Analysis of Nakamoto Consensus, Revisited
This work provides an incremental improvement in educational materials for blockchain consensus algorithms, targeting students and educators in academic institutions.
The authors revisited the analysis of Nakamoto consensus, aiming to simplify and clarify existing complex explanations to make it accessible for teaching senior undergraduate and graduate students.
In the Bitcoin white paper, Nakamoto proposed a very simple Byzantine fault tolerant consensus algorithm that is also known as Nakamoto consensus. Despite its simplicity, some existing analysis of Nakamoto consensus appears to be long and involved. In this technical report, we aim to make such analysis simple and transparent so that we can teach senior undergraduate students and graduate students in our institutions. This report is largely based on a 3-hour tutorial given by one of the authors in June 2019.