Week 10: Research Takeaways

Hey everyone and welcome back to the 10th week of my blog! As my project comes to a close and I begin to develop my final presentation I would like to do a brief overview of what we have learned from my research.

I started this project with my overview of hash functions and mining protocols. If you recall, the hash function is the core of the proof of work system that works as a way to compress all information of a block into a unique sequence of hexadecimal characters. Mining works by having computers change a meaningless integer in each block until they get a hash with a leading number of zeros. However, we learned that due to the incredibly low chance of finding a block on your own people enter into these networks called mining pools. This is basically a system that allows computers to work in tandem to find new blocks on a chain cooperatively and then distribute the profits based on contributions.

Next, we went into the popular proof of stake algorithm that is utilized on the Ethereum blockchain. This algorithm worked by people staking 32 Eth as collateral in order to become a validator and get the chance to append blocks to the chain through a lottery system. The key to both of these algorithms is that there is a cost incentive to those telling the truth when validating a block.

We even looked into alternative algorithms that aren’t as popular but still hold merit. We looked into the democratic byzantine fault tolerance algorithm that introduces democratic principles into consensus, or proof of utility that requires that the validator has support to the chain in a similar way to centralized transaction authorizations.

These have been the important steps that led me to invent my proof of work history algorithm.

I will present my learning and takeaways in a presentation speech on June 16th.