Polygraph: Accountable Byzantine AgreementByzantine Consensus Algorithm • June 10th, 2020
Contract Type FiledJune 10th, 2020In this paper, we introduce Polygraph, the first accountable Byzantine consensus algorithm. If among n users t < n/3 are malicious then it ensures consensus, otherwise ( f n/3) it eventually detects malicious users that cause disagreement. Polygraph is appealing for blockchain applications as it al- lows them to totally order blocks in a chain whenever possible, hence avoiding forks and double spending and, otherwise, to punish (e.g., via slashing) at least n/3 malicious users when a fork occurs. This problem is more difficult than perhaps it first appears. We show that a commonly used state-of-the- art Byzantine fault tolerance consensus algorithm cannot be