Supervisory Control of Blockchain Networks

Abstract

Blockchain is an open distributed ledger technology that enables ledger-maintainers on a network to collaboratively synchronize and update their own distributed copies of a single global ledger, with the goal of keeping the ledger copies consistent. This paper presents a theoretical control-model formulation of the founding Satoshi Nakamoto blockchain, aimed at enhancing our operational understanding and development of blockchain systems. The control model is generic of every honest ledger-maintainer's local operations on a blockchain network. The presented research is a logical systematization of operational knowledge that is understandable and explainable for blockchain system engineering and research. Using a software tool supporting a supervisory control theory applied in the formulation, the control model is synthesized and logically validated.