Optimizing Streamlined Blockchain Consensus with Generalized Weighted Voting and Enhanced Leader Rotation

TL;DR

A novel continuous weighting scheme applied to the Hotstuff protocol is presented and it is proved the significant latency reduction impact of weighted voting on streamlined protocols and advocate for further research.

Abstract

Streamlined Byzantine Fault Tolerant (BFT) protocols, such as HotStuff [PODC'19], and weighted voting represent two possible strategies to improve consensus in the distributed systems world. Several studies have been conducted on both techniques, but the research on combining the two is scarce. To cover this knowledge gap, we introduce a weighted voting approach on Hotstuff, along with two optimisations targeting weight assignment distribution and leader rotation in the underlying state replication protocol. Moreover, the weighted protocols developed rely on studies proving the effectiveness of a specific voting power assignment based on discrete values. We generalise this approach by presenting a novel continuous weighting scheme applied to the Hotstuff protocol to highlight the effectiveness of this technique in faulty scenarios. We prove the significant latency reduction impact of weighted voting on streamlined protocols and advocate for further research.

Figures (9)

• Figure 1: Analysis of the impact of leader rotation on Hotstuff's latency performance for $f = 1, \Delta = 1$, $4$ views executed.
• Figure 2: Average latency per view in Hotstuff protocol variants for $f = 1, \Delta = 1$.
• Figure 3: Average latency per view in Chained Hotstuff protocol variants for $f = 1, \Delta = 1$.
• Figure 4: Average latency per view in Hotstuff protocol variants for faulty scenario, $f = 1, \Delta = 1$.
• Figure 5: Difference in latency performance between Best Assigned and Continuous Weighted Hotstuff variants for 1000 faulty scenario simulations, $f = 1, \Delta = 1$, $10$ views executed.