Improved Fast-Response Consensus Algorithm Based on HotStuff

Abstract

Recent Byzantine Fault-Tolerant (BFT) State Machine Replication (SMR) protocols increasingly focus on scalability and security to meet the growing demand for Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) applications across various domains. Current BFT consensus algorithms typically require a single leader node to receive and validate votes from the majority process and broadcast the results, a design challenging to scale in large systems. We propose a fast-response consensus algorithm based on improvements to HotStuff, aimed at enhancing transaction ordering speed and overall performance of distributed systems, even in the presence of faulty copies. The algorithm introduces an optimistic response assumption, employs a message aggregation tree to collect and validate votes, and uses a dynamically adjusted threshold mechanism to reduce communication delay and improve message delivery reliability. Additionally, a dynamic channel mechanism and an asynchronous leader multi-round mechanism are introduced to address multiple points of failure in the message aggregation tree structure, minimizing dependence on a single leader. This adaptation can be flexibly applied to real-world system conditions to improve performance and responsiveness. We conduct experimental evaluations to verify the algorithm’s effectiveness and superiority. Compared to the traditional HotStuff algorithm, the improved algorithm demonstrates higher efficiency and faster response times in handling faulty copies and transaction ordering.