Overview
Alpenglow is a research reference implementation of a novel consensus protocol designed for high-performance Proof-of-Stake blockchains. It introduces erasure coding to improve block propagation and confirmation times, achieving superior throughput under adversarial conditions.
The protocol builds on the observation that traditional block propagation becomes a bottleneck as block sizes grow. By encoding blocks into erasure-coded shreds, Alpenglow allows validators to reconstruct blocks from any subset of shreds, dramatically reducing the data required for confirmation.
Key Features
- Erasure-coded block propagation for improved network efficiency
- Probabilistic confirmation with configurable safety thresholds
- Proof-of-Stake leader selection with stake-weighted randomness
- Resilient to network partitions and adversarial conditions