IOHK team finally publishes the long-awaited paper

Sidechains is a principal enable to scalability and interoperability

The innovation will potentially transform the proof of stale landscape

IOHK has finally published the long-awaited paper outlining the formal structure for proof-of-stake sidechains via a rigorous cryptographic definition. The paper outlines sidechain constructions compatible with Ouroboros and related PoS systems.

PoS Sidechains

Cardano’s Sebastian Guillemot tweeted on December 31, 2018, to say a team of IOHK researchers had published the proof of stake paper titled the “Proof-of-Stake Sidechains.”

The team, according to the paper, comprised of Peter Gaži, Aggelos Kiayias, and Dionysis Zindros. The research initially offers a formalization of the construction for PoS blockchains like Cardano’s Ouroboros before stretching to renditions like Ouroboros Praos, Ouroboros Genesis, Snow White, and Algorand later.

Sidechains, which have long been indicated as the principal enabler of blockchain scalability and interoperability, are blockchains with the unique ability to interact with parent blockchains through a two-way peg. They enable scaling and interoperability benefits that can become testing grounds for parent-chain upgrades.

According to the researchers, the paper provides several foundational technical advancements that include a new ‘firewall’ security property which safeguards each blockchain from its sidechains, a staking feature to mitigate sidechain attacks and a pegging technique via a novel cryptographic primitive we introduce called ad hoc threshold multi-signatures (ATMS).

The paper states that all these advancements are notable and collectively they represent a significant step forward not only for Cardano but for all other compatible PoS blockchains. The IOHK team said in a statement:

“We prove our construction secure using standard cryptographic assumptions […] we show that our construction supports safe cross-chain value transfers when the security assumptions of both chains are satisfied, namely that a majority of honest stake exists in both chains, and in case of a one-sided failure, maintains the firewall property, thus containing the damage to the chains whose security conditions have been violated.”

The Ouroboros Proof of Stake (PoS) Algorithm is as unique as the initial blockchain protocol that is based on proof of stake and is scientifically proven as secure and defines the way nodes reach consensus about the state of ledger. Proof of Stake provides a novel approach in block generation with the core idea being Proof of Stake doesn’t waste electricity trying to crack computational heavy problems but nodes are selected to generate new blocks via probability proportions to the number of coins a node contains.

Exciting Times Ahead for Cardano (ADA)

The Cardano team is excited at the possibility their innovative protocol will transform the landscape of the proof of Stake; the Cardano protocol seeks to re-create the proof of stake blockchain verifying ecosystem while ensuring the security of user funds.