IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jfinte/v1y2022i2p13-179d825134.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Economics of Consensus in Algorand

Author

Listed:
  • Nicola Dimitri

    (Department of Economics and Statistics, University of Siena, Piazza San Francesco 7, 53100 Siena, Italy)

Abstract

In the paper we investigate consensus formation, from an economic perspective, in a Proof-of-Stake (PoS) based platform inspired by the Algorand blockchain. In particular, we consider PoS in relation to governance, focusing on two main issues. First we discuss alternative sampling schemes, which can be adopted to select voting committees and to define the number of votes of committee members. The selection probability is proportional to one’s stake and increases with it. Participation in governance allows users to affect the platform’s decisions as well as to obtain a reward. Then, based on such preliminary analysis, we introduce a microeconomic model to investigate the optimal stake size for a generic user. In the model we conceptualize an optimal stake, for a user, as striking the balance between having Algos immediately available for transactions and setting aside currency units to increase the probability of becoming a committee member. Our main findings suggest that the optimal stake can be quite sensitive to the user’s preferences and to the rules for selecting committees. We believe the findings may support policy decisions in PoS based platforms.

Suggested Citation

  • Nicola Dimitri, 2022. "The Economics of Consensus in Algorand," FinTech, MDPI, vol. 1(2), pages 1-16, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jfinte:v:1:y:2022:i:2:p:13-179:d:825134
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2674-1032/1/2/13/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2674-1032/1/2/13/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Ioanid Roşu & Fahad Saleh, 2021. "Evolution of Shares in a Proof-of-Stake Cryptocurrency," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 67(2), pages 661-672, February.
    2. Nicolas Houy, 2014. "It will cost you nothing to "kill" a proof-of-stake crypto-currency," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 34(2), pages 1038-1044.
    3. Jacob D. Leshno & Philipp Strack, 2020. "Bitcoin: An Axiomatic Approach and an Impossibility Theorem," American Economic Review: Insights, American Economic Association, vol. 2(3), pages 269-286, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Abheek Ghosh & Paul W. Goldberg, 2023. "Best-Response Dynamics in Lottery Contests," Papers 2305.10881, arXiv.org.
    2. Hanna Halaburda & Guillaume Haeringer & Joshua Gans & Neil Gandal, 2022. "The Microeconomics of Cryptocurrencies," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 60(3), pages 971-1013, September.
    3. José Parra-Moyano & Gregor Reich & Karl Schmedders, 2024. "A Note on the Non-proportionality of Winning Probabilities in Bitcoin," Computational Economics, Springer;Society for Computational Economics, vol. 64(3), pages 1697-1714, September.
    4. Raphael A. Auer & Cyril Monnet & Hyun Song Shin, 2021. "Distributed Ledgers and the Governance of Money," CESifo Working Paper Series 9441, CESifo.
    5. Can, Burak & Leth Hougaard, Jens & Pourpouneh, Mohsen, 2022. "On reward sharing in blockchain mining pools," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 136(C), pages 274-298.
    6. Benigno, Pierpaolo & Schilling, Linda M. & Uhlig, Harald, 2022. "Cryptocurrencies, currency competition, and the impossible trinity," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 136(C).
    7. Joshua S. Gans & Hanna Halaburda, 2023. ""Zero Cost'' Majority Attacks on Permissionless Blockchains," NBER Working Papers 31473, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    8. Auer, Raphael & Tercero-Lucas, David, 2022. "Distrust or speculation? The socioeconomic drivers of U.S. cryptocurrency investments," Journal of Financial Stability, Elsevier, vol. 62(C).
    9. Jian Wang & Qianggang Wang & Niancheng Zhou & Yuan Chi, 2017. "A Novel Electricity Transaction Mode of Microgrids Based on Blockchain and Continuous Double Auction," Energies, MDPI, vol. 10(12), pages 1-22, November.
    10. Osiebuni Collins OBU & Wilfred I. UKPERE, 2022. "The Implications of the Incursion of Cryptocurrency on the Effectiveness of Fiscal Policy," Review of Applied Socio-Economic Research, Pro Global Science Association, vol. 23(1), pages 134-150, June.
    11. Russ, Meir, 2016. "The probable foundations of sustainabilism: Information, energy and entropy based definition of capital, Homo Sustainabiliticus and the need for a “new gold”," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 130(C), pages 328-338.
    12. Schilling, Linda & Fernández-Villaverde, Jesús & Uhlig, Harald, 2024. "Central bank digital currency: When price and bank stability collide," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 145(C).
    13. Altuntaş, Açelya & Phan, William & Tamura, Yuki, 2023. "Some characterizations of Generalized Top Trading Cycles," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 141(C), pages 156-181.
    14. Anton Badev & Cy Watsky, 2023. "Interconnected DeFi: Ripple Effects from the Terra Collapse," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2023-044, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    15. Irresberger, Felix & Yang, Ruomei, 2023. "Coin concentration of Proof-of-Stake blockchains," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 229(C).
    16. Marcelo A. T. Aragão, 2021. "A Few Things You Wanted to Know about the Economics of CBDCs, but were Afraid to Model: a survey of what we can learn from who has done," Working Papers Series 554, Central Bank of Brazil, Research Department.
    17. Kensuke Ito, 2024. "Cryptoeconomics and Tokenomics as Economics: A Survey with Opinions," Papers 2407.15715, arXiv.org.
    18. Joshua S. Gans & Richard Holden, 2022. "Mechanism Design Approaches to Blockchain Consensus," Papers 2206.10065, arXiv.org.
    19. A. Mantovi, 2021. "Bitcoin selection rule and foundational game theoretic representation of mining competition," Economics Department Working Papers 2021-EP02, Department of Economics, Parma University (Italy).
    20. Wenpin Tang, 2022. "Stability of shares in the Proof of Stake Protocol -- Concentration and Phase Transitions," Papers 2206.02227, arXiv.org.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jfinte:v:1:y:2022:i:2:p:13-179:d:825134. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.