A Framework for Blockchain Architecture Design

TL;DR

This paper introduces a new model to analyze blockchain data structure dynamics under network delays, providing insights into architecture design for emerging applications like supply chains and IoT.

Contribution

It develops a general model for blockchain data structures considering network delays and verifies the one-endedness property for key architectures.

Findings

The model captures the impact of network delays on blockchain structure.

Certain leading blockchain architectures satisfy the one-endedness criterion.

Provides a foundation for designing blockchain architectures for dynamic applications.

Abstract

Emerging applications of blockchains, such as grocery supply chains, require frequent updates to the data structure. This is in contrast with typical analyses of the Bitcoin blockchain, in which updates occur infrequently. With more frequent updates, the spread of blocks among participants in the blockchain protocol becomes complicated; thus, the structure of the blockchain data structure itself can differ significantly from the structure without the presence of network delays. In addition, emerging blockchain applications such as internet-of-things or supply chain warrant different architectures of the blockchain data structure, and so one needs a general understanding of how the data structure works rather than focusing on the specific architecture of Bitcoin. In this paper, we develop a new model to study the dynamics of the blockchain data structure in the presence of i.i.d.~network delays. Specifically, we consider an asymptotic design criterion called one-endedness, which should be satisfied by all blockchain architectures. We develop techniques to show that the one-endedness property holds for some of the leading blockchain architectures.