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arXiv:1607.01341cs.CR

Algorand

Jing Chen, Silvio Micali

Abstract

A public ledger is a tamperproof sequence of data that can be read and augmented by everyone. Public ledgers have innumerable and compelling uses. They can secure, in plain sight, all kinds of transactions ---such as titles, sales, and payments--- in the exact order in which they occur. Public ledgers not only curb corruption, but also enable very sophisticated applications ---such as cryptocurrencies and smart contracts. They stand to revolutionize the way a democratic society operates. As currently implemented, however, they scale poorly and cannot achieve their potential. Algorand is a truly democratic and efficient way to implement a public ledger. Unlike prior implementations based on proof of work, it requires a negligible amount of computation, and generates a transaction history that will not "fork" with overwhelmingly high probability. Algorand is based on (a novel and super fast) message-passing Byzantine agreement. For concreteness, we shall describe Algorand only as a money platform.

arXiv comments
Journal reference
DOI
Subjects
cs.CRCryptography and Security cs.DCDistributed, Parallel, and Cluster Computing

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Linked by 4 identifiable commenters in 6 comments across 4 threads, from Apr 2017 to Oct 2020. Found in 1 HN submission from Jul 2016 to Jul 2016. Open submission discussions.

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Discussed in comments4 threads

  1. Algorand Consensus Protocol 1 comment

    • I mean you can just read Silvio’s paper: https://arxiv.org/abs/1607.01341 My understanding on how the accounts are chosen is that they have a global list of users that have opted in to validate and they pick one person at random to create the block and then 1000 people at random…

      josh2600View on HNParent context

  2. Stellar Protocol: A Federated Model for Internet-Level Consensus (2016) [pdf] 1 comment

    • In distributed ledgers, it doesn't matter who the leader is. The system only has to ensure that leadership is distributed in such a way that it is statistically infeasible or economically unprofitable to rewrite history. PoW distributes the leadership (block creation) via crypto…

      alistproducer2View on HNParent context

  3. Photos: Life inside of China’s massive and remote Bitcoin mines 3 comments

    • Why not move to proof of stake? Proof of Work mining used in bitcon to secure the network as originally proposed in Nakomoto's paper has huge energy requirements. The result is large energy hungry mines as shown by the article. In addition, there is a centralization of…

      peercoinView on HNParent context

    • > Why not move to proof of stake? >> Because it doesn't make sense. If a chain, on which a token exists, needs securing, you can't use that chain's token to secure itself. I mean I'm not entirely sure what this argument is based on? In addition to existing proof of stake systems…

      peercoinView on HNParent context

    • >An honest mining majority is a hard requirement of Bitcoin. But proof-of-stake doesn't solve the problem of collusion -- it's even more susceptible to it since it's so easy to recreate valid-looking chains. With Bitcoin, two or more competing chains will at least be visible…

      peercoinView on HNParent context

  4. An off-grid social network 1 comment

    • > This is usually considered too expensive in the context of non-coin/-blockchain p2p networks because you want nodes to be able to run on embedded and other resource-constrained devices. The O(log n) node state and bootstrap cost limits are quite important. Otherwise it would…

      jude-View on HNParent context

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