This is a discussion topic for the article: Anonymous Block Proposers: How Logos Solves Leader Privacy
Private Proof-of-Stake allows block proposers to remain anonymous and unlinkable to their stake. This is achieved by combining two systems: Cryptarchia and Blend.
Proposer anonymity in proof of stake wasn’t something I spent a lot of time thinking about, but the more I sit with it the more I realize that in any genuinely adversarial environment, a known block proposer is a wild threat vector.
On Ethereum validators get assigned slots ahead of time and the leader schedule is published at the start of each epoch so the entire network knows exactly who is proposing the next 32 blocks. If you know a validator is up next, you can DoS them before their slot, censor what they see in the mempool, or lean on them to exclude specific transactions.
I wonder how much of this is happening on Ethereum without anyone making noise about it.
If someone is DoS’ing proposers or pressuring validators in specific jurisdictions, would the rest of us find out?
I wonder how often proposers get targeted because of the public leader schedule. I suspect the answer is more than we think and the data just doesn’t exist in a way thats easy to surface.