These days EEA is proud to submit the QBFT Blockchain Consensus Protocol, a Byzantine Fault-Tolerant Evidence-of-Authority consensus set of rules designed for Consortium use. QBFT is an evolution of the “Istanbul BFT Consensus” set of rules (IBFT) described in EIP-650 that gives enhancements in reliability and pace, and with as few as 2/3 of validators functioning as it should be at any given time it’s going to now not stall nor produce forks.
As a result of more than one purchasers put in force the EEA QBFT Specification, it supplies a normal that companies development on Ethereum can use on an Endeavor Ethereum community, enabling folks to run their most popular consumer device as a validator relatively than having to select one particular consumer that each one contributors within the community are compelled to make use of.
— Chaals Nevile, EEA Technical Techniques Director
As early as 2018 EEA Contributors together with BlockApps, Clearmatics, ConsenSys and JP Morgan Chase had known eventualities and configurations the place IBFT would fail, and started paintings on evolving the set of rules. The QBFT set of rules used to be written in Dafny by way of Roberto Saltini, enabling formal verification of its correctness, in response to paintings completed by way of Henrique Moniz to use the results of EEA’s discussions and enhancements.
QBFT lets in the set of validators to be modified, for instance to incorporate new contributors in a consortium community or to handle contributors leaving, to steadiness the price of operating validators, or to make sure that no player has an extra share of validators at any given time.
QBFT is constructed on well-established and time-proven Byzantine Fault Tolerant consensus ideas. With our paintings it additionally depends upon the security and safety promises equipped by way of formal verification which has allowed us to spot and attach some previous problems with IBFT that during sure configurations may just develop into critical issues.
— Roberto Saltini, Lead Researcher at ConsenSys, and writer of the QBFT Blockchain Consensus Protocol Specification
The present model of the specification supplies Dafny code with feedback and statement to unambiguously outline the set of rules. QBFT Consensus is carried out in open-source Endeavor Ethereum Shoppers together with GoQuorum and Hyperledger Besu, and is being utilized in more than one tasks by way of EEA individuals and others, in addition to getting used on EEA’s testnet.
QBFT is utilized in manufacturing these days by way of consortiums. EEA’s e-newsletter of QBFT as a normal is a smart lend a hand to create new actors development at the protocol. I’m excited for the chances introduced by way of this paintings, as I host a testnet for the EEA the use of this consensus set of rules.
— Antoine Toulmé, founding father of The Gadget Consultancy, and chair of EEA’s Testnet Running Staff
The specification is freely to be had and may also be carried out by way of someone, underneath the phrases of the Apache 2 open supply license.
