Adaptive layer-two dispute periods in blockchains

Rami Khalil; Naranker Dulay

Paper 2020/1601

Adaptive layer-two dispute periods in blockchains

Rami Khalil and Naranker Dulay

Abstract

Second-layer or off-chain protocols increase the throughput of permissionless blockchains by enabling parties to lock funds into smart-contracts and perform payments through peer-to-peer communication, only resorting to the smart-contracts for protection against fraud. Current protocols have fixed time periods during which participants can dispute any fraud attempts. However, current blockchains have limited transaction processing capacity, so a fixed dispute period will not always be sufficient to deter all fraudulent behaviour in an off-chain protocol. In this work, we describe how to set adaptive dispute periods that accommodate the congestion and capacity of the underlying blockchain. Adaptive dispute periods ensure that users retain the opportunity to dispute fraudulent behaviours during blockchain congestion, while increasing second-layer protocol efficiency by reducing dispute period lengths when the number of disputes is low. We describe a non-interactive argument system for setting adaptive dispute periods under the current Ethereum Virtual Machine, and discuss how to efficiently integrate built-in support for adaptive dispute periods in any blockchain. We empirically demonstrate that an adaptive-dispute second-layer protocol can handle a larger number of disputes and prevent more fraud than its non-adaptive counterparts even when users are slow to issue disputes, due to denial of service or blockchain congestion.

Metadata

Available format(s): PDF
Category: Cryptographic protocols
Publication info: Published elsewhere. Minor revision. 3rd Conference on Blockchain Research & Applications for Innovative Networks and Services (BRAINS)
Contact author(s): rami khalil @ imperial ac uk
History: 2021-06-08: revised; 2020-12-27: received; See all versions
Short URL: https://ia.cr/2020/1601
License: CC BY

BibTeX

@misc{cryptoeprint:2020/1601,
      author = {Rami Khalil and Naranker Dulay},
      title = {Adaptive layer-two dispute periods in blockchains},
      howpublished = {Cryptology ePrint Archive, Paper 2020/1601},
      year = {2020},
      note = {\url{https://eprint.iacr.org/2020/1601}},
      url = {https://eprint.iacr.org/2020/1601}
}