Permissionless Refereed Tournaments

Scalability problems in programmable blockchains have created a strong demand for secure methods that move the bulk of computation outside the blockchain. One of the preferred solutions to this problem involves off-chain computers that compete interactively to prove to the limited blockchain that theirs is the correct result of a given intensive computation. Each off-chain computer spends effort linear on the cost of the computation, while the blockchain adjudicates disputes spending only logarithmic effort. However, this effort is multiplied by the number of competitors, rendering disputes that involve a significant number of parties impractical and susceptible to Sybil attacks. In this paper, we propose a practical dispute resolution algorithm by which a single honest competitor can win disputes while spending effort linear on the cost of the computation, but only logarithmic on the number of dishonest competitors. This algorithm is a novel, stronger primitive for building permissionless fraud-proof protocols, which doesn't rely on complex economic incentives to be enforced.

[1]  Zibin Zheng,et al.  Solutions to Scalability of Blockchain: A Survey , 2020, IEEE Access.

[2]  Jason Teutsch,et al.  A scalable verification solution for blockchains , 2019, ArXiv.

[3]  Markulf Kohlweiss,et al.  Updatable and Universal Common Reference Strings with Applications to zk-SNARKs , 2018, IACR Cryptol. ePrint Arch..

[4]  Dan Boneh,et al.  Bulletproofs: Short Proofs for Confidential Transactions and More , 2018, 2018 IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy (SP).

[5]  Jyrki Alakuijala,et al.  Brotli Compressed Data Format , 2016, RFC.

[6]  Jens Groth,et al.  On the Size of Pairing-Based Non-interactive Arguments , 2016, EUROCRYPT.

[7]  Morris Dworkin,et al.  SHA-3 Standard: Permutation-Based Hash and Extendable-Output Functions , 2015 .

[8]  Aggelos Kiayias,et al.  The Bitcoin Backbone Protocol: Analysis and Applications , 2015, EUROCRYPT.

[9]  John K. Ousterhout,et al.  In Search of an Understandable Consensus Algorithm , 2014, USENIX ATC.

[10]  Ran Canetti,et al.  Refereed delegation of computation , 2013, Inf. Comput..

[11]  Nir Bitansky,et al.  Succinct Non-Interactive Arguments via Linear Interactive Proofs , 2013, Journal of Cryptology.

[12]  Ran Canetti,et al.  Practical delegation of computation using multiple servers , 2011, CCS '11.

[13]  Craig Gentry,et al.  Non-interactive Verifiable Computing: Outsourcing Computation to Untrusted Workers , 2010, CRYPTO.

[14]  Yael Tauman Kalai,et al.  Delegating computation: interactive proofs for muggles , 2008, STOC.

[15]  John R. Douceur,et al.  The Sybil Attack , 2002, IPTPS.

[16]  Silvio Micali,et al.  Computationally Sound Proofs , 2000, SIAM J. Comput..

[17]  Leslie Lamport,et al.  The part-time parliament , 1998, TOCS.

[18]  Moni Naor,et al.  Pricing via Processing or Combatting Junk Mail , 1992, CRYPTO.

[19]  J. T. Sims,et al.  The Byzantine Generals Problem , 1982, TOPL.

[20]  Leslie Lamport,et al.  Password authentication with insecure communication , 1981, CACM.

[21]  Leslie Lamport,et al.  Reaching Agreement in the Presence of Faults , 1980, JACM.

[22]  S. Matthew Weinberg,et al.  Arbitrum: Scalable, private smart contracts , 2018, USENIX Security Symposium.

[23]  Eli Ben-Sasson,et al.  Scalable, transparent, and post-quantum secure computational integrity , 2018, IACR Cryptol. ePrint Arch..

[24]  Daniel Davis Wood,et al.  ETHEREUM: A SECURE DECENTRALISED GENERALISED TRANSACTION LEDGER , 2014 .

[25]  Yunsup Lee,et al.  The RISC-V Instruction Set Manual , 2014 .

[26]  Jeannie R. Albrecht,et al.  Smart * : An Open Data Set and Tools for Enabling Research in Sustainable Homes , 2012 .

[27]  S. Nakamoto,et al.  Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System , 2008 .

[28]  U. Feige,et al.  Making Games Short , 2006 .

[29]  Ralph C. Merkle,et al.  Secrecy, authentication, and public key systems , 1979 .