Continuous improvement of script-driven verifiable random functions for reducing computing power in blockchain consensus protocols

Abstract

In order to solve the problem of low efficiency and high energy consumption of the Proof-of-Work (PoW) consensus protocol in blockchain within a peer-to-peer network, some new protocols based on Verifiable Random Function (VRF) have emerged recently. However, these VRF-based consensus protocols do not actually give a concrete and efficient VRF construction. In view of this, we present three simple and practical VRF constructions from the RSA hardness assumption, the Decisional Diffie-Hellman (DDH) assumption and the Leftover Hash Lemma (LHL) respectively, the output size of which is continuously reduced for the design of efficient consensus protocol in blockchain. We also give a complete security analysis of our VRF constructions. Furthermore, we show a specific application of our VRF constructions in the famous Algorand consensus protocol. We illustrate a general approach to integrate our VRF constructions with block structure in blockchain. Comparing with PoW-based mining, we demonstrate the detailed process of VRF-based consensus protocol. Meanwhile, three new opcodes are designed for the scripting system in blockchain to develop a script pair, scriptProof and scriptHash, which provides secure and efficient block verification. Finally, we evaluate the performance of our VRF constructions in terms of storage and computational overheads, and the experimental evaluation results show our VRF constructions can significantly reduce the computing power of consensus protocol in blockchain.

A survey on blockchain consensus mechanism: research overview, current advances and future directions

“…High time efficiency (Sun et al, 2021b) Scalability (Chen and Micalib, 2019;Guo et al, 2022) Decentralization (Hanke et al, 2018) Various types of attacks (David et al, Blockchain consensus mechanism entire network. However, if the block generation interval is short, the transaction confirmation speed will be faster, resulting in collisions.…”

“…To decrease the time consumption of consensus process, a RAFT consensus algorithm with leadership transfer is presented (Tan et al , 2022), which has significantly improved consensus efficiency. The propose VRF constructions (Guo et al , 2022) can significantly reduce the computing power of consensus protocol in blockchain.…”

“…Existing schemes designed different algorithms to increase the capacity and throughput of the blockchain. To decrease the time consumption of consensus process, a RAFT consensus algorithm with leadership transfer is presented (Tan et al, 2022), which has significantly improved (Guo et al, 2022) can significantly reduce the computing power of consensus protocol in blockchain.…”

Blockchain Consensus Mechanism for Distributed Energy Transactions

“…Verifiable Random Function. Verifiable random function (VRF) can generate specific outputs from specific inputs [19]. Its biggest feature is that it can verify that the output result is correct without knowing the input.…”

An Anonymous Verifiable Random Function with Applications in Blockchain

“…Numerous efforts have been invested in the pursuit of diversifying and simplifying constructions and underlying assumptions of verifiable random functions [13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21]. Most of them are based on RSA assumption or other complex assumptions.…”