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DAG-based DLTs allow for parallel, asynchronous writing access to a ledger. Consequently, the perception of the most recent blocks may differ considerably between nodes, and the underlying network properties of the P2P layer have a direct impact on the performance of the protocol. Moreover, the stronger inter-dependencies of several core components demand a more complex and complete approach to studying such DLTs. This paper presents an agent-based, open-sourced simulator for large-scale networks that implement the leaderless Tangle 2.0 consensus protocol. Its scope includes modelling the underlying peer-to-peer communication with network topology, package loss, heterogeneous latency, the gossip protocol with reliable broadcast qualities, the underlying DAG-based data structure, and the consensus protocol. The simulator allows us to explore the performance of the protocol in different network environments, as well as different attack scenarios., Comment: IEEE ICBC 2023, short paper

In this paper, we investigate the performance of the Tangle 2.0 consensus protocol in a Byzantine environment. We use an agent-based simulation model that incorporates the main features of the Tangle 2.0 consensus protocol. Our experimental results demonstrate that the Tangle 2.0 protocol is robust to the bait-and-switch attack up to the theoretical upper bound of the adversary's 33% voting weight. We further show that the common coin mechanism in Tangle 2.0 is necessary for robustness against powerful adversaries. Moreover, the experimental results confirm that the protocol can achieve around 1s confirmation time in typical scenarios and that the confirmation times of non-conflicting transactions are not affected by the presence of conflicts.