Keeping Them Honest: a Trustless Multi-Agent Algorithm to Validate Transactions Cleared on Blockchain using Physical Sensors

TL;DR

This paper proposes a trustless, secure peer-to-peer system that uses physical sensors to verify energy transactions on blockchain, enhancing reliability and honesty among grid participants.

Contribution

It introduces a novel physical validation mechanism for blockchain-based energy transactions, preventing malicious data injection and ensuring system integrity.

Findings

Preliminary simulations demonstrate the effectiveness of the validation framework.

The system can detect and isolate malicious agents attempting to inject false data.

Enhances security and trustworthiness of blockchain transactive energy systems.

Abstract

In recent years, many Blockchain based frameworks for transacting commodities on a congestible network have been proposed. In particular, as the number of controllable grid connected assets increases, there is a need for a decentralized, coupled economic and control mechanism to dynamically balance the entire electric grid. Blockchain based Transactive Energy (TE) systems have gained significant momentum as an approach to sustain the reliability and security of the power grid in order to support the flexibility of electricity demand. What is lacking in these designs, however, is a mechanism that physically verifies all the energy transactions, to keep the various inherently selfish players honest. In this paper, we introduce a secure peer-to-peer network mechanism for the physical validation of economic transactions cleared over a distributed ledger. The framework is $\textit{secure}$ in the sense that selfish and malicious agents that are trying to inject false data into the network are prevented from adversely affecting the optimal functionality of the verification process by detecting and isolating them from the communication network. Preliminary simulations focusing on TE show the workings of this framework.