ORIGAMI: A flexible state channels design for public blockchain systems

Abstract: Public blockchain systems offer security guarantees that cannot be matched by any centralised system. This offering has attracted a lot of interest and has exposed a significant limitation of most blockchain designs with regards to scalability. One of the scaling solutions proposed is state channels which enables serving given applications with minimum number of transactions. Existing state channels designs set multiple compatibility requirements for applications to be deployed. Origami is a novel state channels design which removes most of the requirements of existing approaches, while it also offers a number of new features. Origami enables dynamic groups of users to interact in an unordered way completely off-chain after an initial on-boarding on-chain transaction. The proposed design is analysed in detail and compared to existing schemes, while a formal security analysis validates the security properties it offers.