Fast Byzantine Agreement for Permissioned Distributed Ledgers

Abstract

A consensus algorithm lies at the core of every distributed ledger as it defines how the constituent parts of the distributed system ensure that they share identical ledger copies. For a broad range of promising applications of distributed ledger technology, the parties responsible for the application can specify and control the distributed entities maintaining the ledger. Since the faulty behavior of any such entity must not cause inconsistencies in the ledger and access to the ledger is restricted, Byzantine agreement is a viable candidate as a backbone for such so-called permissioned distributed ledgers. In this setting, a primary objective is to maximize throughput, i.e., the rate at which transactions can be processed, which requires a quick settlement at the consensus layer.