Analyzing the Federated Byzantine Agreement Blockchain Network for Liveness Using Multiple Online Analytical Processing

Abstract

Blockchain technology is widely implemented in various fields, such as government, health, and agronomy. However, various security vulnerabilities and issues related to the validation speed hinder the adoption of blockchain technology. Blockchain consensus systems have been developed to address these issues, including the Proof of Stake and its variants, as well as the Practical Byzantine Fault Tolerance (PBFT) and its variants. PBFT excels in quickly resolving system validations but faces capacity limitations. To address the limitations of this consensus system, the Federated Byzantine Agreement (FBA) was developed. FBA relies significantly on network liveliness and security, necessitating an investigation of the underlying causes of network liveliness issues within the FBA framework. This study focuses on a real FBA network that operates on a stellar network. The analysis employed the Multiple Online Analytical Processing (MOLAP) method, revealing that MOLAP is a viable approach for examining networks affected by inactive nodes that pose a challenge in establishing a quorum, albeit with potential solutions through the use of thresholds. Nevertheless, a security loophole is identified due to the quorum being concentrated within a single organization, and further issues arise when nodes become overloaded, rendering them unverifiable.