Partial Order Transactions on Permissioned Blockchains for enhanced Scalability

Abstract

Ordering service in a permissioned blockchain platform like Hyperledger Fabric groups the transactions into various blocks. These blocks are linked together via a hash chain to provide immutability. Transactions with less block height get validated before the transactions with more block height. Within a single block, the transactions get validated in the same order they are arranged inside the block. This structure imposes a total order among transactions. This total ordering ensures that all the peer nodes reach the same final state once all the transactions are validated. This total ordering prevents parallel validation of transactions. A given transaction may not be dependent on all the transactions preceding it. However, such a transaction still cannot be validated before completion of validation for all the preceding transactions. This paper presents a blockchain system to support partial ordering among non-dependent transactions. The proposed blockchain system aims to achieve high transaction throughput by enabling parallel transaction validation and reducing the transaction turnaround time by eliminating the need for the transactions to wait for non-dependent predecessor transactions. The proposed blockchain system ensures that all peer nodes reach the same final state even if the order in which they validate the transactions is different.