DHBN: An Efficient Broadcast Protocol for Blockchain Networks in Highly Dynamic Heterogeneous Environment

Existing blockchain technologies and consensus protocols are primarily designed for static, ideal peer-to-peer (P2P) networks, which don't suit the highly dynamic and diverse Internet of Things (IoT) environment. This results in issues such as increased node overhead, network data synchronization delays, block failures, and system crashes. To address the limitations posed by network dynamics and heterogeneity, this paper proposes a structured overlay protocol that can adapt to network dynamics, reduce data broadcast latency and bandwidth load, named DHBN. DHBN logically layers the network based on the survival time of nodes and communication resource heterogeneity, maintaining multiple Minimum Latency Broadcast Trees (MLBT) in a distributed manner in each layer. Nodes communicate with neighbors through tree connections and with other trees through random connections, balancing participant relay tasks. Simulation results demonstrate that compared to other structured broadcast protocols and gossip, DHBN reduces broadcast latency by 34%, bandwidth consumption by 25%, and increases the number of nodes participating in consensus by 14%, offering improved scalability and security.