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Fork-Resilient Cross-Blockchain Transactions through Algebraic Topology (2004.08473v2)
Published 17 Apr 2020 in cs.DC and cs.DB
Abstract: The cross-blockchain transaction (CBT) serves as a cornerstone for the next-generation, blockchain-based data management systems. However, state-of-the-art CBT models do not address the effect of the possible local fork suspension that might invalidate the entire CBT. This paper takes an algebraic-topological approach to abstract the blockchains and their transactions into simplicial complexes and shows that CBTs cannot complete in either a \textit{committed} or an \textit{aborted} status by a $t$-resilient message-passing protocol. This result implies that a more sophisticated model is in need to support CBTs and, thus, sheds light on the future blockchain designs.