Delegated Proof of Stake With Downgrade: A Secure and Efficient Blockchain Consensus Algorithm With Downgrade Mechanism

• Published in: IEEE access Vol. 7; pp. 118541 - 118555
• Main Authors: Yang, Fan, Zhou, Wei, Wu, QingQing, Long, Rui, Xiong, Neal N., Zhou, Meiqi
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Piscataway IEEE 2019; The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE)
• Subjects: Algorithms; Bitcoin; Blockchain; Computation; Consensus algorithm; Contracts; Cryptography; decentralization; delegated proof of stake with downgrade; downgrade mechanism; efficiency; fairness; Nodes; Peer-to-peer computing; Protocols; Security
• ISSN: 2169-3536; 2169-3536
• DOI: 10.1109/ACCESS.2019.2935149

Blockchain technology has a wide range of applications in the fields of finance, credit reporting and intellectual property, etc. As the core of blockchain, consensus algorithm affects the security and performance of blockchain system directly. In the past 10 years, there have been about 30 consensus algorithms such as Proof of Work (PoW), Proof of Stake (PoS), Delegated Proof of Stake (DPoS), Ripple Protocol Consensus Algorithm (RPCA) and AlgoRand. But their security, stability and operating efficiency still lag far behind our actual needs. This paper introduces the computing power competition of PoW into DPoS to design an improved consensus algorithm named Delegated Proof of Stake with Downgrade (DDPoS). Through the further modification, the impact of both computing resources and stakes on generating blocks is reduced to achieve higher efficiency, fairness, and decentralization in consensus process. Then a downgrade mechanism is proposed to quickly replace the malicious nodes to improve the security. The simulation experiments in blockchain system show that the proposed consensus algorithm is significantly more efficient than PoW and PoS, but slightly lower than DPoS. However, its degree of centralization remains far below that of DPoS. And through the downgrade mechanism, the proposed consensus algorithm can detect and downgrade the malicious nodes timely to ensure the security and good operation of system.