Smart Blockchain; The rescue of Bitcoin and saving electricity more than 50TWh per year
The electricity consumption of one single Bitcoin’s transaction is 200,000 times more than electricity consumption of a one single VISA card’s transaction, and by using smart blockchain, power consumption will be similar to VISA card’s transaction and in total over 50TWh will be saving per year.
The authors of the article are Ms. Somayyeh Gholami and Mr. Mehran Kazeminia and it is written in Persian and English versions in January 2019.
According to the Bitcoin white paper: “A purely peer-to-peer version of electronic cash would allow online payments to be sent directly from one party to another without going through a financial institution.”
In other words, in a peer-to-peer network, Bitcoin blockchain there’s no any financial institution to be responsible for ledger and transactions registration. On the other hand, people and miners do not know and trust each other. So, to avoid cheating and double spending, a new idea should have been suggested. The new idea for Bitcoin was the use of the proof-of-work mechanism which according to this mechanism, miners have to add new blocks to blockchain competitively and collaboratively and unfortunately by spending enormous electricity consumption so that no complaint can be made about the validity of transactions’data.
The research published in Nature Climate Change (October 2018) even suggested that Bitcoin mining alone could push global warming “above 2 °C within less than three decades“. The electricity consumption of the proof-of-work mechanism used in the bitcoin network is huge. Meanwhile, a major share of mining operations is done with electricity from coal-fired power plants in China, cause increasing Bitcoin’s environmental problems and blockchain technology.
In 2017, the article of Mr. Adam Jezard has been shown that a single Bitcoin transaction uses 200 kilowatt hours in comparison with a typical VISA card payment which consumes 0.01 kWh, it means that power consumption of a Bitcoin transaction is 20,000 times more than a VISA card’s transaction. The Ethereum network status is a bit better than Bitcoin and for each transaction in Ethereum consumes 37 kilowatts of electricity, but certainly, the electricity consumption of Ethereum is not comparable to a VISA card’s transaction.
But almost a year later, an article was published in the Digiconomist, which showed that every bitcoin transaction has consumed more than 200,000 times than a transaction of VISA card. Certainly, part of this difference between the numbers in two articles could be the increasing difficulty in the bitcoin mining and perhaps the difference in the basis of the calculation of VISA card’s transactions consumption has also been effective. Anyway, and unfortunately, the power consumption is so high that it will still be stunning even by removing a zero from the end (trailing) of numbers.
Meanwhile, in the recent article, for the tangibility of numbers, the annual consumption of Bitcoin mining power is compared with the annual consumption of some countries. Unfortunately, this power consumption is only and only wasted for recording Bitcoin transactions, and there would have no other result.
As you may have noticed, continuing the current state of the Bitcoin transactions will cause a lot of problems. In addition to the huge costs, it will damage the environment and increase the global temperature significantly. Of course, these problems can even endanger Bitcoin life and many of the cryptocurrencies.
Unfortunately, Bitcoin is confronted with other problems and threats as well. For example, we know that Bitcoin scalability enhancement is not possible in the current situation and this subject causes the limited use of Bitcoin.
To solve these problems, recently we have proposed a simple approach using the concept of smart contracts and named it Smart Blockchain. Fortunately, using this method will be solved at once the mentioned problems for the future’s cryptocurrencies and even Bitcoin and other existing cryptocurrencies.
“Smart Blockchain” features and specifications
For more than a year, we are trying to get accurate and flawless transactions data at the moment of transaction occurrence in decentralized networks. Since, in this case, there is no need to produce multiple alternatives for a block at first and then the miners, by spending and massive power consumption and using of a variety of proof mechanisms, be able to choose to valid and correct block.
Fortunately, we have achieved good results from our efforts: the most tangible and easiest way is to use the concept of smart contract to produce blocks. Maybe that’s why the “Smart Blockchain” is appropriate for new blockchains.
