Blockchain: A Novel Approach for the Consensus Algorithm Using Condorcet Voting Procedure

Abstract

The blockchain technology allows interested parties to access a common register, the update, and integrity of which are collectively managed in a decentralized manner by a network of actors. It is the consensus protocol that ensures a common and unambiguous update of transactions by creating blocks of transactions for which integrity, veracity, and consistency are guaranteed through geographically distributed nodes. Bitcoin, the first popular blockchain concept, introduced the Proof of Work consensus based on work validation, and has been extended to thousands of participants. Despite its success and its large use in other crypto-currencies, Proof of Work's disadvantages are a high latency, a low transaction rate, and a high energy expenditure, making it a less-than-perfect choice for many applications. In addition the validation of transactions is not carried out with a definite temporality. For Bitcoin, it takes on average 10 minutes to create a block. However, for certain use cases such as auctions or the exchange of energy, there is a need for this temporality. The purpose of this article is to propose a new type of consensus that is faster, less energy-consuming and that can be synchronized with a time reference. The core of the reflection is the use of the Condorcet voting mechanism to determine the miner.

BCOSN: A Blockchain-Based Decentralized Online Social Network

“…When the majority of the computing power is concentrated in a group, they can attack the blockchain and the application deployed in the blockchain, which is usually called 51% attack. However, the cost of such attacks is very expensive, and there are already relevant studies (see [46]) trying to deal with such issues.…”