Distributed consensus protocols have been widely deployed by companies like Google and Facebook, and traditional deployments are typically small-scale. The rise of cryptocurrencies has stimulated excitement in large-scale deployments of distributed consensus, e.g., across thousands of nodes and hundreds of (mutually distrustful) organizations. In this talk, we ask what should be the “dream” protocol for large-scale distributed consensus. Towards exploring this question, we propose a new paradigm called Thunderella. Thunderella has the simplicity and robustness of a blockchain protocol, but in the optimistic case confirms transaction in 2-3 actual network rounds without having to wait for even a single “block interval”. Our paradigm can be instantiated in both permissioned and permissionless settings and we believe that the protocol’s marked simplicity will facilitate implementation, reconfiguration, and operational maintenance in large-scale deployments.

Bio: Prof. Elaine Shi is an Associate Professor of Computer Science at Cornell University. She is a co-founder of IC3 and ThunderCore. Her research focuses on cryptography and algorithms with applications to cryptocurrencies, distributed consensus, and secure software systems. She obtained her Ph.D. from Carnegie Mellon University, and is the recipient of a Packard Fellowship, a Sloan Fellowship, an ONR YIP Award, and numerous best paper awards.