Cloud/fog computing resource management and pricing for blockchain networks

Zehui Xiong, Shaohan Feng, Wenbo Wang, Dusit Niyato, Ping Wang, Zhu Han

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

217 Scopus citations

Abstract

Public blockchain networks using proof of work (PoW)-based consensus protocols are considered as a promising platform for decentralized resource management with financial incentive mechanisms. In order to maintain a secured, universal state of the blockchain, PoW-based consensus protocols financially incentivize the nodes in the network to compete for the privilege of block generation through cryptographic puzzle solving. For rational consensus nodes, i.e., miners with limited local computational resources, offloading the computation load for PoW to the cloud/fog providers (CFPs) becomes a viable option. In this paper, we study the interaction between the CFPs and the miners in a PoW-based blockchain network using a game theoretic approach. In particular, we propose a lightweight infrastructure of the PoW-based blockchains, where the computation-intensive part of the consensus process is offloaded to the cloud/fog. We formulate the computation resource management in the blockchain consensus process as a two-stage Stackelberg game, where the profit of the CFP and the utilities of the individual miners are jointly optimized. In the first stage of the game, the CFP sets the price of offered computing resource. In the second stage, the miners decide on the amount of service to purchase accordingly. We apply backward induction to analyze the subgame perfect equilibria in each stage for both uniform and discriminatory pricing schemes. For uniform pricing where the same price applies to all miners, the uniqueness of the Stackelberg equilibrium is validated by identifying the best response strategies of the miners. For discriminatory pricing where the different prices are applied, the uniqueness of the Stackelberg equilibrium is proved by capitalizing on the variational inequality theory. Further, the real experimental results are employed to justify our proposed model.

Original languageEnglish
Article number8470083
Pages (from-to)4585-4600
Number of pages16
JournalIEEE Internet of Things Journal
Volume6
Issue number3
DOIs
StatePublished - Jun 2019
Externally publishedYes

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2014 IEEE.

Keywords

  • Blockchain
  • Computation offloading
  • Game theory
  • Pricing
  • Proof-of-work
  • Variational inequalities (VIs)

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