Pangolin: Efficient DAG-based BFT State-Machine Replication with TEE-Accelerated Commitment
Franke-Bergmann P, Kuhlmann M, Heß A, Leinweber M, Kapitza R, Hartenstein H, Hauck FJ, Berger C (2026)
Publication Status: Submitted
Publication Type: Unpublished / Preprint
Future Publication Type: Journal article
Publication year: 2026
Original Authors: Franke-Bergmann Paul, Kuhlmann Maya, Heß Alexander, Leinweber Marc, Kapitza Rüdiger, Hartenstein Hannes, Hauck Franz J., Berger Christian
DOI: 10.48550/arXiv.2610.26295
Abstract
Currently many Byzantine fault-tolerant (BFT) protocols use directed acyclic graphs (DAGs) to let replicas propose blocks of requests in parallel for improved throughput. Yet, the existing DAG-based designs mainly consider the atomicbroadcast layer: They typically do not describe an efficient client interaction layer, their garbage collection is either unspecified or relies on trusted external storage, and the lowest-latency designs rely on timing assumptions that may be violated in geo-distributed deployments. In this paper, we propose the Pangolin protocol: It introduces a novel low-latency DAGs-based atomic broadcast layer and completes it into an efficient state-machine replication (SMR) framework. To preserve system throughput, clients issue requests to a single replica and verify replies efficiently via compact execution proofs. Furthermore, Pangolin introduces a new garbage-collection scheme for DAGs which bounds memory usage even under full asynchrony. Pangolin leverages trusted execution environments to tolerate 𝑓 Byzantine faults with only 𝑛 ≥ 2𝑓 + 1 replicas and accelerates vertex commitments significantly: Broadcasting certified vertices requires only a single communication step, and commit rules are refined to commit both frequently and early without revealing the coin-elected anchor. This way, Pangolin overtakes the fastest partially synchronous DAG protocols while being live under asynchrony: In our evaluation, Pangolin achieves an average 1.27× (up to 1.52×) latency speedup over Mysticeti.
Authors with CRIS profile
Rüdiger Kapitza
Lehrstuhl für Informatik 4 (Systemsoftware)
Christian Berger
Lehrstuhl für Informatik 4 (Systemsoftware)
Involved external institutions
Germany (DE)How to cite
APA:
Franke-Bergmann, P., Kuhlmann , M., Heß, A., Leinweber , M., Kapitza, R., Hartenstein , H.,... Berger, C. (2026). Pangolin: Efficient DAG-based BFT State-Machine Replication with TEE-Accelerated Commitment. (Unpublished, Submitted).
MLA:
Franke-Bergmann, Paul, et al. Pangolin: Efficient DAG-based BFT State-Machine Replication with TEE-Accelerated Commitment. Unpublished, Submitted. 2026.
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