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Documents authored by Alpos, Orestis

Document
DOI: 10.4230/LIPIcs.DISC.2025.4
pod: An Optimal-Latency, Censorship-Free, and Accountable Generalized Consensus Layer

Authors: Orestis Alpos, Bernardo David, Jakov Mitrovski, Odysseas Sofikitis, and Dionysis Zindros

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 356, 39th International Symposium on Distributed Computing (DISC 2025)

Abstract
This work addresses the inherent issues of high latency in blockchains and low scalability in traditional consensus protocols. We present pod, a novel notion of consensus whose first priority is to achieve the physically-optimal latency of 2δ, or one round-trip, i.e., requiring only one network trip (duration δ) for writing a transaction and one for reading it. To accomplish this, we first eliminate inter-replica communication. Instead, clients send transactions directly to all replicas, which independently process transactions and append them to local logs. Replicas assign a timestamp and a sequence number to each transaction in their logs, allowing clients to extract valuable metadata about the transactions and the system state. Later on, clients retrieve these logs and extract transactions (and associated metadata) from them. Necessarily, this construction achieves weaker properties than a total-order broadcast protocol, due to existing lower bounds. Our work models the primitive of pod and defines its security properties. We then show pod-core, a protocol that satisfies properties such as transaction confirmation within 2δ, censorship resistance against Byzantine replicas, and accountability for safety violations. We show that single-shot auctions can be realized using the pod notion and observe that it is also sufficient for other popular applications.
Cite as

Orestis Alpos, Bernardo David, Jakov Mitrovski, Odysseas Sofikitis, and Dionysis Zindros. pod: An Optimal-Latency, Censorship-Free, and Accountable Generalized Consensus Layer. In 39th International Symposium on Distributed Computing (DISC 2025). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 356, pp. 4:1-4:24, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2025)

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@InProceedings{alpos_et_al:LIPIcs.DISC.2025.4,
  author =	{Alpos, Orestis and David, Bernardo and Mitrovski, Jakov and Sofikitis, Odysseas and Zindros, Dionysis},
  title =	{{pod: An Optimal-Latency, Censorship-Free, and Accountable Generalized Consensus Layer}},
  booktitle =	{39th International Symposium on Distributed Computing (DISC 2025)},
  pages =	{4:1--4:24},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-402-4},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2025},
  volume =	{356},
  editor =	{Kowalski, Dariusz R.},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.DISC.2025.4},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-248219},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.DISC.2025.4},
  annote =	{Keywords: consensus, censorship resistance, accountability, auctions}
}
Document
DOI: 10.4230/LIPIcs.OPODIS.2023.12
Eating Sandwiches: Modular and Lightweight Elimination of Transaction Reordering Attacks

Authors: Orestis Alpos, Ignacio Amores-Sesar, Christian Cachin, and Michelle Yeo

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 286, 27th International Conference on Principles of Distributed Systems (OPODIS 2023)

Abstract
Traditional blockchains grant the miner of a block full control not only over which transactions but also their order. This constitutes a major flaw discovered with the introduction of decentralized finance and allows miners to perform MEV attacks. In this paper, we address the issue of sandwich attacks by providing a construction that takes as input a blockchain protocol and outputs a new blockchain protocol with the same security but in which sandwich attacks are not profitable. Furthermore, our protocol is fully decentralized with no trusted third parties or heavy cryptography primitives and carries a linear increase in latency and minimum computation overhead.
Cite as

Orestis Alpos, Ignacio Amores-Sesar, Christian Cachin, and Michelle Yeo. Eating Sandwiches: Modular and Lightweight Elimination of Transaction Reordering Attacks. In 27th International Conference on Principles of Distributed Systems (OPODIS 2023). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 286, pp. 12:1-12:22, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2024)

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@InProceedings{alpos_et_al:LIPIcs.OPODIS.2023.12,
  author =	{Alpos, Orestis and Amores-Sesar, Ignacio and Cachin, Christian and Yeo, Michelle},
  title =	{{Eating Sandwiches: Modular and Lightweight Elimination of Transaction Reordering Attacks}},
  booktitle =	{27th International Conference on Principles of Distributed Systems (OPODIS 2023)},
  pages =	{12:1--12:22},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-308-9},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2024},
  volume =	{286},
  editor =	{Bessani, Alysson and D\'{e}fago, Xavier and Nakamura, Junya and Wada, Koichi and Yamauchi, Yukiko},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.OPODIS.2023.12},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-195029},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.OPODIS.2023.12},
  annote =	{Keywords: Consensus, MEV, Byzantine behavior, Rational behavior}
}
Document
DOI: 10.4230/LIPIcs.AFT.2023.31
Practical Large-Scale Proof-Of-Stake Asynchronous Total-Order Broadcast

Authors: Orestis Alpos, Christian Cachin, Simon Holmgaard Kamp, and Jesper Buus Nielsen

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 282, 5th Conference on Advances in Financial Technologies (AFT 2023)

