Paper 2023/728
SoK: Distributed Randomness Beacons
Abstract
Motivated and inspired by the emergence of blockchains, many new protocols have recently been proposed for generating publicly verifiable randomness in a distributed yet secure fashion. These protocols work under different setups and assumptions, use various cryptographic tools, and entail unique trade-offs and characteristics. In this paper, we systematize the design of distributed randomness beacons (DRBs) as well as the cryptographic building blocks they rely on. We evaluate protocols on two key security properties, unbiasability and unpredictability, and discuss common attack vectors for predicting or biasing the beacon output and the countermeasures employed by protocols. We also compare protocols by communication and computational efficiency. Finally, we provide insights on the applicability of different protocols in various deployment scenarios and highlight possible directions for further research.
Metadata
- Available format(s)
-
PDF
- Category
- Foundations
- Publication info
- Published elsewhere. IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy 2023
- Keywords
- randomness beacondistributed randomnesspublic randomness
- Contact author(s)
- kc2296 @ nyu edu
- History
- 2023-05-22: approved
- 2023-05-21: received
- See all versions
- Short URL
- https://ia.cr/2023/728
- License
-
CC BY
BibTeX
@misc{cryptoeprint:2023/728,
author = {Kevin Choi and Aathira Manoj and Joseph Bonneau},
title = {{SoK}: Distributed Randomness Beacons},
howpublished = {Cryptology {ePrint} Archive, Paper 2023/728},
year = {2023},
url = {https://eprint.iacr.org/2023/728}
}
