LibraryConsensus2018Design paperCorpus record
Scaling Nakamoto Consensus to Thousands of Transactions per Second
Conflux. Chenxing Li, Peilun Li, Dong Zhou, Wei Xu, Fan Long and Andrew Chi-Chih Yao.
Keep every block in a directed acyclic graph. A pivot chain picks a total order. Honest blocks that lost the race still contribute security and transactions.
A reading of the public document. Not a copy of it, and not a claim about a later network that reused the name.
A chain that raises the block rate and orphans honest work has not used this idea. Ask whether losing blocks still count.
- Evidence
- Primary paper
- Re-measured
- No
- Assumptions
- 3
- Records linked
- 3
Code
Source, repository, and what is actually hosted
- arXiv:1805.03870https://arxiv.org/pdf/1805.03870
- The source URL is not a GitHub repository. No code remote is invented.
- Full text is not mirrored. Public availability is not a licence to copy the file onto this site.
- Add to a reading list
01 Claim ledger
What the paper is allowed to say
Each row is a sentence already in the study. The status is the same on every row: a model claim, not a live measurement.
Claim 01 · Paper model
The defect
Bitcoin throws away forks. At a high block rate, honest blocks are thrown away too, and the safety proof thins out.
Claim 02 · Paper model
The rule
Keep every block in a directed acyclic graph. A pivot chain picks a total order. Honest blocks that lost the race still contribute security and transactions.
Claim 03 · Paper model
How it is put together
Blocks point at more than one parent. The pivot chain is a slow, heaviest path. Epochs around the pivot chain yield one transaction order.
Claim 04 · Paper model
Where the claim stops
The paper's throughput is a model, not a promise for a later network.
02 Three cuts
Observation, model, falsifier
A desk does not stop at the summary. Each claim is cut three ways, using only this study's own assumptions and checks. Nothing here is a new figure.
01 The defect
02 The rule
Observation
What the study says
Keep every block in a directed acyclic graph. A pivot chain picks a total order. Honest blocks that lost the race still contribute security and transactions.
Model
What has to hold
A total order still exists. This is not a system with no conflicts.
Falsifier
What would retire it
Do orphaned honest blocks still add weight?
03 How it is put together
Observation
What the study says
Blocks point at more than one parent. The pivot chain is a slow, heaviest path. Epochs around the pivot chain yield one transaction order.
Model
What has to hold
A total order still exists. This is not a system with no conflicts.
Falsifier
What would retire it
What happens to a transaction that appears in two epochs?
04 Where the claim stops
Observation
What the study says
The paper's throughput is a model, not a promise for a later network.
Model
What has to hold
The paper's throughput is a model, not a promise for a later network.
Falsifier
What would retire it
Do orphaned honest blocks still add weight?
03 Sequence
One action, as an operating tape
- 01A miner extends the pivot tip and references other recent blocks.
- 02The heaviest-path rule chooses the pivot.
- 03Transactions are ordered by epoch, then by a deterministic tie break.
- 04Do orphaned honest blocks still add weight?
04 Load-bearing
The argument, and where a pitch drops it
Why it is still on the desk
The cut
A chain that raises the block rate and orphans honest work has not used this idea. Ask whether losing blocks still count.
Why it carries weight
If this cut is skipped, the paper's name is being used without the mechanism that makes the name mean anything.
Where it is dropped
Safety still depends on honest majority hash power.
After the text
The cut
Conflux the network is a later deployment. Cite the paper for the graph and the pivot chain, and the client for the parameters.
Why it carries weight
If this cut is skipped, the paper's name is being used without the mechanism that makes the name mean anything.
Where it is dropped
The paper's throughput is a model, not a promise for a later network.
05 Register
What has to be true
Network · Not re-measured
The paper's throughput is a model, not a promise for a later network.
Model · Not re-measured
A total order still exists. This is not a system with no conflicts.
Stake and threshold · Not re-measured
Safety still depends on honest majority hash power.
06 Divergence
What happened after the paper
Conflux the network is a later deployment. Cite the paper for the graph and the pivot chain, and the client for the parameters.
A later client, parameter set, or reward formula is a different object. Cite this paper for the mechanism. Cite a primary release for the network. This desk has not re-run the proof.
07 Pre-mortem
What to check before you use the idea
- 0 of 3 marked on this browser. A mark is a reading note, not a pass, a rating, or a recommendation.
08 Anatomy
The paper, in the order a builder needs
The problem it names
Bitcoin throws away forks. At a high block rate, honest blocks are thrown away too, and the safety proof thins out.
What the design proposes
- Blocks point at more than one parent.
- The pivot chain is a slow, heaviest path.
- Epochs around the pivot chain yield one transaction order.
How the mechanism is specified
- A miner extends the pivot tip and references other recent blocks.
- The heaviest-path rule chooses the pivot.
- Transactions are ordered by epoch, then by a deterministic tie break.
What this page does not treat as proven
- The paper's throughput is a model, not a promise for a later network.
- A total order still exists. This is not a system with no conflicts.
- Safety still depends on honest majority hash power.
Why the desk still reads it
A chain that raises the block rate and orphans honest work has not used this idea. Ask whether losing blocks still count.
09 Lexicon
Terms, opened into the record
- Pivot chain
- The chain inside the graph that decides order.
- Epoch
- The set of blocks the pivot orders together.
10 Repository
Every linked record on this page
Underlined words open a page that already exists: a concept, a protocol profile, a failure record, or another paper. If a word is not underlined, this desk does not have a record for it.
This is Blockchain Lab's reading of a public design paper. It is not the paper, not a copy of it, and not an offer of tokens, equity, custody or a partnership. Later network behaviour can diverge from the text. Nothing here is investment, legal or technical advice.
Research status: Design paper. Last reviewed: 1 October 2026. This is a reading of a public paper, not investment, legal or security advice.