The New CAP Theorem on Blockchain Consensus Systems

Aristidis G. Anagnostakis () and Euripidis Glavas ()
Additional contact information
Aristidis G. Anagnostakis: School of Finance and Administrative Sciences, University of Ioannina Greece, 45110 Ioannina, Greece
Euripidis Glavas: School of Informatics and Telecommunications, University of Ioannina Greece, 47100 Arta, Greece

Future Internet, 2025, vol. 17, issue 4, 1-24

Abstract: One of the most emblematic theorems in the theory of distributed databases is Eric Brewer’s CAP theorem. It stresses the tradeoffs between Consistency, Availability, and Partition and states that it is impossible to guarantee all three of them simultaneously. Inspired by this, we introduce the new CAP theorem for autonomous consensus systems, and we demonstrate that, at most, two of the three elementary properties, Consensus achievement (C), Autonomy (A), and entropic Performance (P) can be optimized simultaneously in the generic case. This provides a theoretical limit to Blockchain systems’ decentralization, impacting their scalability, security, and real-world adoption. To formalize and analyze this tradeoff, we utilize the IoT micro-Blockchain as a universal, minimal, consensus-enabling framework. We define a set of quantitative functions relating each of the properties to the number of event witnesses in the system. We identify the existing mutual exclusions, and formally prove for one homogenous system consideration, that (A), (C), and (P) cannot be optimized simultaneously. This suggests that a requirement for concurrent optimization of the three properties cannot be satisfied in the generic case and reveals an intrinsic limitation on the design and the optimization of distributed Blockchain consensus mechanisms. Our findings are formally proved utilizing the IoT micro-Blockchain framework and validated through the empirical data benchmarking of large-scale Blockchain systems, i.e., Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Hyperledger Fabric.

Keywords: Blockchain consensus; Blockchain efficiency; Blockchain optimization; autonomous systems; distributed systems; Blockchain consumption; consensus engineering; consensus dynamics; consensus cost; Blockchain entropy; consensus entropy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O3 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1999-5903/17/4/157/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1999-5903/17/4/157/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jftint:v:17:y:2025:i:4:p:157-:d:1626363

Access Statistics for this article

Future Internet is currently edited by Ms. Grace You

More articles in Future Internet from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().