Understand Features and Attack Vectors of XDPoS

XinFin Delegated Proof of Stake(XDPoS) is another form of Proof of Stake(PoS) consensus mechanism to scale up to Thousands of transactions per second. XDPOS concentrates block production in the hands of few semi-trusted entities in order to achieve more scalability than Proof of Work(PoW) or other Proof of Stake blockchains.

Common Terms¶

Nominator: A coin holder who stakes or delegates their coin to one or more validator. Validator: A semi-trusted entity responsible for validating and producing blocks. Epoch: A cycle of few blocks in which validator nodes create blocks in turn.

In XinFin Delegated Proof of Stake (XDPoS) anyone can participate in Validator (Block Producer).

Token holder are tallied after a specific time or after each epoch.

Why XDPOS?¶

Scalability Blocks can be propagated through the network much more efficiently. And blocks can be produced more consistently and reliably in a much shorter time frame. Moreover, finality can be reached as soon as ⅔ of the block producer has confirmed a transaction.

1.Network Infrastructure In XDPoS users have control over who will provide the infrastructure unlike PoW and PoS, where users have no choice on validators. In XDPoS, validators can be thought of as employees of users(nominators) and can be fired for not performing their duties.

2.Self-Funding Through Inflation In XDPoS, unlike PoS or PoW where miners getrewards for validating a block, inflation is used to pay block producers as well as to fund the development of platform itself.

Attack Vectors¶

Block Producers Collude The main problem this can cause is a delay in the transaction and double spends. Although these situations are highly unlikely.

Conclusion¶

XinFin Delegated Proof of Stake(XDPoS) is an elegant, robust and practically proven solution to the scalability issues of Blockchain. Although, XDPoS does compromise decentralization in some sense, and it is up to token holders to monitor the health of the system, watch for bad behaviour and decide upon what makes for sufficient decentralization. It still solves the scalability and safety issues in Blockchain. And, all in all if not everywhere XDPoS can still be used as a Layer 2 or Layer 3 security while keeping a PoW system as a security base layer. It will help us achieve decentralization, safety as well as scalability which is the most important issue of current blockchain networks.