MBFT: a new consensus algorithm for consortium blockchain

Mingxiao Du, Qijun Chen, Xiaofeng Ma
2020 IEEE Access  
Blockchain technology is an emerging distributed ledger technology that has exploratory applications in many areas. The consensus algorithm, as the core module of the blockchain, has an important impact on the security, scalability, and efficiency of the blockchain network. The consensus algorithm is also a popular topic in current blockchain technology research. In existing consortium blockchains and public blockchains, the blockchain has low efficiency or poor fault tolerance because of the
more » ... mitations of the consensus algorithm. To both ensure the fault tolerance of the blockchain and improve the scalability and throughput, in this paper, we propose a new type of consensus algorithm: mixed Byzantine fault tolerance (MBFT). MBFT uses sharding and layered technology. MBFT functionally partitions the nodes that participate in the consensus process and improves the scalability and efficiency without sacrificing security. MBFT also introduces a random node selection mechanism and a credit mechanism to improve security and fault tolerance. We analyze the security and experiment on transaction throughput in a real network environment. The results prove that MBFT has good security and scalability and high throughput. INDEX TERMS Blockchain, consensus algorithm, Byzantine fault tolerance, distributed system.
doi:10.1109/access.2020.2993759 fatcat:k3letm4jwzapvefnngenvq4moe