Leaderless Byzantine Fault-Tolerant Consensus Protocol for Blockchains

In today's world, there is a significant advancement in the development of blockchain-based technologies and data replication systems. These areas heavily rely on the communication between user groups, making consensus a crucial aspect for their proper functioning. While most consensus protocols are leader-based, this approach may not always be suitable. In the case of blockchain projects, relying on a single leader to process all transactions can become a bottleneck for scalability and opens up the possibility of censorship. This paper aims to highlight the advantages and fundamental principles of fault-tolerant leaderless consensus algorithms. It also presents the implementation of a blockchain simulator featuring the renowned Democratic Byzantine Fault Tolerant (DBFT) consensus algorithm. The simulator is subjected to various attacks in order to test its operational effectiveness. By design, the DBFT algorithm ensures resistance against censorship, although it does come at the expense of increased communication complexity and challenges in block composition.