Proof of Success Rate: A Past Behaviour-Based Consensus Protocol

Abstract

Blockchain is a distributed ledger where partici-pating users with diverse and varying trust levels come to an agreement on the content of a ledger using a mechanism called consensus protocols. As the interest and adaptability of the blockchain technology deepens, the quest for consensus protocols that strike a harmonious balance between throughput, energy efficiency, and security remains a priority. This paper introduces Proof of Success Rate (PoSR), a past behaviour-based consensus protocol, where past successes and failures of a node determines its fate in the network. PoSR leverages the success rating of nodes as a dynamic metric to finely scale the network difficulty of nodes. Nodes with significantly high success rates will find the target hash faster and do less work in mining compared to those with lower rates. We simulated PoSR on SIM-P, a flexible consensus protocol simulator and evaluated its performance using through-put, energy consumption and resistance against 51% attacks as metrics. The performance of PoSR was subsequently compared to three (3) existing consensus protocols (PoW, PoRX, and poC) that were previously simulated on SIM-P. The experimental results shows that PoSR has a higher throughput, records lower energy consumption, and demonstrates better resistance against a 51% attack than PoW. This result highlights the effectiveness of the success rate in PoSR, which scales network difficulty based on the nodes' success rates, allowing nodes with higher rates to find the target hash faster. Additionally, the result shows that it is more expensive for a 51% attacker to succeed in PoSR than in PoW.