ChainKeeper: A cross-chain scheme for governing the chain by chain

Abstract

With the rapid application of consortium chains, supervising these systems has become a challenge for governments. The centralized model fails to deliver supervision services that are both open and transparent. Given the benefits of decentralization, non-tampering, and traceability offered by blockchains, researchers propose the concept of ‘governing the chain by chain’, which involves supervising multiple consortium chains by constructing a blockchain. Under this idea, the cross-chain scheme becomes the key to achieving excellent supervision. Existing studies have shortcomings and cannot meet the requirements of universality, security, and efficiency in cross-chain supervision scenarios. Aiming at the challenges, we propose ChainKeeper, a cross-chain scheme for governing the chain by chain. The innovation of our work lies in three points. First, a modular node proxy program is designed to adapt to various implementations of consortium chains. Second, a verifiable node random selection method is put forward to improve the throughput of cross-chain data transmission. Finally, a verifiable identity threshold signature method is proposed to prevent the cheating behavior of malicious nodes. To verify the universality of ChainKeeper, we built a prototype system on three types of consortium chains. The experimental results show that ChainKeeper can achieve high throughput, outperforming two state-of-the-art cross-chain schemes.