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Cross-shard Transaction Processing in Sharding Blockchains

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Algorithms and Architectures for Parallel Processing (ICA3PP 2020)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNTCS,volume 12454))

Abstract

Sharding blockchains could improve the transaction throughput and achieve scalibility, making the application fields of the blockchain technology more extensive. Cross-shard transactions account for a large fraction of transactions in a sharding blockchain, so the processing method of cross-shard transactions is of vital importance to the system efficiency. In this paper, we focus on the study of cross-shard transaction processing methods. Firstly, a summary of cross-shard transaction processing methods for sharding blockchains is given. Secondly, we propose RSTBP, which is built on the basis of a two phase commit protocol. In RSTBP, an input shard runs an intra-shard consensus algorithm, i.e., a Byzantine fault tolerance (BFT) algorithm, to process multiple inputs of different transactions simultaneously. For each input, a corresponding proof of availability is generated and sent to the relevant shards. Compared with previous schemes, the number of BFT calls is reduced by hundreds of times when processing the same number of transactions. Thirdly, RSTSBP is designed by making some modifications to RSTBP. The proofs of availability are constructed according to different shards. The Merkel tree structure is different from that of RSTBP to cut down message complexity of the proofs. Both of the two schemes are proved to satisfy the consistency, liveness and responsiveness properties, and improve the cross-shard transaction processing efficiency.

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Acknowledgment

This paper is supported by the National Key R&D Program of China through project 2017YFB1400702 and 2017YFB0802500, the National Cryptography Development Fund through project MMJJ20170106, the Natural Science Foundation of China through projects 61932014, 61972018, 61972019, 61932011, 61772538, 61672083, 61532021, 61472429, 91646203, 61402029, 61972017, 61972310, the foundation of Science and Technology on Information Assurance Laboratory through project 61421120305162112006, the China Scholarship Council through project 201906020015.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Electronic and Information Engineering, Beihang University, Beijing, China

    Yizhong Liu & Hui Yu

  2. School of Cyber Science and Technology, Beihang University, Beijing, China

    Jianwei Liu, Jiayuan Yin, Geng Li & Qianhong Wu

  3. Department of Computer Science, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark

    Yizhong Liu

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  1. Yizhong Liu
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  2. Jianwei Liu
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  3. Jiayuan Yin
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  4. Geng Li
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Correspondence to Jianwei Liu .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Columbia University, New York, NY, USA

    Meikang Qiu

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Liu, Y., Liu, J., Yin, J., Li, G., Yu, H., Wu, Q. (2020). Cross-shard Transaction Processing in Sharding Blockchains. In: Qiu, M. (eds) Algorithms and Architectures for Parallel Processing. ICA3PP 2020. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 12454. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-60248-2_22

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