SCRamble: Adaptive Decentralized Overlay Construction for Blockchain Networks

2026-01-05

International Conference of Distributed Computing and Networking

AI Summary

This work addresses the high block propagation latency in blockchain networks caused by random peer-to-peer connections, which limits throughput and increases fork risk. To mitigate this, the authors propose SCRamble, a decentralized protocol that adaptively constructs an optimized overlay network to accelerate block dissemination. The core innovation lies in a dynamic scoring mechanism that evaluates neighbor performance based on block arrival times, combined with a network latency-aware heuristic to continuously select high-quality links. Experimental results demonstrate that SCRamble significantly reduces block propagation delay, enhances transaction throughput, and effectively lowers fork probability, thereby improving both the security and efficiency of the blockchain system.

Technology Category

• Search and Optimization: Distributed Search
• Data Mining & Knowledge Management: Scalability, Parallel & Distributed Systems
• Constraint Satisfaction and Optimization: Distributed CSP/Optimization

Application Category

• Security and Privacy: Blockchains and distributed ledgers
• Economics, Online Markets and Human Computation: Economic aspects of blockchain and cryptocurrencies
• Graph Algorithms and Modeling for the Web: Efficient manipulation of static and dynamic Web-related graphs

Abstract

Despite being under development for over 15 years, transaction throughput remains one of the key challenges confronting blockchains, which typically has a cap of a limited number of transactions per second. A fundamental factor limiting this metric is the network latency associated with the block propagation throughout of the underlying peer-to-peer network, typically formed through random connections. Accelerating the dissemination of blocks not only improves transaction rates, but also enhances system security by reducing the probability of forks. This paper introduces SCRamble: a decentralized protocol that significantly reduces block dissemination time in blockchain networks. SCRamble’s effectiveness is attributed to its innovative link selection strategy, which integrates two heuristics: a scoring mechanism that assesses block arrival times from neighboring peers, and a second heuristic that takes network latency into account.

Problem

• blockchain
• transaction throughput
• block propagation
• network latency
• peer-to-peer network

Innovation

• blockchain
• decentralized overlay
• block propagation
• network latency
• adaptive link selection