The paper presents a Confirmation Rule for the Ethereum Gasper consensus protocol, which consists of two key components: LMD-GHOST and FFG-Casper.
The authors first develop a Confirmation Rule for the LMD-GHOST component, treating it as an independent protocol. This rule is based on two safety indicators: Qn_b, which quantifies the support ratio for a specific block b relative to the total committee weight, and Pn_b, which measures the honest proportion of support for block b.
The authors show that with a suitable value of Pn_b, a user can reliably confirm block b. However, as direct observation of honest support by users is not feasible, the authors demonstrate how, under certain adversarial conditions, reaching a specific threshold of Qn_b, which is observable, allows for the inference of Pn_b, thereby enabling the confirmation of block b.
The authors then build upon this initial framework by exploring how the FFG-Casper component influences LMD-GHOST, thereby enhancing the initial Confirmation Rule. This refined Confirmation Rule aims to achieve fast block confirmations by adopting a heuristic that balances speed against reduced safety guarantees, potentially confirming blocks immediately after their creation under optimal conditions.
The paper also discusses a variant of the Confirmation Rule that operates under less stringent assumptions than the one introduced in the main text.
To Another Language
from source content
arxiv.org
Key Insights Distilled From
by Aditya Asgao... at arxiv.org 05-02-2024
https://arxiv.org/pdf/2405.00549.pdfDeeper Inquiries