{"paper":{"title":"Distance-Preserving Digests: A Primitive for BFT Consensus","license":"http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/","headline":"Replacing collision-resistant hashes with 8D vector-sum digests lets BFT protocols measure agreement early and use smaller committees while keeping safety.","cross_cats":[],"primary_cat":"cs.CR","authors_text":"Ryan Patrick Mercier","submitted_at":"2026-05-14T18:44:04Z","abstract_excerpt":"Every BFT consensus protocol uses collision-resistant hashes to compare validator state. Collision resistance destroys distance: two validators agreeing on 19 of 20 transactions produce unrelated hashes, indistinguishable from validators sharing nothing. This forces three design constraints across the BFT literature: validators must synchronize state before voting, agreement quality cannot be measured until votes are counted, and hierarchical committees must be large enough for independent BFT, limiting tree depth. This paper introduces distance-preserving transaction digests, a primitive that"},"claims":{"count":4,"items":[{"kind":"strongest_claim","text":"Safety is proved: fewer than N/3 Byzantine validators cannot cause conflicting finalization, independent of Phase 1 clustering or tree topology.","source":"verdict.strongest_claim","status":"machine_extracted","claim_id":"C1","attestation":"unclaimed"},{"kind":"weakest_assumption","text":"The specific 8-dimensional vector-sum construction actually produces distances proportional to disagreement and exact weighted means for arbitrary transaction sets, as required for the distance-filtering and clustering steps to be safe.","source":"verdict.weakest_assumption","status":"machine_extracted","claim_id":"C2","attestation":"unclaimed"},{"kind":"one_line_summary","text":"Distance-preserving digests based on 8D vector sums replace hashes in BFT protocols to enable distance-aware voting, smaller tree structures, and efficient cross-shard checks while maintaining safety under N/3 faults.","source":"verdict.one_line_summary","status":"machine_extracted","claim_id":"C3","attestation":"unclaimed"},{"kind":"headline","text":"Replacing collision-resistant hashes with 8D vector-sum digests lets BFT protocols measure agreement early and use smaller committees while keeping safety.","source":"verdict.pith_extraction.headline","status":"machine_extracted","claim_id":"C4","attestation":"unclaimed"}],"snapshot_sha256":"efff6921d7d6c2118dcea03bc1fb62b2d7ed35d52411a308c51a13c4eb72f1dc"},"source":{"id":"2605.15329","kind":"arxiv","version":1},"verdict":{"id":"fde7b0f7-2efa-4caa-a54a-366212cbd9ba","model_set":{"reader":"grok-4.3"},"created_at":"2026-05-19T14:53:27.840872Z","strongest_claim":"Safety is proved: fewer than N/3 Byzantine validators cannot cause conflicting finalization, independent of Phase 1 clustering or tree topology.","one_line_summary":"Distance-preserving digests based on 8D vector sums replace hashes in BFT protocols to enable distance-aware voting, smaller tree structures, and efficient cross-shard checks while maintaining safety under N/3 faults.","pipeline_version":"pith-pipeline@v0.9.0","weakest_assumption":"The specific 8-dimensional vector-sum construction actually produces distances proportional to disagreement and exact weighted means for arbitrary transaction sets, as required for the distance-filtering and clustering steps to be safe.","pith_extraction_headline":"Replacing collision-resistant hashes with 8D vector-sum digests lets BFT protocols measure agreement early and use smaller committees while keeping safety."},"integrity":{"clean":true,"summary":{"advisory":0,"critical":0,"by_detector":{},"informational":0},"endpoint":"/pith/2605.15329/integrity.json","findings":[],"available":true,"detectors_run":[{"name":"doi_title_agreement","ran_at":"2026-05-19T15:31:17.899667Z","status":"completed","version":"1.0.0","findings_count":0},{"name":"doi_compliance","ran_at":"2026-05-19T15:11:23.451463Z","status":"completed","version":"1.0.0","findings_count":0},{"name":"claim_evidence","ran_at":"2026-05-19T14:41:54.195535Z","status":"completed","version":"1.0.0","findings_count":0},{"name":"ai_meta_artifact","ran_at":"2026-05-19T13:33:22.763066Z","status":"skipped","version":"1.0.0","findings_count":0}],"snapshot_sha256":"3ec51fc8efc404f82ed1a561b4351222b78a897742140f8180c676447500a139"},"references":{"count":22,"sample":[{"doi":"","year":2019,"title":"HotStuff: BFT Consensus with Linearity and Responsiveness,","work_id":"e50bf588-e614-41f6-97c1-61303a2c89cf","ref_index":1,"cited_arxiv_id":"","is_internal_anchor":false},{"doi":"","year":1999,"title":"Practical Byzantine Fault Tolerance,","work_id":"4c08da53-e2b6-4a0d-b1d6-1a85ee78272c","ref_index":2,"cited_arxiv_id":"","is_internal_anchor":false},{"doi":"","year":2004,"title":"Short Signatures from the Weil Pairing,","work_id":"a99ef8b2-3385-4340-b1bd-477a7cd914c9","ref_index":3,"cited_arxiv_id":"","is_internal_anchor":false},{"doi":"","year":null,"title":"blst: BLS12-381 signature library,","work_id":"42ee61b8-3595-45e0-853c-c61791070462","ref_index":4,"cited_arxiv_id":"","is_internal_anchor":false},{"doi":"","year":null,"title":"Ethereum 2.0 Beacon Chain Specification,","work_id":"c155dc5e-a1b8-436a-a752-89538d619ef1","ref_index":5,"cited_arxiv_id":"","is_internal_anchor":false}],"resolved_work":22,"snapshot_sha256":"d7da4d07f03acb3ecd147a02dcf1a4418a299a11e50a3557085af33ce67e8d43","internal_anchors":0},"formal_canon":{"evidence_count":2,"snapshot_sha256":"5a0192068d4b424536402b8412ffada506872748b66a62bcb131e485b8d683dd"},"author_claims":{"count":0,"strong_count":0,"snapshot_sha256":"258153158e38e3291e3d48162225fcdb2d5a3ed65a07baac614ab91432fd4f57"},"builder_version":"pith-number-builder-2026-05-17-v1"}