Performance analysis and comparison of PoW, PoS and DAG based blockchains

Cao, B., Zhang, Z., Feng, D., Zhang, S., Zhang, L. , Peng, M. and Li, Y. (2020) Performance analysis and comparison of PoW, PoS and DAG based blockchains. Digital Communications and Networks, 6(4), pp. 480-485. (doi: 10.1016/j.dcan.2019.12.001)

Abstract

In the blockchain, the consensus mechanism plays a key role in maintaining the security and legitimation of contents recorded in the blocks. Various blockchain consensus mechanisms have been proposed. However, there is no technical analysis and comparison as a guideline to determine which type of consensus mechanism should be adopted in a specific scenario/application. To this end, this work investigates three mainstream consensus mechanisms in the blockchain, namely, Proof of Work (PoW), Proof of Stake (PoS), and Direct Acyclic Graph (DAG), and derives their performances in terms of the average time to generate a new block, the confirmation delay, the Transaction Per Second (TPS) and the confirmation failure probability. The results show that the consensus process is affected by both network resource (computation power/coin age, buffer size) and network load conditions. In addition, it shows that PoW and PoS are more sensitive to the change of network resource while DAG is more sensitive to network load conditions.

• Item Type: Articles
• Additional Information: This work was supported in part by the State Major Science and Technology Special Project (2018ZX033001023), in part by the National Program for Special Support of Eminent Professionals, in part by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (61701059, 61831002 and 61671096), in part by the Eighteenth Open Foundation of State Key Lab of Integrated Services Networks of Xidian University (ISN20-05), in part by Chongqing Research Program of Basic Science and Frontier Technology(cstc2017jcyjBX0005), in part by the Chongqing Science and Technology Innovation Leading Talent Support Program (CSTCCXLJRC201710), and in part by Chongqing Technological Innovation and Application Development Projects (cstc2019jscx-msxm1322).
• Status: Published
• Refereed: Yes
• Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID: Zhang, Professor Lei
• Authors: Cao, B., Zhang, Z., Feng, D., Zhang, S., Zhang, L., Peng, M., and Li, Y.
• College/School: College of Science and Engineering > School of Engineering > Systems Power and Energy
• Journal Name: Digital Communications and Networks
• Publisher: Elsevier
• ISSN: 2352-8648
• ISSN (Online): 2352-8648
• Published Online: 03 January 2020
• Copyright Holders: Copyright © 2019 Chongqing University of Posts and Telecommunications
• First Published: First published in Digital Communications and Networks 6(4): 480-485
• Publisher Policy: Reproduced under a Creative Commons License