A Survey on Blockchain Consensus with a Performance Comparison of PoW, PoS and Pure PoS

Cristian Lepore, Michela Ceria, Andrea Visconti, Udai Pratap Rao, Kaushal Arvindbhai Shah and Luca Zanolini
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Cristian Lepore: Computer Science Department at University of Milan, 20133 Milan, Italy
Michela Ceria: Computer Science Department at University of Milan, 20133 Milan, Italy
Andrea Visconti: Computer Science Department at University of Milan, 20133 Milan, Italy
Udai Pratap Rao: Computer Engineering Department, S.V. National Institute of Technology, Surat, Gujarat 395007, India
Kaushal Arvindbhai Shah: School of Computer Science and Engineering, Vellore Institute of Technology, Amaravati 522237, India
Luca Zanolini: Institute of Computer Science, University of Bern, 103012 Bern, Switzerland

Mathematics, 2020, vol. 8, issue 10, 1-26

Abstract: Blockchain technology started as the backbone for cryptocurriencies and it has emerged as one of the most interesting technologies of the last decade. It is a new paradigm able to modify the way how industries transact. Today, the industries’ concern is about their ability to handle a high volume of data transactions per second while preserving both decentralization and security. Both decentralization and security are guaranteed by the mathematical strength of cryptographic primitives. There are two main approaches to achieve consensus: the Proof-of-Work based blockchains—PoW—and the Proof-of-Stake—PoS. Both of them come with some pros and drawbacks, but both rely on cryptography. In this survey, we present a review of the main consensus procedures, including the new consensus proposed by Algorand: Pure Proof-of-Stake—Pure PoS. In this article, we provide a framework to compare the performances of PoW, PoS and the Pure PoS, based on throughput and scalability.

Keywords: blockchain; consensus; Proof-of-Stake; Proof-of-Work; Pure Proof-of-Stake; scalability; throughput (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

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