Verifiable Delay Functions
Authors: D. Boneh, J. Bonneau, B. Bünz, and B. Fisch
Abstract:
We study the problem of building a verifiable delay function (VDF).
A VDF requires a specified number of sequential steps to evaluate,
yet produces a unique output that can be efficiently and publicly verified.
VDFs have many applications in decentralized systems,
including public randomness beacons,
leader election in consensus protocols, and proofs of replication.
We formalize the requirements for VDFs and present new candidate
constructions that are the first to achieve an exponential gap between
evaluation and verification time.
Reference:
In proceedings of Crypto 2018, pp. 757-788.
Full paper: pdf