Virtual ASICs: Generalized Proof-of-Stake Mining in Cryptocurrencies
Authors: Chaya Ganesh¹, Claudio Orlandi², Daniel Tschudi³, and Aviv Zohar⁴
In proof-of-work based cryptocurrencies, miners invest computing power to maintain a distributed ledger. The drawback of such a consensus protocol is its immense energy consumption. Bitcoin, for example consumes as much energy as a small nation state. To prevent this waste of energy various consensus mechanism such as proof-of-space or proof-of-stake have been proposed. In proof-of-stake, block creators are selected based on the amounts of money they stake instead of their expanded computing power.
In this work the authors study Virtual ASICs–a generalization of proof-of-stake. Virtual ASICs are essentially a virtualized version of proof-of-work. Miners can buy on-chain virtual mining machines which can be powered by virtual electricity. Similar to their physical counterparts, each powered virtual ASIC has a certain chance to win the right to create the next block. In the boundary case where virtual electricity is free, the protocol corresponds to proof-of-stake using an ASIC token which is separate from the currency itself (the amount of stake equals your virtual computing power). In the other boundary case where virtual computers are free, we get a proof-of-burn equivalent. That is, a consensus mechanism in which miners ‘burn’ money to obtain lottery tickets for the right to create the next block. The authors provide the cryptographic machinery required to base a consensus protocol on Virtual ASICs, as well as to sell them in sealed-bid auctions on-chain. We ensure that as long as a majority of the miners in the system mine honestly, bids remain both private and binding, and that miners cannot censor the bids of their competitors. To achieve this, the authors introduce a novel all-or-nothing broadcast functionality in blockchains that is of independent interest.
You can read the complete paper here, or watch Chaya and Daniel’s talk below:
¹Indian Institute of Science
²Concordium Blockchain Research Center, Aarhus University, Denmark ³Concordium, Zurich
⁴The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
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