Cryptology ePrint Archive: Report 2016/889
Ouroboros: A Provably Secure Proof-of-Stake Blockchain Protocol
Aggelos Kiayias and Alexander Russell and Bernardo David and Roman Oliynykov
Abstract: We present ``Ouroboros,'' the first blockchain protocol based on
proof of stake with rigorous security guarantees. We
establish security properties for the protocol comparable to those
achieved by the bitcoin blockchain protocol. As the protocol
provides a ``proof of stake'' blockchain discipline, it offers
qualitative efficiency advantages over blockchains based on proof
of physical resources (e.g., proof of work). We also present a
novel reward mechanism for incentivizing proof of stake protocols
and we prove that, given this mechanism, honest behavior is an
approximate Nash equilibrium, thus neutralizing attacks such as
selfish mining. We also present initial evidence of the
practicality of our protocol in real world settings by providing
experimental results on transaction confirmation and processing.
Category / Keywords: blockchain, consensus, proof of stake.
Original Publication (with major differences): IACR-CRYPTO-2017
Date: received 12 Sep 2016, last revised 20 Jul 2019
Contact author: akiayias at inf ed ac uk
Available format(s): PDF | BibTeX Citation
Note: various minor corrections in the previous major revision.
Version: 20190720:174252 (All versions of this report)
Short URL: ia.cr/2016/889
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