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DOI: 10.4230/LIPIcs.DISC.2025.28

Byzantine Consensus in the Random Asynchronous Model

Authors: George Danezis, Jovan Komatovic, Lefteris Kokoris-Kogias, Alberto Sonnino, and Igor Zablotchi

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

Abstract

We propose a novel relaxation of the classic asynchronous network model, called the random asynchronous model, which removes adversarial message scheduling while preserving unbounded message delays and Byzantine faults. Instead of an adversary dictating message order, delivery follows a random schedule. We analyze Byzantine consensus at different resilience thresholds (n = 3f+1, n = 2f+1, and n = f+2) and show that our relaxation allows consensus with probabilistic guarantees which are impossible in the standard asynchronous model or even the partially synchronous model. We complement these protocols with corresponding impossibility results, establishing the limits of consensus in the random asynchronous model.

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George Danezis, Jovan Komatovic, Lefteris Kokoris-Kogias, Alberto Sonnino, and Igor Zablotchi. Byzantine Consensus in the Random Asynchronous Model. In 39th International Symposium on Distributed Computing (DISC 2025). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 356, pp. 28:1-28:22, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2025)

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@InProceedings{danezis_et_al:LIPIcs.DISC.2025.28,
  author =	{Danezis, George and Komatovic, Jovan and Kokoris-Kogias, Lefteris and Sonnino, Alberto and Zablotchi, Igor},
  title =	{{Byzantine Consensus in the Random Asynchronous Model}},
  booktitle =	{39th International Symposium on Distributed Computing (DISC 2025)},
  pages =	{28:1--28:22},
  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.2025.28},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-248457},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.DISC.2025.28},
  annote =	{Keywords: network model, asynchronous, random scheduler, Byzantine consensus}
}

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DOI: 10.4230/LIPIcs.AFT.2023.7

STROBE: Streaming Threshold Random Beacons

Authors: Donald Beaver, Konstantinos Chalkias, Mahimna Kelkar, Lefteris Kokoris-Kogias, Kevin Lewi, Ladi de Naurois, Valeria Nikolaenko, Arnab Roy, and Alberto Sonnino

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

Abstract

We revisit decentralized random beacons with a focus on practical distributed applications. Decentralized random beacons (Beaver and So, Eurocrypt'93) provide the functionality for n parties to generate an unpredictable sequence of bits in a way that cannot be biased, which is useful for any decentralized protocol requiring trusted randomness. Existing beacon constructions are highly inefficient in practical settings where protocol parties need to rejoin after crashes or disconnections, and more significantly where smart contracts may rely on arbitrary index points in high-volume streams. For this, we introduce a new notion of history-generating decentralized random beacons (HGDRBs). Roughly, the history-generation property of HGDRBs allows for previous beacon outputs to be efficiently generated knowing only the current value and the public key. At application layers, history-generation supports registering a sparser set of on-chain values if desired, so that apps like lotteries can utilize on-chain values without incurring high-frequency costs, enjoying all the benefits of DRBs implemented off-chain or with decoupled, special-purpose chains. Unlike rollups, HG is tailored specifically to recovering and verifying pseudorandom bit sequences and thus enjoys unique optimizations investigated in this work. We introduce STROBE: an efficient HGDRB construction which generalizes the original squaring-based RSA approach of Beaver and So. STROBE enjoys several useful properties that make it suited for practical applications that use beacons: 1) history-generating: it can regenerate and verify high-throughput beacon streams, supporting sparse (thus cost-effective) ledger entries; 2) concisely self-verifying: NIZK-free, with state and validation employing a single ring element; 3) eco-friendly: stake-based rather than work based; 4) unbounded: refresh-free, addressing limitations of Beaver and So; 5) delay-free: results are immediately available. 6) storage-efficient: the last beacon suffices to derive all past outputs, thus O(1) storage requirements for nodes serving the whole history.

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Donald Beaver, Konstantinos Chalkias, Mahimna Kelkar, Lefteris Kokoris-Kogias, Kevin Lewi, Ladi de Naurois, Valeria Nikolaenko, Arnab Roy, and Alberto Sonnino. STROBE: Streaming Threshold Random Beacons. In 5th Conference on Advances in Financial Technologies (AFT 2023). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 282, pp. 7:1-7:16, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2023)

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@InProceedings{beaver_et_al:LIPIcs.AFT.2023.7,
  author =	{Beaver, Donald and Chalkias, Konstantinos and Kelkar, Mahimna and Kokoris-Kogias, Lefteris and Lewi, Kevin and de Naurois, Ladi and Nikolaenko, Valeria and Roy, Arnab and Sonnino, Alberto},
  title =	{{STROBE: Streaming Threshold Random Beacons}},
  booktitle =	{5th Conference on Advances in Financial Technologies (AFT 2023)},
  pages =	{7:1--7:16},
  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.2023.7},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-191969},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.AFT.2023.7},
  annote =	{Keywords: decentralized randomness, beacons, consensus, blockchain, lottery}
}

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Documents authored by Kokoris-Kogias, Lefteris

Byzantine Consensus in the Random Asynchronous Model

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STROBE: Streaming Threshold Random Beacons

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