CoBRA: A Universal Strategyproof Confirmation Protocol for Quorum-based Proof-of-Stake Blockchains (2503.16783v2)

Abstract: We present a formal analysis of quorum-based State Machine Replication (SMR) protocols in Proof-of-Stake (PoS) systems under a hybrid threat model comprising honest, Byzantine, and rational validators. Our analysis of traditional quorum-based protocols establishes two fundamental impossibility results: (1) in partially synchronous networks, no quorum-based protocol can achieve SMR when rational and Byzantine validators comprise more than $1/3$ of participants, and (2) in synchronous networks, SMR remains impossible when rational and Byzantine validators comprise $2/3$ or more of participants. To overcome these limitations, we propose two complementary solutions in our hybrid model. First, we introduce a protocol that enforces a bound on the volume of the total transacted amount that is finalized within any time window $\Delta$ and prove that this bound is necessary for secure SMR protocols in our model. Second, we present the \emph{strongest chain rule}, which enables efficient finalization of transactions when the majority of honest participants provably support the SMR execution. Through empirical analysis of Ethereum and Cosmos networks, we demonstrate that validator participation consistently exceeds the required ${5}/{6}$ threshold, establishing the practical feasibility of our solution in production PoS systems.