Plutus : measuring message gossiping in P2P networks and providing incentives in cryptocurrencies

Abstract

In this thesis, we present Plutus, an efficient and game-theoretically proven incentive mechanism for Algorand, a proof-of-stake cryptocurrency. In order to operate, Algorand requires users to constantly propagate messages but has no mechanism to incentivize users to do so. Plutus solves this problem by keeping track of each message propagation path and rewarding the users who propagated messages using a lottery. We implemented a prototype of Plutus on top of Algorand to measure the performance and overhead of Plutus. Experimental results show that with Plutus, Algorand's block confirmation time increases by only 7% and that there is no penalty on Algorand's scalability.