Published on: 2019-12-09T09:47:49+00:00
Cheng Wang, the founder of Alephium, has introduced a novel algorithm called Proof of Linear Work (PoLW) to address the issue of high energy consumption in Proof of Work (PoW) while maintaining security. PoLW allows miners to sacrifice a portion of their coinbase rewards in exchange for weight in the block hash they produce. This approach aims to shift some of the external costs of mining, primarily energy consumption, to the internal cost of the network.In his paper, Cheng outlines two variations of the PoLW algorithm: linear PoLW and exponential PoLW. Linear PoLW is projected to reduce energy consumption by approximately 50% in equilibrium, while exponential PoLW has the potential to achieve even greater reductions. The equilibrium state ensures that the total cost of generating a new block remains equal to the maximal coinbase reward.Runchao Han had raised concerns about double spending and transaction fees in relation to PoLW. Cheng addresses these concerns by proposing a dynamic upper bound on the amount of coinbase reward miners can sacrifice, which is based on the actual mining difficulty of the recent epoch. Additionally, if the value of Bitcoin becomes comparable to gold, miners could be allowed to give up more rewards. To handle transaction fees, PoLW could eliminate the halving mechanism, as it already adjusts adaptively.Cheng emphasizes that his work is grounded in solid mathematical calculations and invites feedback and discussions. His paper can be accessed at https://github.com/alephium/research/raw/master/polw.pdf. It is worth noting that Cheng's research was inspired by a recent paper authored by Itay, Alexander, and Ittay, available at https://arxiv.org/abs/1911.04124.While Cheng acknowledges that immediate reduction of external costs in existing systems may not be feasible, the principle behind implementing PoLW is to continually increase the absolute external cost while gradually reducing its percentage in the total cost. As a result, transitioning from PoW to PoLW would lead to decreased external costs and increased internal costs, ultimately contributing to enhanced security.
Updated on: 2023-08-02T01:42:02.355770+00:00