In a recent fireside chat, Areg Hayrapetian, Director of Engineering at the EOS Network Foundation and Principal Architect of Savanna, outlined the advancements brought about by the Spring 1.0 release and the development of the Savanna consensus algorithm. His insights provided a thorough explanation of how Savanna addresses key limitations of the legacy EOS consensus model and introduces cryptographic, architectural, and performance improvements to the blockchain.
Introduction and Background
The release of Spring 1.0 on September 25, 2024, marked a significant milestone for the EOS Network. The hard fork was successfully implemented, introducing Savanna, the new consensus algorithm. This moment represented the culmination of nearly two years of development aimed at improving upon the legacy consensus algorithm used by EOS, which was particularly limited by its long time to finality.
Areg noted that the legacy algorithm had been developed under considerable time pressure, leading to compromises in the final design. These shortcomings became the motivation for Savanna’s development. The new system aims to deliver instant finality, scalability, and cryptographic security without sacrificing performance. While the initial specification for Savanna was relatively straightforward, integrating it into the existing codebase proved challenging, leading to the formation of a dedicated team led by Areg.
Consensus Algorithm Development
At the core of Savanna is the concept of finality—the assurance that once a transaction is confirmed, it cannot be reversed. Areg explained two types of finality: probabilistic finality (where the probability of reversal decreases over time) and deterministic (algorithmic) finality (where consensus is mathematically guaranteed). The legacy EOS consensus achieved algorithmic finality, but it required three minutes, primarily due to its design limitation of allowing at most one confirmation per block. This created a bottleneck in scalability.
Savanna addresses this limitation by introducing a cryptographic solution that reduces time to finality to just one second. Using BLS (Boneh-Lynn-Shacham) signatures, Savanna aggregates multiple block confirmation signatures into a single signature representing a quorum certificate, reducing overhead and improving both speed and scalability.
Savanna’s design is rooted in mathematical proofs, providing formal security guarantees that were not as rigorously applied in the original EOS protocol. Areg emphasized the importance of these proofs in ensuring both safety and liveness, even in adversarial conditions. The forthcoming academic paper will provide deeper insights into these theoretical foundations, further validating Savanna’s cryptographic techniques.
Technical Innovations: Pipelining and Responsiveness
A key innovation in Savanna is pipelining, which allows different stages of the consensus process to overlap. While one block is being finalized, the next block can already enter the proposal phase, reducing latency and improving throughput.
Another important feature is strong vs. weak votes. In traditional consensus algorithms, all votes are treated equally, which can lead to delays during network partitions. Savanna’s voting mechanism ensures that the network remains responsive by using weak votes when necessary to allow the network to quickly recover liveness after chain forks without introducing arbitrary delays into the protocol.
Savanna also adapts dynamically to network conditions, allowing it to achieve low latency without sacrificing security. Unlike other consensus algorithms that may trade off either performance or security, Savanna balances both to provide a robust system for high-performance blockchain operations.
State Proofs and Light Clients: A Game-Changing Innovation on the Horizon
One of the most exciting innovations made feasible by Savanna is the future development of state proofs. While not yet fully implemented, state proofs are cryptographic mechanisms that will allow for the verification of the blockchain’s state without requiring a full node. This innovation is particularly useful for light clients, which interact with the blockchain without storing its entire history.
By pairing state proofs with light clients, the computational burden will shift away from full nodes, allowing more lightweight network participation. This is critical for scalability and decentralization, as more users can engage with the network without the need for extensive resources. These improvements, while part of future development, are essential for the EOS network’s long-term growth and scalability.
Decoupling Roles: Block Producers and Finalizers
Savanna introduces the exciting possibility of decoupling the roles of block producers and finalizers. Traditionally, block producers handle both the creation and finalization of blocks, which can create bottlenecks. With Savanna, these roles could be separated, potentially allowing for lighter finalizer nodes that focus solely on finality, while block producers concentrate on block creation.
This separation would enable different optimization strategies, with block producers focused on throughput and performance, while finalizers ensure cryptographic guarantees for finality. It could also open the possibility for different numbers of block producers and finalizers, increasing the flexibility and scalability of the network.
Finalizer Rules and Violation Detection
A key security feature of Savanna is the introduction of finalizer rules designed to prevent finality violations. These rules are enforced through cryptographic proofs, which provide a verifiable record of every action taken by finalizers.
Finality violations can be detected automatically, and Areg suggested that automated contracts could be used to enforce penalties such as token slashing, where finalizers lose a portion of their staked tokens for violations. This system incentivizes honest behavior from finalizers and ensures the integrity of the network.
Future Developments and Possibilities
Looking ahead, Areg hinted at several future developments that could be explored to further improve the EOS network. One such innovation is the potential for time-locked staking pools for finalizers, where participants stake tokens for a set period and face penalties like token slashing for rule violations. This mechanism would strengthen network security and incentivize long-term commitment.
Conclusion and Future Work
The Spring 1.0 release and the introduction of Savanna represent a major leap forward for the EOS network. With instant finality and cryptographic innovations like BLS signatures, Savanna sets a new standard for blockchain consensus algorithms.
While the current implementation of Savanna is already a game-changer, Areg and his team are continuing to refine it. The forthcoming academic paper will provide deeper insights into Savanna’s cryptographic and theoretical foundations, helping validate the system further.
The successful implementation of Spring 1.0 has unlocked new avenues for IBC, decentralization, and scalability, making Savanna a critical component in the future of blockchain technology.
EOS Network
The EOS Network is a 3rd generation blockchain platform powered by the EOS VM, a low-latency, highly performant, and extensible WebAssembly engine for deterministic execution of near feeless transactions. It is purpose-built for enabling optimal Web3 user and developer experiences. EOS stands as the flagship blockchain and financial center of the Antelope framework, facilitating public goods funding for tools and infrastructure through the EOS Network Foundation (ENF).
EOS EVM
The EOS EVM is an emulation of the Ethereum EVM, housed within an EOS smart contract. It offers feature parity to other EVMs in the space but with unmatched speed, performance and compatibility. EOS EVM connects the EOS ecosystem to the Ethereum ecosystem by allowing developers to deploy a wide array of Solidity-based digital assets and innovative dApps on EOS. Developers can use EOS EVM to take advantage of Ethereum’s battle-tested open source code, tooling, libraries and SDKs, while leveraging the superior performance of EOS.
EOS Network Foundation
The EOS Network Foundation (ENF) was forged through a vision for a prosperous and decentralized future. Through our key stakeholder engagement, community programs, ecosystem funding, and support of an open technology ecosystem, the ENF is transforming Web3. Founded in 2021, the ENF is the hub for EOS Network, a leading open source platform with a suite of stable frameworks, tools, and libraries for blockchain deployments. Together, we are bringing innovations that our community builds and are committed to a stronger future for all.
