# Perigee: Efficient Peer-to-Peer Network Design for Blockchains

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2006.14186 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2006.14186/

## Key facts

- Cited by 5 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- First posted on arXiv 25 Jun 2020.

## Built on by (most cited first, 5 of 5)

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- [A Survey on Blockchain-based Supply Chain Finance with Progress and Future directions](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2408.08915/) (2024)

## Abstract (arXiv)

A key performance metric in blockchains is the latency between when a transaction is broadcast and when it is confirmed (the so-called, confirmation latency). While improvements in consensus techniques can lead to lower confirmation latency, a fundamental lower bound on confirmation latency is the propagation latency of messages through the underlying peer-to-peer (p2p) network (inBitcoin, the propagation latency is several tens of seconds). The de facto p2p protocol used by Bitcoin and other blockchains is based on random connectivity: each node connects to a random subset of nodes. The induced p2p network topology can be highly suboptimal since it neglects geographical distance, differences in bandwidth, hash-power and computational abilities across peers. We present Perigee, a decentralized algorithm that automatically learns an efficient p2p topology tuned to the aforementioned network heterogeneities, purely based on peers' interactions with their neighbors. Motivated by the literature on the multi-armed bandit problem, Perigee optimally balances the tradeoff between retaining connections to known well-connected neighbors, and exploring new connections to previously-unseen neighbors. Experimental evaluations show that Perigee reduces the latency to broadcast by 33%. Lastly Perigee is simple, computationally lightweight, adversary-resistant, and compatible with the selfish interests of peers, making it an attractive p2p protocol for blockchains.