SNACKs: Leveraging Proofs of Sequential Work for Blockchain Light Clients

Hamza Abusalah; Georg Fuchsbauer; Peter Gaži; Karen Klein

Paper 2022/240

SNACKs: Leveraging Proofs of Sequential Work for Blockchain Light Clients

Hamza Abusalah, Georg Fuchsbauer, Peter Gaži, and Karen Klein

Abstract

The success of blockchains has led to ever-growing ledgers that are stored by all participating full nodes. In contrast, light clients only store small amounts of blockchain-related data and rely on the mediation of full nodes when interacting with the ledger. A broader adoption of blockchains calls for protocols that make this interaction trustless. We revisit the design of light-client blockchain protocols from the perspective of classical proof-system theory, and explain the role that proofs of sequential work (PoSWs) can play in it. To this end, we define a new primitive called succinct non-interactive argument of chain knowledge (SNACK), a non-interactive proof system that provides clear security guarantees to a verifier (a light client) even when interacting only with a single dishonest prover (a full node). We show how augmenting any blockchain with any graph-labeling PoSW (GL-PoSW) enables SNACK proofs for this blockchain. We also provide a unified and extended definition of GL-PoSWs covering all existing constructions, and describe two new variants. We then show how SNACKs can be used to construct light-client protocols, and highlight some deficiencies of existing designs, along with mitigations. Finally, we introduce incremental SNACKs which could provide a new approach to light mining.

Metadata

Available format(s): PDF
Category: Cryptographic protocols
Publication info: Preprint. MINOR revision.
Keywords: blockchain light clients proof of sequential work
Contact author(s): hamzaabusalah @ gmail com
peter gazi @ iohk io
georg fuchsbauer @ tuwien ac at
karen klein @ inf ethz ch
History: 2022-02-25: received
Short URL: https://ia.cr/2022/240
License: CC BY

BibTeX

@misc{cryptoeprint:2022/240,
      author = {Hamza Abusalah and Georg Fuchsbauer and Peter Gaži and Karen Klein},
      title = {SNACKs: Leveraging Proofs of Sequential Work for Blockchain Light Clients},
      howpublished = {Cryptology ePrint Archive, Paper 2022/240},
      year = {2022},
      note = {\url{https://eprint.iacr.org/2022/240}},
      url = {https://eprint.iacr.org/2022/240}
}