Consensus in blockchains: Overview and recent results with Christian Cachin
Source: YouTube · a16z crypto · published Nov 22, 2024 · 57:56
The speaker presents a historical overview of consensus protocol research and a taxonomy of nine families of blockchain trust models 0:10. Despite decades of academic research on Byzantine fault tolerance (BFT) and fair exchange protocols, these systems saw little practical adoption until cryptocurrencies made the underlying assumptions viable for real-world use 3:30-5:03.
Key Takeaways:
• Early research on secure e-commerce and fair exchange protocols laid groundwork for BFT systems but saw little adoption until cryptocurrencies emerged 0:30-5:03
• The speaker identifies nine families of trust models in modern blockchain protocols, including threshold trust, generalized trust, asymmetric trust, and proof-of-work 5:55-21:27
• Generalized trust models using Byzantine quorum systems offer theoretical flexibility but remain largely unadopted in practice, with Coinbase being a notable exception for threshold cryptography 9:02-10:27
• Asymmetric trust models like those used in Ripple and Stellar allow participants to define their own trust relationships, reflecting social phenomena rather than purely technical specifications 10:54-11:03
• Security systems only work when users believe in their underlying assumptions, which cryptocurrencies successfully achieved through economic incentives and permissionless participation 5:03-5:31
The models underlying blockchain protocols are more important than the actual protocol implementations, determining their practical viability and adoption.
Sources:
- 0:10 Introduction to blockchain trust models
- [
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First 800 characters of the transcript
thanks a lot for uh the invitation and for the opportunity first a bit of personal history and a bit of history in the field who remembers what this is okay what is it you don't know Victor shupa said he doesn't know it's IBM from the mid90s uh who started the EB business wave because IBM almost collapsed in the early '90s and then re rebound and came back uh by inventing and pushing e business I got this from the official IBM uh history website where they claimed they that they focused on this for the next decade at the time I was just joining IBM research IBM was inventing e business at the time and the researchers at IBM were making it secure and secure e electronic Commerce on the internet that meant first and foremost that you could not be cheated by by the potentially malicious Merch…