Blockchain protocol stops front running by randomizing transaction sharing
Mitigating Front-Running Attacks through Fair and Resilient Transaction Dissemination
Distributed, Parallel, and Cluster Computing
Summary
In blockchains, unfair competition called front-running happens when some participants see and act on transactions before others, harming fairness. The authors propose HERMES, a new way to share transaction data that mixes up the order to stop front-running and ensures everyone gets a fair chance. Their system also makes sure nodes follow the rules and can handle faulty or malicious participants. Tests show HERMES spreads data faster and fairer than older methods on different blockchain types.
What this means in practice
- •For blockchain developers: Improve transaction propagation fairness and speed to reduce front-running in both permissioned and permissionless blockchain networks.
- •For distributed system engineers: Design resilient data sharing protocols that maintain fairness and robustness despite malicious nodes and network faults.
Authors
Wassim Yahyaoui, Joachim Bruneau-Queyreix, Jérémie Decouchant, Marcus Völp
Abstract
In modern blockchains, efficient, fair, and faulttolerant information dissemination is critical for performance and security. Several stages of the transaction lifecycle are affected, from the creation and dissemination of transactions to the dissemination of blocks in the consensus layer. Mempool protocols, such as L{Ø}, already address some of modern blockchains' security threats. However, others remain unless fairness is embedded most fundamentally in the dissemination layer used by these protocols to share transactions and blocks and to reconcile mempools. This paper introduces HERMES, a novel dissemination protocol for mempools that leverages robust minimal structures to optimize data propagation, balance load, and ensure fairness despite faults and Byzantine actors. Specifically, we address front-running attacks by randomizing the choice of an overlay structure while forcing nodes to prove adherence to the mempools' dissemination policies and the random choice made. Experimental results show significant performance improvements compared to traditional broadcast protocols for both permissioned and permissionless blockchains.