Clear DefinitionsAsynchronous Byzantine Fault Tolerance
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Pronunciation
[ay-sin-kruh-nus byz-an-teen fault tol-er-uhns]
Analogy
aBFT is like sending letters through the mail with no guaranteed delivery schedule—eventually, the group still reaches agreement despite unpredictable delays.
Definition
Key Points Intro
Asynchronous BFT protocols rely on these techniques:
Key Points
No timing assumptions: Works under arbitrary network delays.
Randomization: Uses cryptographic randomness to break deadlock.
Threshold cryptography: Secures agreement with aggregated signatures.
Reliability: Guarantees termination with probability 1.
Example
HoneyBadgerBFT batches transactions and uses threshold encryption to agree on batches despite network asynchrony and up to f faulty nodes.
Technical Deep Dive
aBFT protocols like HoneyBadger use Asynchronous Common Subset (ACS): nodes propose encrypted batches, run Reliable Broadcast and Binary Agreement on shares, then decrypt agreed batches. Random leader election via Verifiable Random Functions ensures progress without timing.
Security Warning
Randomized termination may incur unbounded latency in rare cases; ensure application can tolerate variable commit times.
Caveat
High communication and computation overhead for encryption and agreement can limit throughput.
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