.

Abstract

This paper presents a new framework, namely \emph{\onlay}, for scalable asynchronous distributed systems. In this framework, we propose a consensus protocol $L_{\phi}$, which is based on the Lachesis protocol~\cite{lachesis01}. At the core of $L_{\phi}$ protocol, it introduces to use layering algorithm to achieve practical Byzantine fault tolerance (pBFT) in leaderless asynchronous Directed Acyclic Graph (DAG). Further, we present new online layering algorithms for the evolutionary DAGs across the nodes. Our new protocol achieves determistic scalable consensus in asynchronous pBFT by using assigned layers and asynchronous partially ordered sets with logical time ordering instead of blockchains. The partial ordering produced by $L_{\phi}$ is flexible but consistent across the distributed system of nodes. We then present the formal model of our layering-based consensus. The model is generalized that can be applied to abstract asynchronous DAG-based distributed systems.