# The Latest Gossip on BFT Consensus Content type: Research Paper Summary: This report provides a comprehensive overview and analysis of various Byzantine Fault Tolerance (BFT) consensus protocols, particularly in the context of distributed systems and blockchain technology. It surveys a broad range of classical and modern BFT protocols, categorizing them based on their approaches to achieving consensus in asynchronous or partially synchronous environments, even when some nodes are malicious. The paper discusses fundamental concepts like message complexity, rounds of c Key concepts: Ethan Buchman, Jae Kwon, Zarko Milosevic, bft, consensus, distributed systems, cryptography, fault tolerance, blockchain, networking
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The Latest Gossip on BFT Consensus

Ethan Buchman, Jae Kwon, Zarko Milosevic

arXiv preprintJanuary 2018

Abstract

This report provides a comprehensive overview and analysis of various Byzantine Fault Tolerance (BFT) consensus protocols, particularly in the context of distributed systems and blockchain technology. It surveys a broad range of classical and modern BFT protocols, categorizing them based on their approaches to achieving consensus in asynchronous or partially synchronous environments, even when some nodes are malicious. The paper discusses fundamental concepts like message complexity, rounds of communication, and resilience to Byzantine failures. It highlights the trade-offs inherent in different BFT designs, such as security assumptions, performance overhead, and scalability limitations. The authors aim to consolidate knowledge in the BFT space, offering a valuable resource for researchers and practitioners seeking to understand the landscape of distributed consensus mechanisms and their applicability to building robust and decentralized systems.

Key Findings

  • 1Byzantine Fault Tolerance (BFT) is crucial for achieving consensus in decentralized systems despite malicious participants.
  • 2Various BFT protocols exist, each with different trade-offs in terms of performance, security, and communication complexity.
  • 3Understanding the assumptions (e.g., synchrony, network model) of BFT protocols is essential for their correct application.
  • 4The paper serves as a survey and taxonomy of BFT consensus mechanisms relevant to distributed systems.

Topics

bftconsensusdistributed systemscryptographyfault toleranceblockchainnetworking
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Citation

Ethan Buchman, Jae Kwon, Zarko Milosevic (2018). The Latest Gossip on BFT Consensus. arXiv preprint. https://arxiv.org/abs/1807.04938

BibTeX

@misc{thelatest2018,
  title = {The Latest Gossip on BFT Consensus},
  author = {Ethan Buchman and Jae Kwon and Zarko Milosevic},
  year = {2018},
  howpublished = {\url{https://arxiv.org/abs/1807.04938}},
}

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