Sui Lutris: A Blockchain Platform Combining Consensusless and Consensus-Based Transaction Processing for Optimal Performance and Security

מושגי ליבה

Sui Lutris is the first smart contract platform to achieve sub-second finality by employing consensusless agreement for a large variety of transactions, while using consensus only for complex smart contracts operating on shared-ownership objects.

תקציר

Sui Lutris is a novel blockchain system that combines consensusless and consensus-based transaction processing to achieve low latency and high throughput without compromising expressiveness or security.

The key highlights are:

1. Sui Lutris introduces an object-centric design, where transactions operate on typed objects that can be read-only, owned by a single user, or shared among multiple users. This allows for efficient parallelization of transaction execution.

2. For transactions involving only read-only or owned objects, Sui Lutris uses a consensusless approach, where transactions are finalized and settled within sub-second latencies through a reliable broadcast protocol. This fast path avoids the overhead of consensus.

3. For transactions involving shared objects, Sui Lutris relies on a consensus protocol to ensure safe and consistent execution. The hybrid architecture combines the low latency of consensusless transactions with the expressiveness of consensus-based smart contracts.

4. Sui Lutris introduces novel protocols for checkpointing and validator reconfiguration to ensure the long-term stability and liveness of the system, without compromising the low-latency benefits of the consensusless path.

5. Sui Lutris has been deployed in production as the core of the Sui blockchain since May 2023, processing over 3.1 million certificates per day (over 8.9 million ops/day) with sub-second finality, and handling over 700 million USD in DeFi value locked.

סטטיסטיקה

Sui Lutris achieves latency lower than 0.5 seconds for throughput up to 5,000 certificates per second (150k ops/s with transaction blocks), compared to the state-of-the-art real-world consensus latencies of 3 seconds.
Sui Lutris can provably withstand up to 1/3 of crash validators without meaningful performance degradation.

ציטוטים

"Sui Lutris is the first smart-contract platform to sustainably achieve sub-second finality."
"Sui Lutris neither compromises expressiveness nor throughput and can run perpetually without restarts."

תובנות מפתח מזוקקות מ:

Sui Lutris: A Blockchain Combining Broadcast and Consensus

by Same Blacksh... ב- arxiv.org 05-02-2024

https://arxiv.org/pdf/2310.18042.pdf

שאלות מעמיקות

How does the object-centric design of Sui Lutris compare to the account-based and UTXO models used in other blockchains, and what are the trade-offs

Sui Lutris introduces an object-centric design that differs from the traditional account-based and UTXO models used in other blockchains. In the account-based model, each user account holds a balance and transactions are processed by updating these balances. On the other hand, the UTXO model treats each transaction output as a separate, indivisible entity that can be spent as a whole in subsequent transactions.
Comparison:

Account-based Model:

Pros: Simplifies balance tracking for users, allows for easy account management, and supports complex smart contracts.
Cons: Limits parallelism as transactions are tied to specific accounts, leading to potential bottlenecks and reduced efficiency.

UTXO Model:

Pros: Enhances privacy and security by treating each output as a separate entity, reducing the risk of double-spending.
Cons: Can be less user-friendly as wallets need to manage multiple UTXOs for a single transaction, potentially leading to increased complexity.

Sui Lutris Object-centric Design:

Pros: Combines the benefits of both models by introducing Objects that are long-lived, can be manipulated atomically through versioning, and allow for a significant amount of parallelism.
Cons: Users may need to track multiple objects they own, which can make managing coin balances more complex compared to the account-based model.

Trade-offs:

Account-based Model: Offers simplicity and flexibility for users but may limit scalability and efficiency in processing transactions.
UTXO Model: Provides enhanced security and privacy but can be less intuitive for users and require additional management of UTXOs.
Sui Lutris Object-centric Design: Strikes a balance between simplicity and parallelism, offering a unique approach to transaction processing that may require users to adapt to a new way of managing assets.

What are the potential limitations or drawbacks of the hybrid architecture combining consensusless and consensus-based transaction processing, and how does Sui Lutris address them

The hybrid architecture of Sui Lutris, combining consensusless and consensus-based transaction processing, presents several potential limitations and drawbacks that need to be addressed:

Limited Expressiveness: Consensusless protocols typically support a restricted set of operations, limiting the types of transactions that can be processed without consensus.

Dynamic Environment Challenges: Deploying consensusless protocols in a dynamic environment can be challenging, especially in terms of state checkpoints and validator reconfiguration.

Client Bugs and Equivocations: Client bugs can lead to equivocations, locking assets forever in consensusless systems, posing a risk to the system's integrity.

Sui Lutris addresses these challenges by:

Safely integrating consensusless agreement with a high-throughput consensus protocol.
Developing a novel reconfiguration protocol to ensure the safety and efficiency of consensusless blockchain operations during dynamic events.
Providing rigorous proofs to mitigate the impact of client bugs on the liveness of transactions, allowing for recovery and continued operation.
By carefully balancing the benefits of consensusless and consensus-based approaches, Sui Lutris aims to overcome the limitations of each while leveraging their strengths to create a more robust and efficient blockchain platform.

Given the focus on low-latency transactions, how does Sui Lutris ensure the long-term integrity and auditability of the blockchain history, and what are the implications for use cases that require stronger guarantees around the ordering and finality of transactions

In the pursuit of low-latency transactions, Sui Lutris ensures the long-term integrity and auditability of the blockchain history through several key mechanisms:

Checkpoints: Validators create certified checkpoints containing an agreed-upon sequence of transactions, authorization paths, and commitments to their effects. These checkpoints serve as a historical record for audit and synchronization purposes.

Reconfiguration Protocol: Sui Lutris implements a reconfiguration protocol that allows for seamless transitions between epochs, preserving the safety of transactions and unlocking equivocated objects. This ensures the continuity and integrity of the blockchain across reconfiguration events.

Consistency and Safety Proofs: The safety analysis of Sui Lutris includes proofs that demonstrate the consistency of transaction execution, ensuring that correct validators execute the same set of transactions in the same order. This provides strong guarantees around the ordering and finality of transactions, enhancing the auditability and reliability of the blockchain history.

By incorporating these mechanisms, Sui Lutris maintains a balance between low-latency transaction processing and the long-term integrity and auditability required for use cases demanding stronger guarantees around transaction finality and ordering.