Frosty for partial synchrony

TL;DR

This paper adapts the Frosty consensus protocol, originally designed for full synchrony, to operate effectively in a partially synchronous environment, enhancing blockchain robustness.

Contribution

It introduces modifications to Frosty to enable its use in partial synchrony, addressing a key limitation of the original protocol.

Findings

Frosty can be adapted for partial synchrony with specific modifications.

The modified protocol maintains liveness and safety properties in partial synchrony.

Enhanced protocol resilience against network delays and attacks.

Abstract

Snowman is the consensus protocol used by blockchains on Avalanche. Recent work has shown both how to augment Snowman with a `liveness' module called `Frosty' that protects against liveness attacks, and also how to modify Snowman so as to be consistent in partial synchrony. Since Frosty assumes (a strong form of) synchrony, the aim of this note is to show how to modify Frosty to deal with the partially synchronous version of Snowman.