In “Smart Blockchain”, one or more block producers smart contract (BPSC) is present in the network, and no successful transaction is performed without BPSC involvement. For a successful transaction in the network, first, the sender must send the cryptocurrency to the wallet of BPSC and then BPSC sends cryptocurrency automatically to the receiver. This simple action has led the BPSC to have all network transactions’ data accurately and flawlessly and then as an accurate and trust financial institution, record transactions’ data into a new block and add this new block to the end of the blockchain so there would be no task for miners in “Smart Blockchain”.
Certainly, in this case, there is no difference between the power consumption of “Smart Blockchain” transactions and the power consumption of regular VISA card transactions. Now, cryptocurrencies’ huge power consumption is only due to the use of the proof-of-work mechanism or the proof-of-stake mechanism, or ….. which does not require any of them in “Smart Blockchain” at all. The data stored by the BPSC is flawless because it is registered at the moment of the transaction occurrence and without human interference. “Smart Blockchain” simply can end the nightmare of spending extra 50TWh electricity and rising 2°C global temperature.
Also, there would be no concern about the fee of miners and block producers. BPSCs will automatically and completely free accomplish all the tasks of the miners and it just needs to focus on the security and traffic of the BPSCs and the network. “Smart Blockchain” scalability is not comparable to available blockchains and can even compete with the speed of VISA card transactions.
In this method, it is possible to distinguish transactions based on their subject. If this process is done by increasing the number of BPSCs in the network, it will also have a good effect on reducing the traffic of BPSCs. It means, In addition to the categorization of the transactions in the different blockchain, it also helps to reduce the traffic of the BPSCs. In this case, for example, you can trade several types of cryptocurrencies of a network with independent blockchains. But the limitation and at the same time, important point is that transactions will be assigned to different and separate BPSC where they do not have a connection to each other. For example, if a smart contract requires paying to a user for every one hundred Likes, we must record and store the Likes transactions and cryptocurrency transactions of the project by a BPSC and into one blockchain.
To learn more about the features of “Smart Blockchain” and also more information on this topic, you can review our other article in the link below:
Meanwhile, we have published two other articles in this regard, which in the concept of “Smart Blockchain” is considered from a different perspective. The two articles links are followed:
The rescue of Bitcoin by “Smart Blockchain”
As you have seen, the main task of “Smart Blockchain” is assigned to the block producer smart contract (BPSC), but basically, there is no way to deploy and execute any smart contract into the Bitcoin blockchain, and the Bitcoin network does not have the capability like Ethereum or EOS.
Fortunately, this problem can be solved. If we want to use the smart contract to rescue Bitcoin, it just required to set up a new decentralized network that allows to store and deploy the smart contract like the Ethereum network. This new blockchain network will replace the original Bitcoin network, in two steps.
First, in this new network, we design and activate one or more “BPSC” block producer smart contractors. After assuring of the functionality of BPSC on the new network, in the second step, the bitcoin owners need to get the new cryptocurrency equivalent of the amount of their bitcoin, and at the same time, their initial bitcoin should be burned. These are done by the BPSC of a network and the BPSC can register the initial cryptocurrencies of any network. In this way, the initial block and Blockchain will be built by the BPSC with complete precision in the new “Smart Blockchain”.
Recently this job was done by EOS network, and the achievements of the EOS community can be a good experience. When “Block One” wanted to launch ICO for EOS, there was still no cryptocurrency and network dedicated for EOS. The company decided to temporarily use an Ethereum ERC 20 token to fundraise. After the EOS cryptocurrency and network were set up, the ERC 20 tokens of participants were burned, and at the same time, the amount of EOS cryptocurrency equivalent of the burned sums was paid to the same person.
The fact is, Bitcoin’s current state of affairs cannot continue for too long, and “Smart Blockchain” is a good way to rescue bitcoin and transform the blockchain technology. This method can solve all the problems and limitations of Bitcoin, and at the same time, Bitcoin will still not be dependent on any financial institute and bank.
Here’s the end of the article and we look forward to receiving your feedback.
January 2, 2019
Somayyeh Gholami
Mehran Kazeminia
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