Grouping nodes based PBFT for Preventing Fake Educational Certificates Verification

The traditional PBFT consensus mechanism in a blockchain network tolerating 33% node failure faces various challenges, including incorrect data verification, transaction communication complexity, and higher consensus delay in larger networks. In case of appending a block carrying the Educational Certificates (ECs) the impact of node error due to external attacks could lead to production of fake degrees in the system. To address the challenge of fraudulent degree verification, we propose a novel Grouping nodes-based Practical Byzantine Fault Tolerance (GnPBFT) consensus algorithm. We show that the GnPBFT algorithm gives higher probability to prevent fake certificate verification as compared to the PBFT in same network setting. Furthermore, we also show that our scheme is resilient against Sybil attack, with improved performance metrics such as 33% reduction in transaction overhead and 29% decrease in consensus latency. © 2025 Copyright held by the owner/author(s).