What’s Proof of Elapsed Time

Proof of Elapsed Time is one more consensus mechanisms. Also known as PoET, there’s not much PoETry in this consensus mechanism.

Money is a bubble that never pops. It’s a consensus hallucination.

-Naval Ravikant

Also known as PoET, this consensus is everything but poetry! The algorithm is used mostly in permissioned blockchains like Hyperledger Sawtooth (in addition to PBFT). PoET uses a lottery-style random selection to select the node that is going to win the new block.

PoET started to be used in Hyperledger Sawtooth in 2016/2017, introduced by Intel. The “miners” must first join the network, gaining a membership certificate. Once they are in the network, the nodes need to wait a certain amount of time that is randomly decided. The miner must wait at least the amount of time that was defined before starting mining a new block into the blockchain. In PoET, the miner that has the shortest amount of time is elected to do the block mining that round. The system tends to be fair and choose miners with a good degree of randomness. It doesn’t require much electricity consumption and miners can “go to sleep” while they wait for their turn.