LS-Gossip: An Improved Block Distribution Algorithm in Blockchain Networks

With the rapid development of blockchain technology, more and more blockchain projects use the Gossip algorithm to synchronize block data, but its efficiency is dissatisfactory, which restricts the data transmission performance of the blockchain. The random transmission mechanism of the Gossip algorithm causes nodes to send and receive messages repeatedly, which results in a large amount of redundant traffic. In addition, the failure of some nodes may lead to data loss in transmission, which prolongs the overall propagation time. To solve these problems, we propose the LS-Gossip algorithm. It marks the latest block status of adjacent nodes for on-demand transmission, reducing the probability of selecting duplicate nodes. Then, it optimizes the propagation path by prioritizing nodes with higher reliability to propagate blocks, reducing the propagation time delay caused by node anomalies. The results indicated that the data distribution efficiency of LS-Gossip was significantly improved compared with Gossip, which greatly reduced the propagation convergence time and communication overhead.