Towards sovereign domains P2P overlays in blockchain systems

Abstract

Blockchain technology has proven to be a promising solution for decentralized systems in various industries. At the core of a blockchain system is the peer-to-peer (P2P) overlay, which facilitates communication be- tween parties in the blockchain system. Recently, there is increasing evidence that this P2P overlay plays a major role in limited transaction throughput, limited scalability, and security threats in a blockchain system. In this work, it is explained that this bottleneck is caused by the fact that currently deployed P2P overlays cannot fully capture the complexity of a blockchain system. We propose a novel approach to address these issues by introducing a novel overlay architecture. Our approach, Sovereign Domains P2P Overlays, allows for nodes in a single network to belong to multiple heterogeneous groups (called domains), each with their own set of protocols tailored to the characteristics and needs of the nodes in that domain. To demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed overlay architecture, two novel node discovery protocols, FedKad and SovKad, were designed and implemented. The simulations conducted in a custom-built simulator show that SovKad outperforms node discovery in a Structured P2P Overlay (Kademlia) and node discovery in a Federated P2P Overlay (FedKad), providing evidence of the potential of the Sovereign Domains P2P Overlay architecture in blockchain systems.