Content area
This dissertation discusses novel topological approaches to enhancing fault tolerance in distributed ledger technologies under Byzantine faults and network churn. We present distributed systems: Torus, TRAIL, and SmartShards. They are designed to address limitations in current distributed systems consensus mechanisms. Torus offers a solution for achieving consensus on a torus, even in the presence of dense Byzantine faults. By leveraging the properties of the torus topology, Torus ensures reliable communication and consensus among peers despite the faults. TRAIL focuses on cross-shard transaction validation in cryptocurrency blockchains, introducing a dynamic validator selection process that protects against complete shard failures and Byzantine faults. SmartShards provides an approach for managing churn in sharded blockchains, enabling inter-shard communication and dynamic reconfiguration. SmartShards eliminates the need for epoch-based network reconfiguration and enhances network availability at scale.