# Reputation Consensus Mechanism for Blockchain Based on Information-Centric Networking
## 1 Introduction  
Since its inception by [PERSON] in 2009, blockchain technology has demonstrated significant potential across various sectors, including finance, the Internet of Things, and healthcare, due to its decentralized nature, anonymity, and immutability [1, 2, 3]. Despite these advantages, traditional blockchain systems like Bitcoin face considerable scalability challenges due to their inefficiencies and high energy consumption [4]. For instance, Bitcoin's average transaction throughput of only seven transactions per second is inadequate for high-performance transactional services [5]. Transaction throughput (TPS) is a critical performance metric for blockchains, primarily influenced by block latency, which includes the time to generate and broadcast blocks. The block generation time is affected by the consensus layer of the blockchain, where researchers have proposed various novel consensus mechanisms to reduce computational complexity and energy consumption, such as Proof of Stake (PoS) [6] and Proof of Authority (PoA) [7], enhancing system scalability. On the other hand, block broadcasttime has been optimized through improvements in the peer-to-peer (P2P) network's topology and routing strategies, adopting structured network models like Kademlia [8] and Kadcast [9], to minimize transmission redundancy and optimize bandwidth utilization. These application-layer improvements are constrained by the end-to-end transmission design principles of the TCP/IP network, and thus, issues such as network congestion and bandwidth wastage persist during large-scale blockchain content distribution. ICN [10; 11] is an emerging network architecture that emphasizes information as the central element. It decouples content identifiers from locators and offers efficient content distribution mechanisms through features such as content-name-based addressing and routing, in-network caching, and multicast. These capabilities enhance the performance of blockchain systems. As a result, ICN-based blockchain technologies [12; 13; 14; 15] have garnered significant attention. When ICN nodes serve as blockchain nodes, they not only function as transmission \"pipelines\" for transactions and blocks but also directly participate in the consensus process. This implies that the network state of ICN nodes becomes a critical factor to be considered within the consensus mechanism. However, existing consensus mechanisms do not sufficiently account for the network state of consensus nodes. Due to network heterogeneity, nodes with suboptimal network service quality and performance typically exhibit reduced block distribution capabilities, resulting in increased block broadcast delays. This, in turn, becomes a bottleneck in the consensus process. To address this issue, we proposes a reputation-based hybrid consensus mechanism, RepuICN, built upon the ICN blockchain architecture. The mechanism aims to enhance the consensus efficiency of Ethereum's Casper FFG by incorporating high-reputation ICN consensus nodes as proposers for checkpoint blocks. Specifically, this paper first introduces a multi-dimensional reputation model designed to evaluate the reputation of ICN consensus nodes. This model considers both on-chain stake (including node stake and block generation rate) and network contribution (encompassing network service quality and performance metrics). The model assesses the reputation of ICN consensus nodes from the perspectives of objective trust and historical trust, thereby providing the prior conditions for the RepuICN consensus mechanism. Next, we improve the checkpoint block proposal process in Casper FFG by utilizing the reputation consensus mechanism to select ICN consensus nodes with superior network performance as proposers for checkpoint blocks. This approach reduces the impact of proposer network latency fluctuations on block propagation and leverages the capabilities of ICN to accelerate the distribution of checkpoint blocks.