Authored by:
Vincent Gramoli, University of Sydney, CTO Redbelly Network
This practical book offers the distributed-computing fundamental knowledge for individuals to connect with one another in a more secure and efficient way than with traditional blockchains. These new forms of secure, scalable blockchains promise to replace centralized institutions to connect individuals without the risks of user manipulations or data extortions.
The techniques taught herein consist of enhancing blockchain security and making blockchain scalable by relying on the observation that no blockchain can exist without solving the consensus problem. First, the state-of-the-art of consensus protocols are analyzed, hence motivating the need for a new family of consensus protocols offering strong (deterministic) guarantees. Second, a didactic series of classic blockchain vulnerabilities is presented to illustrate the importance of novel designs better suited for the adversarial environment of open networks.
These cutting-edge solutions are illustrated through the Redbelly blockchain design, which solves a different problem from the classic Byzantine consensus problem of 1982 and which delivers—in the modern blockchain context—high performance at large scale.
Topics and features:
Covers the combination of security and distributed computing to devise the new generation of blockchains
Shows how blockchain has shed new light on decades of research in distributed systems
Provides instruction on the security needed by the industry to use blockchains in production
Explains didactically the necessary ingredients to make blockchain efficient at large scale
Helps fill the gap of knowledge in the highly demanded blockchain sector
This unique volume contains the building blocks to design secure and scalable blockchains. As such, it is dedicated to developers, application designers, and computer scientists and requires only a minimal undergraduate level in mathematics and computer science.
This paper was co-authored by our CTO and Founder Professor Vincent Gramoli.
Professor Vincent Gramoli is a full professor at the University of Sydney. He is a researcher in the field of distributed systems and algorithms, with a focus on the design and analysis of distributed systems and algorithms for shared memory and data-centric systems, including distributed hash tables, distributed shared memory and transactional memory. He has published numerous papers in top-tier conferences and journals in the field and has received several awards for his research. He is also currently serving as the Head of Concurrent Systems Research Group at the University of Sydney.