Database and distributed computing fundamentals for scalable, fault-tolerant, and consistent maintenance of blockchains

Bitcoin is a successful and interesting example of a global scale peer-to-peer cryptocurrency that integrates many techniques and protocols from cryptography, distributed systems, and databases. The main underlying data structure is blockchain, a scalable fully replicated structure that is shared am...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Proceedings of the VLDB Endowment 2018-08, Vol.11 (12), p.2098-2101
Main Authors: Maiyya, Sujaya, Zakhary, Victor, Agrawal, Divyakant, Abbadi, Amr El
Format: Article
Language:English
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Summary:Bitcoin is a successful and interesting example of a global scale peer-to-peer cryptocurrency that integrates many techniques and protocols from cryptography, distributed systems, and databases. The main underlying data structure is blockchain, a scalable fully replicated structure that is shared among all participants and guarantees a consistent view of all user transactions by all participants in the cryptocurrency system. In this tutorial, we discuss the basic protocols used in blockchain, and elaborate on its main advantages and limitations. To overcome these limitations, we provide the necessary distributed systems background in managing large scale fully replicated ledgers, using Byzantine Agreement protocols to solve the consensus problem. Finally, we expound on some of the most recent proposals to design scalable and efficient blockchains. The focus of the tutorial is on the distributed systems and database technical aspects of the recent innovations in blockchains.
ISSN:2150-8097
2150-8097
DOI:10.14778/3229863.3229877