Adaptive Proof of Work (APoW): Komodo’s Solution To Diff Strand Attacks
Blockchains do not have inherent security. While major blockchains like Bitcoin and Ethereum are incredibly secure, it’s common knowledge that smaller blockchains don’t have anywhere close to the same level of protection. If a blockchain’s network is small and weak, so are that blockchain’s defenses against malicious attacks.
Proof of Stake blockchains face threats like the Nothing at Stake problem and Weak Subjectivity . Proof of Work blockchains, on the other hand, have to worry about the infamous 51% attack , as well as more obscure attacks like the Diff Strand Attack.
A Diff Strand Attack is when malicious miners raise a small network’s hash rate and mining difficulty to extremely high levels very suddenly. Then, the malicious miners quickly abandon the network, leaving it stranded with such a high difficulty that the remaining miners are totally incapable of processing transactions or finding new blocks.
To defend against 51% attacks, Komodo uses the delayed Proof of Work (dPoW) security mechanism, which recycles the Bitcoin network’s hash rate to give every dPoW-integrated coin the same level of security as Bitcoin itself.
As for the threat of difficulty stranding attacks, Komodo now has a solution for this, too. Komodo’s Lead Developer James ‘jl777’ Lee recently added slight changes to traditional Proof of Work rules to allow a network to quickly and naturally recover from a Diff Strand Attack. This new consensus method is called Adaptive Proof of Work (APoW).
Understanding Proof of Work and Mining
The first step in understanding Adaptive Proof of Work (APoW) is to gain an understanding of how ordinary Proof of Work networks function.
Stated very simply, Proof of Work forces all of the machines on the blockchain’s network- that is, the miners- to compete against one another. Each miner is trying to solve a complex math problem before anyone else.
Read rest of the article at komodoplatform.com
The article was originally published on August 16, 2019.
