Efficient Data Availability Sampling via Coded Distributed Arrays

2026-06-15

AI Summary

This work addresses the scalability limitations of traditional data availability verification in blockchain networks, which relies on full data replication and suffers from high propagation latency, excessive bandwidth consumption, and degraded consensus efficiency as block sizes grow. To overcome these challenges, the paper proposes a novel data availability sampling mechanism that uniquely integrates coded distributed arrays with network coding. This approach enables efficient dissemination and verification of encoded data fragments while preserving Byzantine fault tolerance. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed system achieves several-fold improvements over Ethereum’s latest RDA scheme in both block propagation speed and per-node bandwidth usage, significantly enhancing overall scalability and transmission efficiency.

Abstract

Data availability is a fundamental bottleneck in modern blockchain networks. Most blockchain systems rely on a full-replication model, which requires downloading of a full block to verify its availability. This model does not scale with block size because every node must handle large volumes of data, leading to slower block propagation, duplicated data transfer, and longer consensus agreement. This issue is well-known in Ethereum, where layer-2 rollups publish data directly into the chain. To overcome, Ethereum adopts Data Availability Sampling (DAS) to let nodes keep only a small fragment of the data while still ensuring availability. Prior work on DAS has focused on cryptographic foundations. Meanwhile, the peer-to-peer network layer that provides Byzantine-tolerant and scalable mechanisms for discovery and routing of DAS fragments is underexplored. We propose CDA, a new design for DAS based on coded distributed arrays that leverages network coding to ensure both robustness and efficiency. Our evaluation study compares CDA to RDA, the latest DAS development of Ethereum, showing an improvement of several times better.

Problem

• Data Availability
• Blockchain
• Data Availability Sampling
• Peer-to-Peer Network
• Scalability

Innovation

• Data Availability Sampling
• Coded Distributed Arrays
• Network Coding
• Byzantine Fault Tolerance
• Blockchain Scalability