A Topological Model for the Blockchain
Giacomo Zanzottera, Pasqualina Fragneto, Beatrice Rossi · 2018
As it was mostly developed in a non-academic context, the literature on the blockchain often lacks of mathematical rigour. Therefore, fundamental computational problems of this new technology such as consensus, Byzantine fault tolerance and self-stabilization can not be fully looked into. In this work we use the principles of distributed computing to introduce a topological structure with the purpose of facilitating the study of the blockchain. Our model exploits classical topological tools used in the context of distributed systems to describe the evolution of a blockchain. Different assumptions on the input assignments, number of generated blocks and latency of the system are considered in our analysis. Furthermore, we define a probabilistic structure to enrich our model and to add also a predictive capability.