Proof of Usage: Pikciochains consensus algorithm published
Dear Community,
We’re delighted to announce that the code for Pikciochain’s proprietary mining and consensus algorithm “Proof of Usage” has been published on Github.
Proof of Usage or PoU for short is a combination of Proof of Work (PoW) and Proof of Stake (PoS), based on the work of Bentov et al. on Proof of Activity (PoA).
The code is available on our Github.
What is Proof of Usage?
Proof of Usage aims to a build a tangible ground for data provision, certification and exchange in the PikcioChain network. PoU relies on the same core process as PoA, but with an additional redistribution layer to original data owners and/or certifiers. It also uses a last-block-satoshi method instead of the follow-the-satoshi, to speed up and linearize the time spent finding who is the current satoshi owner from the total satoshis exchanged in the block. Additionally PoU does not incentivize stakeholders to hoard the coins, but rather to use them, while also avoiding self rewarding. Therefore having a platform that revolves around the transactions of data implies a business model of payment incentives with redistribution of rewards at the consensus level.
“PoU (Proof of Usage) was introduced as it is fundamental for Pikciochain to build an incentive model where data owners, e.g. individuals, will be rewarded.”
How does it work?
Because follow-the-satoshi selects a random coin number, it incentivizes miners to increase their stacks as to increase their chances of getting the rewards. This effectively incentivizes hoarding v.s. spending. Proof of Usage uses a follow-the-satoshi-in-block, meaning a coin will be selected in the last blocks randomly from past transactions within the last N blocks. Therefore the identification of the owner for whom the coin was selected will be faster and only the transacted coins will be taken into consideration. Coins sent to yourself are not included in order to prevent self-rewarding. And even if an actor would try and game this by sending tokens to wallets he owns he will end up spending more in transaction fees than he would get.
Time is divided into subsets called time slots. For a given time slot a block header is defined using the hash of the previous block, the miner’s public address, the height relative to the block index and a calculated nonce for a given difficulty proven fast enough to avoid computational effort losses. When a miner reaches a hash matching the current difficulty i.e. N zeros in the calculated hash adjusted with the nonce, the block header is broadcasted on the network. The header hash is derived N times for N satoshi within last X block transactions.
Each selected stakeholder signs the block header, collects and validates transactions that are broadcasted over the network to accept or refuse incoming blocks from the winning miner. Once the timeslot reaches the end time, the miner wraps up the block and redistributes the fees. The PikcioChain company gets the transaction fees for the transactions including the N satoshi . Thus split M% to all data owners and certifiers for who a PKC exchange occurred. The miner himself gets X% of the remaining transaction fees. Each stakeholder is credited of Y/N% of the remaining transaction fees.”
What’s next for Pikciochain?
The Pikciochain Testnet will be launched by the end of this month, more to come on that over the next week.
We’d like to thank our fantastic community for all their support and we are fully committed to delivering the leading blockchain solution in regard to the control, verification and exchange of personal data over the coming months.
For more information about PikcioChain,
Visit our website,
And join our community.
Warm regards,
The PikcioChain Team
