Casper the Friendly Finality Gadget
This addresses security vulnerabilities in blockchain systems for users and developers, though it is incremental as it builds on existing proof-of-stake and Byzantine fault-tolerant consensus research.
The authors tackled the problem of securing proof-of-work blockchains against block reversions by introducing Casper, a proof-of-stake-based finality system that overlays existing chains, providing additional protections and proving defenses against long-range revisions and catastrophic crashes.
We introduce Casper, a proof of stake-based finality system which overlays an existing proof of work blockchain. Casper is a partial consensus mechanism combining proof of stake algorithm research and Byzantine fault tolerant consensus theory. We introduce our system, prove some desirable features, and show defenses against long range revisions and catastrophic crashes. The Casper overlay provides almost any proof of work chain with additional protections against block reversions.