Dynamic membership management for a permissioned blockchain

Abstract Permissioned blockchains have gained prominence as a means of decentralizing trust while retaining controlled access, particularly in enterprise settings and regulated peer-to-peer environments. These systems offer advantages in scalability, performance, and security; however, challenges persist in effectively managing membership and its interaction with consensus protocols. Ethereum’s transition to Proof-of-Stake has also been a transition to managed membership, where validators are actively monitored and penalized for non-performance. This paper examines the dynamic tension between membership management and consensus protocols in permissioned blockchains, as well as the benefits of active management in improving overall system performance. In this paper, we propose a framework for dynamic membership management that includes actively admitting, monitoring, and ejecting members. Our approach decouples membership management from the underlying blockchain construction process. Our simulations confirm the potential benefits of managed membership, in part to facilitate lightweight mechanisms for improved performance and reliability. Our findings suggest that dynamic membership management is a critical area of study with significant implications for the future design of permissioned blockchains. Our contributions provide a conceptual foundation for designing dynamic membership protocols in permissioned blockchains, filling a gap in the literature and offering practical solutions to enhance blockchain performance in controlled environments.