Ouroboros (protocol)

Ouroboros is a family of proof-of-stake blockchain consensus protocols that can run both permissionless and permissioned blockchains.[1]

This article is about the protocol. For other uses, see Ouroboros (disambiguation).
The ouroboros, Kekulé's inspiration for the structure of benzene. It is used to symbolize the ever-growing consensus on chain.

Ouroboros was first described by an academic team lead by Aggelos Kiayias at the Annual International Cryptology Conference in 2017.[2] Later that year, a stripped, permissioned variant called Ouroboros-BFT[3] was used by IOHK as the basis of the Cardano blockchain and the Ada cryptocurrency.[4] [5] [6] [7] Other versions include Ouroboros Praos,[8] which is claimed to be able to support more users and the staking process while being secure against Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) and other “adaptive” attacks.

The Ouroboros consensus mechanism is described as being energy efficient by IOHK's CEO, Charles Hoskinson, stating "The advantage of (Ouroboros) proof of stake is that because you don't have that gargantuan (Bitcoin mining) overhead and energy expenditure for deciding who gets to make a block... you end up getting protocols that are much lighter and massively more energy efficient".[6] Nguyen et al compared Ouroboros to other PoS protocols.[9]

One other notable blockchain project that has applied the theory of Ouroboros in their protocol is Polkadot (cryptocurrency) in an adapted form, namely, Blind Assignment for Blockchain Extension (BABE). [10]

References
  1. Robby Houben, Alexander Syners (2018) “Cryptocurrencies and blockchain. Legal context and implications for financial crime, money laundering, and tax evasion”. July. European Parliament Policy Department for Economic, Scientific, and Quality of Life Policies, Directorate-General for Internal Policies. https://www.europarl.europa.eu/cmsdata/150761/TAX3%20Study%20on%20cryptocurrencies%20and%20blockchain.pdf
  2. Kiayias A., Russell A., David B., Oliynykov R. (2017) “Ouroboros: A Provably Secure Proof-of-Stake Blockchain Protocol”. In: Katz J., Shacham H. (eds) Advances in Cryptology – Crypto 2017. Springer, Cham. 27 July 2017. https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007%2F978-3-319-63688-7_12
  3. Aggelos Kiayias A., Russell A. (Oct 30, 2018). "Ouroboros-BFT: A Simple Byzantine Fault Tolerant Consensus Protocol". Cryptology ePrint Archive: Report 2018/1049. Retrieved November 23, 2020. https://eprint.iacr.org/2018/1049
  4. Conway, Luke net. "Cardano (ADA)". Investopedia. Retrieved 2021-12-06.
  5. Hu, Charlotte net. "A beginner's guide to how cryptocurrencies work". Popular Science. Retrieved 2021-12-06.
  6. Ehrlich, Steven net. "Cardano And Ethereum Founder Analyzes The Newest Evolutions In Crypto And Blockchain Technology". Forbes. Retrieved 2021-12-06.
  7. "The Blockchain Galaxy A comprehensive research on distributed ledger technologies" (PDF). Deloitte. 6 May 2020. Retrieved 2021-12-07. The distinctive feature of Cardano is its “research-first” approach to design.
  8. David B., Gaži P., Kiayias A., Russell A. (2018) “Ouroboros Praos: An Adaptively-Secure, Semi-synchronous Proof-of-Stake Blockchain”. Advances in Cryptology – EUROCRYPT 2018. Springer, Cham. https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-319-78375-8_3
  9. Cong T. Nguyen, Dinh Thai Hoang and Diep N. Nguyen (2019) “Proof-of-Stake Consensus Mechanisms for Future Blockchain Networks: Fundamentals, Applications and Opportunities”, https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?arnumber=8746079
  10. Alper, Handan net. "BABE". W3F. Retrieved 2021-12-06.
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