A dissection into the Proof of Capacity consensus mechanism (PoC/PoSpace)
Before we dive in to the all amazing Proof of Capacity consensus mechanism(PoC) let’s take a step back to really understand and appreciate what mining and mining mechanism are and why most consider it to be the back bone of decentralized and blockchain technologies.
Mining is basically a term used in the crypto community to describe a process by which consensus is attained among distributed parties without the need of a central trust, whereby nodes(miners/validators) compete for block verification/packing rights based on the amounts of a particular resource(power, space, coins etc) they control. Mining mechanism are different methods through which mining is achieved. For different reasons, most of which are brilliant, different blockchain technologies adhere to different mining mechanism.
There are several mining mechanism out there may be in their tens but who is counting? Proof of Work is the first mining mechanism to come into the light. It was first introduce in 2009 in the bitcoin whitepaper published by the mysterious Satoshi Nakamoto. In PoW, the more power you control the more rights you have over the mining of the next block. It is the most widely used mining algorithm. Apart from bitcoin, other big guns like ethereum and monero, just to name a few, use PoW. Second in terms of usage to PoW is the Proof of Stake(PoS). POS was first introduced in 2013 by the PeerCoin team. Here, a validator’s right to mine is proportionate to his/her/it economic value in the network simple put the more amounts of coins you have the more mining rights you get. Apart from PeerCoin, NEO and LISK also use POS and soon to follow is EThereum. There is also Proof oF Weight(PoW), Dedicated Proof of Stake(DPoS), Masternode Proof of Stake(MPoS) and many more. Of course we have Proof of Capacity(PoC) some call it Proof of space(PoSpcace) which are our focus.
Proof of Capacity was first was described 2013 in the Proofs of Space paper by Dziembowski, Faust, Kolmogorov and Pietrzak and it is now being used in Brust. The main factor that separates all the mining mechanisms is the resource used. These resources which miners spend in other to have mining rights is a measure of ensuring that one has expense a none-trivial amount of effort in making a statement. The resource being spent in PoC is disk space. Therefore the more disk space you own the more mining rights you get in a PoC consensus mechanism. Here is an extract from the SpaceMint white paper “A PoS is a protocol between a prover P and a verifier V which has two distinct phases. After an initialization phase P is suppose to store some data F of size N, whereas V only holds some piece of information. At any latter time point V can initialize a proof execution phase, and at the end V outputs reject or accept. We require V is highly efficient in both phases, whereas is highly efficient in execution phase providing he stored and has random access to data F”. But we are not going to go into detail the technicalities of the PoC here. Our intent is to have a general understanding and appreciation to the solutions the PoC mechanism has to offer in our already magnificent crypto space. But for those who are intrigue it won’t hurt if you visit the white paper.
Now we get to answer the question why PoC? All the other consensus mechanism are no doubt great without taking anything out of any of them, PoC is in the top if not the top as you will see from the exposition below.
Firstly, PoC is energy efficient. Sure you need a threshold amount of energy in other to connect your disk space to the internet and that’s about it. This is not a big deal even ordinary network users need this threshold of energy in other to transact with the network. In other consensus mechanisms like the Proof of Work, mining requires one should waste enormous amount of amount of energy which comes with significant ecological concerns… global warming, pollution etc… The bitcoin mining network alone is wasting a staggering 37Twh/year that is already more than the energy consumption of some countries imagine combining all cryptos that use PoW.
Furthermore, PoC is comparatively cheap. Most people already have some amount of unused disk space it cost almost no addition stress to hook it up and start competing in a PoC system. Moreover, disk space is growing at an exponential. We are doubling the space in a semi-conductor and halving its price every 12–18 months so space would not be a problem. The same cannot be said for other consensus mechanism for example in PoW, power sure is expensive and hardly do people have power lying idle I mean if it is idle why not shot it? For PoS you need to have some coins which translates to you need to spend some money.
In additions, there is a significant decrease in unfair distribution of miners in a PoC system. Notice how most PoW mining nodes are concentrated in cold areas and in areas where power is relatively cheaper? This is some kind of centralization which is not a desired feature for the crypto community. Well that won’t be the case for PoC since disk space does not depend of topography and is easily accessible to everyone anywhere.
From the above, we can see that PoC is an ever green eco-friendly, cheap, accessible, decentralized and energy efficient alternative consensus mining mechanism.
Will it replace all other mining algorithm present today? Probably not but it sure has it place up there in the ranking …