Abstract
We present simple and practical protocols for generating randomness as used by asynchronous total-order broadcast. The protocols are secure in a proof-of-stake setting with dynamically changing stake. They can be plugged into existing protocols for asynchronous total-order broadcast and will turn these into asynchronous total-order broadcast with dynamic stake. Our contribution relies on two important techniques. The paper "Random Oracles in Constantinople: Practical Asynchronous Byzantine Agreement using Cryptography" [Cachin, Kursawe, and Shoup, PODC 2000] has influenced the design of practical total-order broadcast through its use of threshold cryptography. However, it needs a setup protocol to be efficient. In a proof-of-stake setting with dynamic stake this setup would have to be continually recomputed, making the protocol impractical. The work "Asynchronous Byzantine Agreement with Subquadratic Communication" [Blum, Katz, Liu-Zhang, and Loss, TCC 2020] showed how to use an initial setup for broadcast to asymptotically efficiently generate sub-sequent setups. The protocol, however, resorted to fully homomorphic encryption and was therefore not practically efficient. We adopt their approach to the proof-of-stake setting with dynamic stake, apply it to the Constantinople paper, and remove the need for fully homomorphic encryption. This results in simple and practical proof-of-stake protocols.
Cite as

Orestis Alpos, Christian Cachin, Simon Holmgaard Kamp, and Jesper Buus Nielsen. Practical Large-Scale Proof-Of-Stake Asynchronous Total-Order Broadcast. In 5th Conference on Advances in Financial Technologies (AFT 2023). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 282, pp. 31:1-31:22, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2023)

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@InProceedings{alpos_et_al:LIPIcs.AFT.2023.31,
  author =	{Alpos, Orestis and Cachin, Christian and Kamp, Simon Holmgaard and Nielsen, Jesper Buus},
  title =	{{Practical Large-Scale Proof-Of-Stake Asynchronous Total-Order Broadcast}},
  booktitle =	{5th Conference on Advances in Financial Technologies (AFT 2023)},
  pages =	{31:1--31:22},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-303-4},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2023},
  volume =	{282},
  editor =	{Bonneau, Joseph and Weinberg, S. Matthew},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.AFT.2023.31},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-192203},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.AFT.2023.31},
  annote =	{Keywords: Total-Order Broadcast, Atomic Broadcast, Proof of Stake, Random Beacon}
}
Document
Brief Announcement
DOI: 10.4230/LIPIcs.DISC.2021.44
Brief Announcement: How to Trust Strangers - Composition of Byzantine Quorum Systems

Authors: Orestis Alpos, Christian Cachin, and Luca Zanolini

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 209, 35th International Symposium on Distributed Computing (DISC 2021)

Abstract
Trust is the basis of any distributed, fault-tolerant, or secure system. A trust assumption specifies the failures that a system, such as a blockchain network, can tolerate and determines the conditions under which it operates correctly. In systems subject to Byzantine faults, the trust assumption is usually specified through sets of processes that may fail together. Trust has traditionally been symmetric, such that all processes in the system adhere to the same, global assumption about potential faults. Recently, asymmetric trust models have also been considered, especially in the context of blockchains, where every participant is free to choose who to trust. In both cases, it is an open question how to compose trust assumptions. Consider two or more systems, run by different and possibly disjoint sets of participants, with different assumptions about faults: how can they work together? This work answers this question for the first time and offers composition rules for symmetric and for asymmetric quorum systems. These rules are static and do not require interaction or agreement on the new trust assumption among the participants. Moreover, they ensure that if the original systems allow for running a particular protocol (guaranteeing consistency and availability), then so will the joint system. At the same time, the composed system tolerates as many faults as possible, subject to the underlying consistency and availability properties. Reaching consensus with asymmetric trust in the model of personal Byzantine quorum systems (Losa et al., DISC 2019) was shown to be impossible, if the trust assumptions of the processes diverge from each other. With asymmetric quorum systems, and by applying our composition rule, we show how consensus is actually possible, even with the combination of disjoint sets of processes.
Cite as

Orestis Alpos, Christian Cachin, and Luca Zanolini. Brief Announcement: How to Trust Strangers - Composition of Byzantine Quorum Systems. In 35th International Symposium on Distributed Computing (DISC 2021). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 209, pp. 44:1-44:4, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2021)

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@InProceedings{alpos_et_al:LIPIcs.DISC.2021.44,
  author =	{Alpos, Orestis and Cachin, Christian and Zanolini, Luca},
  title =	{{Brief Announcement: How to Trust Strangers - Composition of Byzantine Quorum Systems}},
  booktitle =	{35th International Symposium on Distributed Computing (DISC 2021)},
  pages =	{44:1--44:4},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-210-5},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2021},
  volume =	{209},
  editor =	{Gilbert, Seth},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.DISC.2021.44},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-148468},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.DISC.2021.44},
  annote =	{Keywords: Byzantine quorum systems, composition of quorum systems, trust models, asymmetric trust}
}
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