ALTO-assisted Peer Selection in Bitcoin P2P Network

Year 2024, Volume: 4 Issue: 2, 117 - 123, 30.12.2024

Cihat Çetinkaya

https://doi.org/10.54569/aair.1608702

Abstract

Blockchain-based applications rely on a decentralized structure wherein the transactions are recorded on a public ledger that is maintained by every node in the peer-to-peer (P2P) network. The transactions and blocks are propagated using a multi-hop broadcast and verified by every node in the network. Application Layer Traffic Optimization (ALTO), on the other hand, is a network protocol developed and maintained by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) to provide network related information to the P2P applications to increase their performance. In this study, a novel peer selection method based on the network information provided by ALTO protocol is proposed to decrease the block propagation delay of the Bitcoin P2P network. The simulations show that the proposed peer selection method can effectively decrease the block propagation time and fork rate compared to Bitcoin’s random peer selection and region-based peer selection methods.

Keywords

P2P network, blockchain, traffic optimization, peer selection, Bitcoin

Supporting Institution

Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (TUBITAK) Electric, Electronic and Informatics Research Group (EEEAG)

Project Number

121E401

Bitcoin Ağında ALTO Destekli Eş Seçimi

Abstract

Blokzinciri tabanlı uygulamalar, görevdeş ağda gerçekleşen işlemlerin düğümlerde bir kopyasının saklandığı halka açık dijital bir kayıt defterine kaydedildiği merkezi olmayan bir yapıya dayanmaktadır. Bu uygulamalarda ağda gerçekleştirilen işlemler ve oluşturulan bloklar çok atlamalı bir yayın ile bütün ağa yayımlanır ve ağda yer alan bütün düğümler tarafından onaylanarak güvenlik sağlanır. Uygulama Katmanında Trafik Eniyileme (Application Layer Traffic Optimization - ALTO) ise Internet Mühendisliği Görev Gücü (Internet Engineering Task Force) araştırmacıları tarafından geliştirilen görevdeş ağ uygulamalarının performanslarını arttırmaya yönelik bu uygulamalara ağ bilgilerini sunmayı amaçlayan bir protokoldür. Bu çalışmada, Bitcoin görevdeş ağının blok yayılma gecikmesini azaltmak için ALTO protokolü tarafından sağlanan ağ bilgilerine dayanan yeni bir eş seçimi yöntemi önerilmiştir. Simülasyonlar, önerilen eş seçimi yönteminin, rastgele eş seçimi ve bölge tabanlı eş yöntemlerine kıyasla blok yayılma süresini ve çatallanma oranını etkili bir şekilde azaltabileceğini göstermektedir.

Keywords

Görevdeş ağ, blokzinciri, trafik eniyileme, eş seçimi, Bitcoin

Project Number

121E401

References

• Nakamoto, S. “Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System”, 2008, [Online] Available: https://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf (accessed: December 01, 2024).
• Shen X, Yu H, Buford J, Akon M. “Handbook of Peer-to-Peer Networking”, New York, Springer, 2010.
• Gurbani VK, Hilt V, Rimac I, Tomsu M, Marocco E. "A survey of research on the application-layer traffic optimization problem and the need for layer cooperation”, IEEE Communications Magazine, 47, 107-112, 2009.
• Costa M, Castro M, Rowstron A, Key P. “PIC: Practical Internet coordinates for distance estimation”, in Proceedings of International Conference on Distributed Systems, 2003.
• Dabek F, Cox R, Kaashoek F, Morris R. “ Vivaldi: A Decentralized Network Coordinate System”, in Proceedings of ACM SIGCOMM, 2003, 15-26.
• Saucez D, Donnet B, Bonaventure O. “Implementation and Preliminary Evaluation of an ISP-Driven Informed Path Selection”, in Proceedings of. ACM CoNEXT, 2007,1-2.
• Aggarwal V, Feldmann A, Scheideler C. “Can ISPs and P2P systems co-operate for improved performance?”, ACM SIGCOMM Computer Communications Review (CCR), 37(3), 29-40, 2007.
• Xie H, Yang YR, Krishnamurthy A, Liu Y, Silberschatz A. “P4P: Provider Portal for (P2P) Applications”, in Proceedings of ACM SIGCOMM, 2008, 351-362.
• Alimi R, Penno R, Yang Y, Kiesel S, Previdi S, Roome W, Shalunov S, Woundy R. “Application-Layer Traffic Optimization (ALTO) Protocol”, 2014, [Online], Available: https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/rfc7285/ (accessed: December 01, 2024).
• Cetinkaya C. “A Study on the Impact of Connection Number Parameter of Nodes on the Performance of Bitcoin Peer-to-Peer Network”, 5th International Conference on Data Science and Applications, 2022, 131-134.
• Randriamasy S, Wendy R, Schwan N. “Multi-Cost Application-Layer Traffic Optimization (ALTO)”, 2017, [Online], Available: https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/rfc8189/ (accessed: December 01, 2024).
• Fadhil M, Owenson G, Adda M.“A Bitcoin Model for Evaluation of Clustering to Improve Propagation Delay in Bitcoin Network”, in Proceedings of IEEE Intl Conference on Computational Science and Engineering, 2016.
• Fadhil M, Owenson G, Adda M. “Locality based approach to improve propagation delay on the Bitcoin peer-to-peer network”, in Proceedings of the IFIP/IEEE International Symposium on Integrated Network and Service Management, 2017, 556-559.
• Park S, Im S, Seol Y, Paek J. “Nodes in the Bitcoin Network: Comparative Measurement Study and Survey”, IEEE Access, 7, 57009-57022, 2019.
• Sudhan A, Nene M. “Peer Selection Techniques for Enhanced Transaction Propagation in Bitcoin Peer-to-Peer Network”, in Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on Intelligent Computing and Control Systems, 2019, 679-684.
• Sallal M, Owenson G, Adda M. “Proximity Awareness Approach to Enhance Propagation Delay on the Bitcoin Peer-to-Peer Network”, in Proceedings of the International Conference on Distributed Computing Systems, 2017, 2411-2416.
• Wang K, Kim H. “FastChain: Scaling blockchain system with informed neighbor selection”, in Proceedings of the 2nd EEE International Conference on Blockchain, 2019, 376-383.
• Aoki Y, Shudo K. “Proximity neighbor selection in blockchain networks”, in Proceedings of the 2nd IEEE International Conference on Blockchain, 2019, 52-58.
• Matsuura H, Goto Y, Sao H. “Region-based Neighbor Selection in Blockchain Networks”, in Proceeding of the IEEE International Conference on Blockchain, 2021, 21-28.
• Heilman E, Kendler A, Zohar A, Goldberg S. “Eclipse attacks on Bitcoin’s peer-to-peer network”, USENIX Security Symposium, 2015, 129–144.
• Aoki Y, Otsuki K, Kaneko T, Banno R, Shudo K. “Simblock: A Blockchain Network Simulator”, in Proceedings of IEEE Conference on Computer Communications Workshops, 2019, 325-329.
• Shudo K, Hasegawa T, Sakurai A, Banno R. "Blockchain Network Studies Enabled by SimBlock," 2023 IEEE International Conference on Blockchain and Cryptocurrency (ICBC), Dubai, United Arab Emirates, 2023, pp. 1-2.
• Global Bitcoin nodes distribution, [Online] Available: https://bitnodes.io/api/ (accessed: December 01, 2024).
• Internet Speed Test, [Online], Available: https://testmy.net (accessed: December 01, 2024).
• Verizon Network Performance, [Online] Available: https://verizon.com (accessed: December 01, 2024).