Verifiable Randomness for Blockchain-Based Lottery Systems
A Polygon smart-contract design mitigates the last-revealer attack in commit-and-reveal on-chain lotteries.
The paper surveys blockchain random-number generation and proposes a platform that extends commit-and-reveal while addressing the last-revealer attack, in which the final participant withholds a reveal to bias or abort the result. The design combines a web front-end with a Solidity smart contract on Polygon 2.0 and was implemented and tested on the Amoy testnet. The authors compare it with earlier approaches, evaluate its entropy, and describe the prototype as low-cost and simple to deploy.
- Surveys prior on-chain random-number schemes and their limitations.
- Extends commit-and-reveal to block last-revealer bias or abort attacks.
- Pairs a web front-end with a Solidity contract on Polygon 2.0.
- Prototype tested on the Amoy testnet; authors assess entropy and cost.
Full article172 words · extracted from arxiv.org · click to collapse
As lotteries and other high-stakes decentralized applications increasingly depend on unpredictable randomness for their operations, the lack of a secure and transparent on-chain random number generator that is verifiable by all participants remains a critical open problem. Various approaches to blockchain-based random number generation have emerged over the years, each with their own strengths and limitations, and have consistently been superseded as blockchain technology evolved. This paper surveys existing approaches to on-chain randomness and proposes a new platform that builds upon the well-known commit-and-reveal scheme while directly addressing its principal vulnerability, the last revealer attack, in which the final participant can withhold their reveal in order to bias or abort the output upon seeing an unfavorable result. We further compare this solution with prior approaches and evaluate its entropy properties. The proposed architecture combines a web-based front-end with a Solidity smart contract deployed on the Polygon 2.0 blockchain. Implemented and tested on the Amoy testnet, the prototype is low-cost and simple to deploy, providing a practical, accessible proof-of-concept for verifiable on-chain randomness.
Text extracted automatically; images, tables and formatting may be missing. Original: https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.31485