Towards a Verified Model of the Algorand Consensus Protocol in Coq.

The Algorand blockchain is a secure and decentralized public ledger based on pure proof of stake rather than proof of work. At its core it is a novel consensus protocol with exactly one block certified in each round: that is, the protocol guarantees that the blockchain does not fork. In this paper, we report on our effort to model and formally verify the Algorand consensus protocol in the Coq proof assistant. Similar to previous consensus protocol verification efforts, we model the protocol as a state transition system and reason over reachable global states. However, in contrast to previous work, our model explicitly incorporates timing issues (e.g., timeouts and network delays) and adversarial actions, reflecting a more realistic environment faced by a public blockchain.