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RE: 440,000 transactions/sec Blockchain by University of Sydney @BlockRush
I didn't have time to study the paper, so could you describe in layman terms how there "are no forks", as they state? I don't see how that can be promised. What if the world splits in half, like behind the great firewall of China? Isn't that a fork? How is consensus reached once they connect again?
Also they achieved the thoughput on Amazon servers presumably in one location, which doesn't represent reality on a global scale. However, very impressive indeed!
Certainly we cannot guarantee 100% accuracy but here is our take:
naturally once communication is cut between the connected nodes, perhaps the disconnected nodes should stop mining and when they re-join the main network again, they should continue from where the main network has reached.
since they did not mine while they were disconnected, they would not have any new "foreign" blocks to impose on the main network
the research believes all forkable blockchains are vulnerable to a "balance attack" where double spending can occur since nodes can independently mine on their own and then try to impose their new "foreign" blocks on the main network.
if they are denied access by the main blockchain when they try to impose their new "foreign" blocks, then there is loss of their blocks, which could contain some genuinely good information, resulting in the loss of digital assets.
the paper which address this concern is > http://poseidon.it.usyd.edu.au/~gramoli/web/doc/pubs/balance_attack_long_version.pdf
I read the paper, and it seems to me that it boils down to choosing consistency over availability. That's a tradeoff, which results in the majority of the network getting consistency and high throughput, while the minority getting nothing in case they are cut off or experience significant delays. Very interesting.
That would mean that the minority chain (since they don't call it a fork), would have to acknowledge that they are indeed a minority, and cease all block production. Or wait, they used a DAG, didn't they? In that case, wouldn't each actor have to individually evaluate whether they are cut off or not? That seems like a problematic situation to me.
I'm disappointed that such papers never mention DPOS which apparently doesn't tend to fork. According to Larimer, DPOS doesn't fork because witnesses collaborate instead of competing. What that means at a deeper level I don't understand, but seems like something to dig into. However, I'm sure this Red Belly Blockchain isn't the final word on the subject.