Rorqual: Speeding up Narwhal with TEEs

TL;DR

Rorqual is a protocol that leverages Trusted Execution Environments to significantly improve the performance, latency, and security of the Narwhal Mempool by optimizing DAG-based consensus processes.

Contribution

It introduces Rorqual, a novel TEE-integrated protocol that enhances Narwhal's efficiency and security, reducing latency and communication complexity.

Findings

Rorqual achieves lower latency compared to Narwhal.

The protocol increases throughput significantly.

It maintains security under adversarial conditions.

Abstract

In this paper, we introduce Rorqual, a protocol designed to enhance the performance of the Narwhal Mempool by integrating Trusted Execution Environments (TEEs). Both Narwhal and Roqual are protocols based on a Directed Acyclic Graph (DAG). Compared to Narwhal, Rorqual achieves significant reductions in latency and increases throughput by streamlining the steps required to include a vertex in the DAG. The use of TEEs also reduces the communication complexity of the protocol while maintaining low computational costs. Through rigorous analysis, we demonstrate the protocol's robustness under both normal and adversarial conditions, highlighting its improvements in throughput, latency, and security.