Game Theoretic Approach for Secure and Efficient Heavy-Duty Smart Contracts

Smart contracts in the blockchain systems such as Ethereum are usually executed or verified by all nodes, and thus inefficient for heavy-duty computation. This paper addresses the limitation by proposing, implementing, and evaluating a practical and efficient solution based on a game theoretic approach. The solution defines a template of heavy-duty smart contract (HDSC); recruits only a small number of executors to execute heavy-duty tasks; employs a game theoretic scheme to enforce economically-rational executors to individually or collectively perform the execution correctly. Extensive game theoretic analysis has been conducted to show the security and computational efficiency of the solution even in face of collusion among the executors. As a proof of concept, the proposed solution has been implemented and experimented to demonstrate its practicality and compatibility with Ethereum.