Cryptocurrency Smart Contracts for Distributed Consensus of Public Randomness

Published

October 7, 2017

Author(s)

Peter M. Mell, John M. Kelsey, James Shook

Abstract

Most modern electronic devices can produce a random number. However, it is dicult to see how a group of mutually distrusting entities can have con dence in any such hardware-produced stream of random numbers, since the producer could control the output to their gain. In this work, we use public and immutable cryptocurrency smart contracts, along with marginally-trusted randomness providers, to produce a trustworthy stream of timestamped public random numbers. Our simple contract eliminates the ability of a producer to predict or control the generated random numbers, including the stored history of random numbers. We consider and mitigate the threat of collusion between the randomness providers and miners in a second, more complex contract.

Proceedings Title

Proceedings of the 19th International Symposium on Stabilization, Safety, and Security of Distributed Systems

Volume

10616

Conference Dates

November 6-8, 2017

Conference Location

Boston, MA

Conference Title

19th International Symposium on Stabilization, Safety, and Security of Distributed Systems

Pub Type

Conferences

Download Paper

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-69084-1_31

Keywords

beacon, blockchain, randomness, smart contracts, distributed consensus

Citation

Mell, P. , Kelsey, J. and Shook, J. (2017), Cryptocurrency Smart Contracts for Distributed Consensus of Public Randomness, Proceedings of the 19th International Symposium on Stabilization, Safety, and Security of Distributed Systems, Boston, MA, [online], https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-69084-1_31 (Accessed October 14, 2025)