ThunderToken

INTRODUCING THUNDER

Thunder is a new crypto token that is high throughput and confirms transactions in seconds. This is enabled by a paradigm-shifting blockchain protocol, developed by leading experts in cryptography and distributed system, and accompanied by a rigorous mathematical analysis of security. ​

HOW IT WORKS

Thunder is based on a robust new blockchain protocol developed by our team of experts in cryptography and distributed systems. The key idea is simple. Let’s start off with a standard blockchain such as Nakamoto’s blockchain used in Bitcoin, or Ethereum’s blockchain. We combine such a “standard-chain” with an “optimistic fast-path” that is coordinated by a new entity referred to as the “Accelerator” and a committee of stake-holders. As long as a) the accelerator is acting honestly, b) network conditions are good, and c) 3/4 of the stake-holders are honest, we barely need to use the slow-chain at all; instead, transactions can be confirmed on the “fast-path” by the committee using a simple and lean consensus protocol. This protocol offers both high throughput and blazing fast confirmation of transactions. But the fast-path only confirms new transactions assuming the-above mentioned “good conditions” are met. When they are not (e.g., the accelerator misbehaves), we can leverage the standard chain to recover in a provably sound manner.

While many systems claim to have faster consensus using similar ideas, the novelty of Thunder is in (a) identifying a very efficient “fast-path”, and (b) proving how any attack on the fast-path conditions will be thwarted by a clean, and fork-free transition to the standard path, followed by a clean transition back to the fast-path when optimistic conditions return. Thunder is the first scheme to have a rigorous proof of this last step.
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